“Is it worth checking out?” Sunghwan asked. “I’m off that day.”
Park stared at the CCTV monitor for a while, not responding. “This lake gives me the creeps.”
Sunghwan looked at the monitor. As the fog began to dissipate, Hansoldung emerged like a gravestone in the center of the lake. A pine tree with a split trunk stood alone in the middle of the otherwise barren island. “What does Hansoldung mean, anyway? Single Pine Tree Hill?”
“Who knows?” Park replied. “I did hear the old village was right below it. They say it’s still completely intact underwater. I heard the nameplates still hang on the gates.”
Sunghwan blinked. The back of his neck prickled.
“At least, that’s what they say. It makes sense, I guess. The dam was completed about a decade ago, but they didn’t demolish the village first. They just flooded it. It used to be the second-largest village in the township, you know.”
“Have you talked to anyone who’s actually seen it?”
“No. The residents are very protective of it. They treat it like a holy site or something. They don’t want anyone from the outside to come in and poke around. I figure it’s superstition—they don’t want to disturb anything since down in the new village they effectively live with a giant water tank above their heads.”
“Do you think there’s anything to it? That the lake might be sacred?”
“Sunghwan, you haven’t seen her at sundown, have you?” Park asked, referring to the lake as though it were human. “Watch the screen for a minute or two after the sun sets. When the darkness settles over the water, fog wafts up around Hansoldung. Like it’s smoke from the chimneys below.” Park kept his eyes on the screen. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”
“Well, no, but . . .”
“I can’t wait for this assignment here to be over,” Park muttered.
That night, Sunghwan drifted home. He lay down, but he couldn’t fall asleep. The secrets of the old village would unleash his imagination, and he would be able to do what he came here to do. He would write his masterpiece. He could practically see the underwater village in front of him, the last embers burning in the houses’ hearths. How could he get down there? Visions of Atlantis swam in his thoughts; maybe the lake had chosen him instead of the other way around. He needed to see the old village for himself. In fact, he would take pictures to help him lay out the scene in his novel. He couldn’t climb over the fence with all of his diving gear. He had to get his hands on a key.
* * *
Sunghwan had left work that morning, after two consecutive nights on duty, with a copy of the key to the dock in his pocket. The keys were always transferred to the guards working the next shift to ensure that nobody could sneak them out, so Sunghwan had driven to a hardware store to make a copy during his shift, leaving the security office unmanned.
The village had to span from near the dock to beyond the intake tower, he reasoned, with Hansoldung marking the edge. This made the dock the ideal place to enter the water. That afternoon, he bought a fishing line, fluorescent paint, floats, and sinkers, spotting Seryong standing by the bus stop on his way home.
Who was at Seryong’s birthday party? he wondered as he waited for darkness to fall, coating the sinkers with fluorescent paint. He waited for them to dry, then tied them to the fishing line, making sure to leave about a foot between each; it would be a makeshift depth gauge, so he could calculate how to safely ascend by accounting for pressure changes. The line would also be a guide; once he found the underwater village, he could leave it discreetly at the water’s edge, allowing him to return, if he wanted to, the following night.
His new boss didn’t show up even after Sunghwan completed making his depth gauge. He tried to calm his nerves with two cans of beer, but then realized that was foolish; it wasn’t safe to dive while under the influence, and his anxiety had made him overlook that. He waited until nine, doing push-ups and pacing around the house, trying to clear the alcohol from his system. Tonight was the night; tomorrow he would begin writing again, before his workweek started. He had to enter the lake without anyone noticing him and take detailed pictures of the village.
He went out the window and past Seryong’s bedroom, and through the gate to the shortcut. On the other side, Sunghwan turned on his headlamp. He made it as bright as possible but still couldn’t see very well. The fog emanating from the lake was too thick; it smothered everything, like a snowstorm. It began to rain. He turned off the lamp at the end of the road, where he knew there was a CCTV camera. Darkness enveloped him.
He walked alongside the fence surrounding the lake and arrived at the dock ten minutes later. This was the sole point of entry to the lake: a pair of steel doors. It was the same height as the fence, and though there was a small gap between the sloping ground and the bottom of the doors, it was much too small for a person to crawl through. A thick chain was coiled around the handles and fastened by a padlock. Sunghwan turned his headlamp to the dimmest setting to unlock it. Once inside, he used the chain and padlock to lock himself in, ensuring he would not be interrupted.
The concrete ramp leading down to the dock was about twenty yards long, flanked by a tangle of shrubs and vines. The Josong, a barge used by the waste management company that serviced the dam, was tied to the dock. Sunghwan put his backpack down by the Josong’s cabin. He took out the fishing line, tied it to the pier, and prepared to enter the water. He tugged on his fins and slid the breathing apparatus into his mouth. He checked his watch; it was 9:30.
He entered vertically. Once submerged, he turned his lamp as bright as it would go and descended, carefully unraveling the fishing line. He passed the first thermocline and spotted the yellow center dividing line of a two-lane road at the bottom of the lake. The undercurrent was fairly strong, but visibility wasn’t too bad. Sunghwan wrapped the fishing line loosely around a tree trunk and continued his descent.
Several minutes later, his feet were planted on the bottom of the lake. The water was cold enough to give him a headache. It was dark and quiet. Everything was colorless. Only the road, reflected by the light of his headlamp, glistened in silver. He could see glimmers of the old village in the far reaches of his light. Feeling both trepidation and excitement, he swam down the road into the darkness.
He was greeted by an engraved rock marking the entrance to the town. Welcome to Seryong Village. The frame of a bus shelter, its glass gone, was beside it. He looped the fishing line around a rusted sign pole and kept going. Underwater plants had grown thick on the ruins of a rice mill; fish swam through its walls. A telephone pole lay in the street and a rusted cultivator was stuck in the field. He wound his fishing line around each of these and continued on. He encountered a crumbled rock wall, dangling shingles, exposed steel beams, broken doorframes, scattered roof tiles, rotting, fallen trees, a stroller with a missing wheel, a well covered with a steel lid. Was this what the world would look like after humans went extinct? He was transfixed.