Page 33 of Sixty Meters Under

Ryosuke wrinkled his nose, and Liam laughed. “What? Everyone likes movies like that.”

“Believe me, not everyone.” Ryosuke shook his head. Liam’s eyes were on him when he looked up. When their eyes met Ryosuke felt a strange feeling wash over him. At the same time, he remembered Lennart. Alarmed at the unexpected sensations, he pulled away.

“And you want to tell me you are one of those people?” Liam asked oblivious to the young man’s troubles.

Ryosuke’s cheeks flushed, and he looked away and shrugged.

“You’re something. But I guess you’re right. People have different tastes,” Liam said with a grin. “What kind of movies do you watch?”

Ryosuke wished the conversation would end. He gathered his thoughts, and spoke, “I also like to watch action movies, but I’m mostly leaning towards thriller, mystery, horror, crime fiction or detective fiction.”

“I love those too when I’m in the mood,” Liam said, and reached for the headphones. “If you change your mind, you’re welcome to join me.”

Ryosuke nodded, relieved. He smiled and reached for his tablet, deciding to distract himself with something else.

Everyone in the room was occupied with their screens and Ryosuke occasionally checked to see if everything was okay. A couple of times he stole glances towards the PC, and once Liam caught him. “Hey! You said you didn’t want to watch,” he teased.

“I don’t!” Ryosuke laughed and his face became red. Liam had a mischievous smile on his face, and un-fortunately for Ryosuke, there was an explicit scene playing on the screen at that moment. A man and a woman were wildly at it and Ryosuke covered his eyes.

“Why are you so embarrassed?”

Ryosuke made a small gap between his fingers, still covering his face because he felt his blush deepening. He shook his head. “No. I’m not.”

“Yeah, right.” Liam grinned.

Ryosuke stiffened.

“Okay, I won’t mess with you again. I’ll be quiet from now on.” Liam ran his two joined fingers over his lips that were tightly pressed together. Ryosuke stared but said nothing. He took his tablet and continued scrolling through articles about the latest architectural projects.

While he read, one of the residents started to cry. Ryosuke got up to see what it was all about. “Is everything okay?” he asked when he spotted the tearful woman. Liam also jumped and asked, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Ryosuke shook his head.

The woman sobbed covering her mouth. The others began to gather around her and look at her laptop screen, horror evident in their eyes.

“They did it!”

“Fucking hell.”

“Oh my God…”

“Dear Lord–”

Liam sat back in his chair and started typing. Ryosuke looked to see what he was doing but remained standing. He wanted to go to see what residents were watching but felt dread creeping under his skin. It kept him paralyzed. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his forearm; Liam was pulling him to sit. Ryosuke didn’t protest. He lowered himself into his chair and looked at the screen. There was no longer a movie playing but something truly bone-chilling.

The dominant picture on the screen was a mushroom cloud with smoke spreading all around and the title of an article written in bold capital letters:

“NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE COMES TRUE!”

Chapter 11

Ryosuke stared, but the image and letters remained fixed on the screen. What he saw was not some temporary optical illusion as he had hoped.

While Ryosuke sat there petrified, Liam clicked on the title to read the details:

ULVANDOR disappeared from the map!

Today at 14:10 an explosion of unimaginable magnitude burned Ulvandor to the ground.