Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#107Reader Mode

#107

It was an odd sentence. Seojun’s fingers hesitated above the paper, barely brushing its surface. At first glance, the words seemed to carry a hint of concern, but the sharp, stretched handwriting had a distinctly cold undertone. Could you really get a sense of someone’s personality just from the way they wrote? Or was his mind playing tricks on him again?

Meanwhile, the Wizard let out a burst of laughter, as if he found the entire situation entertaining.

– This guy – the one unconscious at my feet – actually believed he was a ‘wizard’! Can you believe it? He even wrote, ‘I am the wizard who judges your sins.’ Look how hard he pressed the pen into the paper. You can practically feel the effort he put into it.

In this bizarre moment, where one self-proclaimed Wizard mocked another, Seojun tried to suppress a bitter smile, only to remember he didn’t need to—he was hidden under a sack, after all. Making fun of their captor, the man who had kidnapped them both, wasn’t exactly out of line. The real mind-bender was that the person in the CCTV control room also called himself a wizard, just like their captor. It was confusing and, in a weird way, a bit funny.

Yet, what their captor had said couldn’t be dismissed so easily. Before Seojun could fully focus on what the Wizard was saying, he found himself rereading the sentence in his mind, ruminating on it like a cow chewing its cud. His right hand rested on the plain notebook.

The demand is clear. Prove that I didn’t kill ‘her.’ And then there’s this ominous warning… D has no choice but to become completely transparent or die.

Was all this deep thinking even necessary? The kidnapper’s demands were brutally straightforward: uncover the truth behind ‘her’ death. And somehow, that truth was connected to this notebook.

…Probably? But what if it’s not?

Even so, the possibility felt too strong to ignore. Seojun swallowed the bitter tears back. Life wasn’t supposed to feel like a low-budget horror movie, and he should’ve ditched those old, clichéd rules ages ago—rules he once clung to as if they held some profound meaning. So why did reality keep throwing him into situations that felt ripped straight out of fiction?

Frankly, the kidnapper who called himself the Wizard was a particularly nasty piece of work—the kind of person who didn’t even bother to mention the supposed victim’s name. To be blunt, ‘she’ could very well be the same person S had written about in this notebook.

Still, Seojun knew better than to jump to conclusions. The clues were too few and far between to let his imagination run wild. It seemed more logical to assume that the ‘D’ mentioned in the notebook was the same ‘her’ their kidnapper was referring to.

– If it was this guy reading it instead of me, they’d probably do it with a lot more flair. What do you think, Oz?

Seojun’s newfound ally, the pretend Wizard, continued to ramble, his voice distorted by an electronic buzz. The sound of rustling paper mingled with the grating noise.

“You’re both equally insufferable…” Seojun muttered under his breath.

[Thank you for sparing my ears,] he added in a slightly smaller words beneath the original entry.

[I’ve found a notebook that might contain some clues. I’ll read through it and summarize the contents for you.]

The handwriting in the notebook was tiny. For the Wizard to see it, Seojun would have to hold it right up in front of the CCTV camera. But the camera was mounted high on the wall, way out of reach, and Seojun definitely didn’t have the power to make the notebook fly up there like some kind of bird.

-Is that so? Good to know. In that case, I’ll keep searching around here. I’ve already checked, but who knows what else might turn up?

Compared to their kidnapper—the so-called real Wizard—this pretend Wizard was at least somewhat reasonable. Seojun hadn’t seen the real Wizard’s face—probably knocked out cold or dealing with a concussion—but honestly, it was hard to picture anyone more ridiculous than someone who kidnaps people just to play twisted courtroom games.

Having reached an uneasy understanding with his new ally, Seojun turned his focus to the notebook. He decided to read it carefully, starting from the very first page.

What he hadn’t counted on was how hard his current situation would make even the simplest tasks. His hands were tightly bound, making it almost impossible to flip through the notebook’s thin pages. He struggled with all his might, but it wasn’t easy. Every time he thought he had caught a single page, he ended up with four. Every attempt to start at the beginning landed him somewhere in the middle. It was infuriating, and frustration was creeping in fast.

He briefly considered licking his fingers to make turning the pages easier, only to remember that the burlap sack over his head didn’t even have a mouth hole. He was alone in his struggle, except for the Wizard, who seemed to be watching him with growing impatience. As Seojun toyed with the idea of throwing away both his pride and his shoes, the Wizard finally spoke up.¹T/N: “Throwing away both his pride and his shoes” is a Korean idiom meaning a willingness to abandon one’s dignity or self-respect (pride) and any semblance of decorum or normalcy (shoes). So Seojun is considering doing something embarrassing or undignified to solve turning the pages.

– Oz, why don’t you take off whatever’s on your hands while you’re at it? I’m not here to critique your hobbies, but your efficiency is seriously suffering.

“What?!”

Seojun blinked, momentarily stunned. Did he hear that right? He knew the Wizard couldn’t actually hear him, but still, he couldn’t stop himself from yelling back, his voice echoing in the empty room. Hobbies? Who on earth would choose to stumble around with their hands tied and a bag over their head for fun? And to top it off, the Wizard’s voice had that infuriatingly gentle, oh-so-understanding tone that only made Seojun’s blood boil hotter.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm his furiously beating heart. He couldn’t see his face, but he could feel the heat burning his cheeks—a sure sign of his rising frustration. Snatching up his sketchbook, he scribbled a furious reply, the pen tearing across the page in jagged lines that hardly resembled proper handwriting. In a weird way, he was using the sketchbook exactly as intended… to vent his emotions.

[Open your eyes and look properly.]

Dropping the sketchbook, Seojun shook his head and waved both hands around, making sure they were visible on the CCTV feed. His exaggerated movements made him look like a ridiculous bobblehead on a dashboard. Thankfully, the message seemed to get through, as the Wizard’s voice crackled through the speaker again.

– Oh, you can’t take it off? I thought… never mind. For a second there, I almost thought Oz’s tastes matched up with our kidnapper’s—a real enthusiast for a bit of bondage?

As if that could be true!

How much of an absolute fool did this Wizard take him for? Seojun, for the record, hated scarecrows, and now he was certain he would hate them even more in the future.

– Oh, wait a minute. Now that I think about it, there are three keys hanging by the front door. Could one of those be the key to your restraints?

“What?!”

The same word shot out of Seojun’s mouth, sharp and incredulous. At this point, Seojun didn’t care if he sounded like a rude, half-crazed fool. All he could think about were those keys. His ears perked up, and he hastily scribbled on the sketchbook.

[Keys? Front door?]

– Yes, exactly. On one of the cameras, I saw three keys hanging neatly by the front door. The door itself has a reddish hue, like it’s made of mahogany—gives it this old-fashioned look. Definitely not like the metal door on my side.

[How do you know it’s the front door?]

-Well, if you’re wondering why…Oh, right. There’s a semi-circular window above the door, and sunlight streams through it. The way the light spills in, casting these long shadows… It seems like it’s the front. And instead of coats on the coat rack, there are keys hanging there. The camera angle isn’t perfect, but that’s what I can see.

If he could just make it to that front door, he might finally be able to free himself from these damn restraints and make a run for it. Hope surged inside him, almost overwhelming in its intensity, threatening to choke him. He gulped down the scream of triumph that was clawing its way up his throat. Not yet—it was too early for that. He wasn’t free. Not yet.

Still, a flicker of a smile tugged at his lips. His fingers reached up, brushing over the cold, smooth surface of the shackle around his neck, searching for the groove he knew was there.

I couldn’t calm down, thinking I’d be stuck in these restraints forever unless I managed to escape. But at least now… there’s some hope.

Not that he’d ever been okay with these complimentary “necklaces” and “bracelets.” He’d only put up with them because he saw no other option. Truthfully, his nerves were shot, his pulse constantly racing with the dread that at any moment, the restraints might detonate like some death trap. The revelation of a key by the front door was nothing short of a miracle. Seojun’s fists clenched tightly inside the rough burlap sacks.

Normally, it’d be the kidnapper barking out commands, demanding Seojun’s obedience. But things had taken a turn—an unexpected twist no one saw coming. Somehow, by some freakish stroke of fate, Seojun wasn’t answering to the kidnapper anymore. No, his fate was in the hands of someone else… the Wizard. With a deep breath, Seojun gathered his resolve once more, bracing for whatever came next.

And so, after countless failed attempts, he finally turned to the first page of the plain notebook. The words, sharp and precise, stared back at him, reflected in his one remaining eye, just as resolute as he felt.

「It feels stupid that my first entry in this journal is about a new test subject. Am I the only one who finds this absurd? These damn researchers never know when to give up. You saw it too, L, didn’t you? The way they paraded that pale, stiff woman around like she was some kind of holy relic. And that guy—the one always lurking behind us like some stray mutt, lapping up our every move. The way he looked at her… It was disgusting. Then again, he looks at all of us that way. At me, at you, even at T. I’m just relieved it’s not our turn anymore. If he’d kept staring at me like that, I swear, I would’ve gouged his eyes out. There’s something deeply unsettling about being under a gaze like that, especially from someone who might be ■ ■■ to another ■.

But anyway, we’ve got that woman to thank for a break from their experiments, even if it’s just for a day. L, you should be grateful to her too. People should learn to appreciate the small mercies, right?

Leave the journal in the storage room.」

It seemed this plain notebook was being used as a shared diary. Seojun flipped to the next page.

「S, could we at least hide it somewhere easier to find next time? Do you know how much effort I put into hiding the journal in the storage room? Seriously, I’m begging you! If you’re going to pull another stunt like this, at least clue me in on your genius hiding spots. Otherwise, it’s nearly impossible to lose that stray mutt you keep ranting about. And yeah, I know, you’ve said it a hundred times—I’m an idiot! But honestly, doesn’t he look too good to be called a stray mutt? I don’t like him either, but based on his looks, he’s more like a purebred.

Still, you’re not wrong, S—he’s totally got a thing for the new one. I overheard something about her being able to turn completely invisible, unlike us. Isn’t that crazy? If it works, maybe we won’t have to be trapped in this place anymore. Who knows, maybe they’ll even let us all go. Honestly, I’m kind of hoping the experiment works. I mean, our abilities aren’t anywhere near being able to turn invisible. I’ve never understood why these researchers are so obsessed with making people invisible. If you ask me, T’s ability has always been the coolest.

Oh no, here comes the stray mutt again! I can’t stand the way his lenses gleam like that! Gotta stop writing now.」

It was obvious that S’s sharp handwriting matched their prickly personality, every word dripping with annoyance. In contrast, L, though clearly rattled by S, filled the page with careful, detailed entries, exposing a different side—a nervous, almost frantic need to get their thoughts out. But right now, Seojun didn’t have time to analyze S’s cold edge or L’s anxious ramblings.

He had barely read two pages of their shared diary, and already his mind was reeling. The shock slammed into him like a physical blow.

This story… he’d heard it somewhere before, hadn’t he? A secret lab obsessed with creating invisible humans… this was the very mansion of the Invisible Man!