Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#119Reader Mode

#119

The CCTV camera’s lens shone with an obsessively polished gleam, reflecting a pair of dark, pitch-black eyes. If the camera had been installed after the typhoon, that left a new troubling question:

Why didn’t the test subjects escape when they had the chance?

Seojun dragged the toe of his sneaker across the dusty floor, nudging a loose nail absentmindedly as he mulled it over. Slowly, a theory was beginning to take shape, fragile yet growing heavier with each fragment of evidence.

There had to be more than one researcher. That much was obvious. But in the beginning, only S had been trapped inside the Invisible Man’s mansion. All Alone.

According to the records, S wasn’t strong or athletic. It was hard to imagine him overpowering anyone, let alone multiple people. His ability, while unique, wasn’t the kind of thing that could help someone break out.

Then there was L, who arrived next. L could’ve tipped the balance, but not by much. Timid and uncertain, his hands shook under the strain of his own power. Control slipped through his fingers more often than not, making him easy to manage, maybe even pitiful in the eyes of those who held him captive.

T came after that, quiet and heavy with a kind of silence that filled rooms like smoke. Her power should’ve been a formidable weapon. If she’d had her mind right, it would’ve been. But T was already teetering on the edge of insanity the moment she arrived. Fractured and spiraling, every experiment they forced on her only cracked her further. In the end, she was dangerous, but only to herself.

And D was the last to arrive. She came with the most powerful gift of all: invisibility. If anyone should’ve been able to escape, it was her. But raw potential means nothing without control. D didn’t know how to use her power effectively, and a gift without control is just a curse in disguise.

Of the four, only one had any real offensive ability, and even she was too unstable to wield it. The others were trapped by their own flaws, outmatched before they even had the chance to fight back.

In the end, escape was never a real option.

Then again, maybe there were other possibilities. Like Blackmail. Or threats.

The Wizard was right. Threats didn’t always need a blade pressed to your throat. Sometimes, they came as whispers or promises, delivered by someone who knew just what to dangle over your head. That was the genius of it, wasn’t it? S had understood that better than anyone. A line from the shared journal surfaced in Seojun’s thoughts:

Miss Muncie, who held a devastating, horrifying, and unspeakable secret.

L’s mind-reading ability had stripped the truth bare. Miss Muncie would do anything, even sacrifice everything she had to keep that secret buried. A psychic photograph had captured it, turning the truth into a perfect weapon for blackmail.

And it all started with a little outside help. S’s ability had dragged that secret to the surface, tearing it from the shadows it had called home. It was the kind of truth that should’ve stayed buried, the kind better left untouched, never meant to see the light of day.

Seojun’s thoughts raced, tumbling over one another, faster than he could catch them. Words slipped out before he even realized he was speaking aloud. His restless gaze darted around the cramped room until it locked onto the jagged edge of a dark, dried bloodstain.

“Blood packs…” the words escaping like a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

His eyes drifted beyond the narrow confines of the storage room, searching for something just out of reach—lost in the murky space between memory and suspicion. The plain notebook on the floor gnawed at him, its frayed edges a reminder of everything it held: tangled lies and fractured truths. Some of those truths didn’t sit right, like puzzle pieces hammered into the wrong slots, forced to fit where they didn’t belong.

“They didn’t need fake blood. They said they took blood from each of them… stored it for transfusions, just in case.”

Suddenly, the scattered stains began to make sense. If the smears had come from those blood packs—like the ones L found—it explained the messy, uneven patterns. No neat splatters, only wild, chaotic streaks, as if spilled in a rush.

“Right… Miss Muncie. The journal said her supply runs always caused chaos.”

Then, like a spark flashing through the dark, a new thought jolted him. Sharp. Immediate.

What if the assistant they’d been waiting for never existed?

What if that was just another lie?

Miss Muncie could have used the chaos to smuggle D out of the storage room, slipping her unnoticed through the confusion. T’s telekinesis would have made small distractions effortless, just a nudge to send a pair of empty red shoes skittering across the floor, drawing wandering eyes away at the perfect moment. Meanwhile, L’s mind-reading would cut through the swirling thoughts around him like a ship slicing through heavy fog, steering them toward safety. With Miss Muncie’s help, the entire plan could have unfolded flawlessly, right under the noses of the researchers.

And at the center of it all was S… pulling the strings from the very start.

Seojun felt the pieces snap into place, the click of realization sharp and final. He saw it now—S’s hatred for the lab, his relentless determination to dismantle everything they had built. It all made sense, each moment falling neatly into place like a chain of dominoes, toppling one after the other. Even the streak of jealousy toward D, hinted at in the journal, clicked into focus. The Wizard had been right all along: S hadn’t just documented events—he had written the journal for someone to read, shaping every word to serve a hidden purpose.

“He wanted it to be read. But not for the truth it told.”

The ache in his palm faded, drowned beneath the storm building in his mind. Heat surged through him, his ears burned, and the oppressive warmth trapped inside the burlap sack clung to his skin. Every breath felt heavy, thick with the weight of unraveling truths.

— Oz? What’s wrong?

The Wizard’s voice drifted in from somewhere distant, thin and petulant, like a child’s whine. But Seojun couldn’t answer. Not now. There was no room for idle chatter, not when the truth was so close, dangling just beyond reach.

S, the one who had endured the longest within the facility. L, driven by fear, longing desperately for a life beyond the lab’s suffocating walls. T, who would have shattered completely if not for D’s presence. They hadn’t come together to kill D… they had come together to save her.

Goosebumps prickled along Seojun’s arms as the realization sank in. None of this had ever been about murder. It had always been a desperate, reckless plan to smuggle her out. But how had they managed something so impossible?

His frantic steps slowed, then stopped. His gaze drifted to the narrow space beneath the floorboard—the same cramped hollow where D had once hidden. No matter how many times he stared at it, the same conclusion circled back to him: the space was far too small. Anyone else would’ve laughed at the idea of squeezing in there, dismissing it as absurd.

But not D.

She had slipped into that space as if she belonged there, her movements fluid and instinctive. It wasn’t a last-minute gamble, it was muscle memory. This wasn’t the first time she had hidden herself in tight quarters like that.

Seojun’s thoughts swirled, colliding and tangling until they settled into a single, inescapable truth:

D or rather Amy, had never possessed the power of invisibility.

A quiet sigh escaped Seojun’s lips, trailing with the faintest thread of regret. The fog in his mind lifted, clarity crashing down like the first sharp breath of cold air after a storm. The vision sparked by the rusty nail, the fragment of the past hidden deep within the shadows of the storage room, was only a small piece of the truth. But it wasn’t the fragment that had led him to this moment.

It was T’s gaze that showed him the way.

Her eyes had been heavy with unspoken emotion, a look weighted with something Seojun hadn’t recognized. Not until now. Not until it struck him, full force, just as Johan’s eyes had once shown him. Affection, quietly nestled beneath every glance, every small action.

A girl who loved shooting stars.

A girl born beneath the streaking lights of a meteor shower.

A girl whose severed, floating hand had once touched another’s cheek with tenderness.

A girl who spent her days trapped in a storage room, with only a small window to glimpse the world outside.

A girl who had cut off her own hand.

Two women, their fates forever intertwined in these quiet, unseen moments.

The memory rose again: T, seated quietly in this very room, her prosthetic hand brushing D’s cheek in a gesture so soft, so familiar, it left no room for doubt. This was T’s language—affection spoken in silence, a love carved painfully from sorrow. Her hand lingered, repeating the motion as if to say everything words could never convey.

“Ah…”

Seojun’s breath hitched, the darkness around him shifting, like shadows rearranging themselves into new shapes. Just beyond the edge of sight, something glinted just beyond reach.

He knelt, heart thudding softly in his chest, and reached into the narrow space where D had once hidden herself. The rough burlap wrapped around his hand snagged against the object’s edge.

“This is…”

Seojun carefully tugged it free. Cool metal slipped between his fingers… a key. His pulse quickened as he turned it over, inspecting every angle. The shape felt strange, unfamiliar.

Without thinking, his hand drifted to his neck, feeling for the keyhole there. But no, the key didn’t fit.

He turned the possibilities over in his mind: the courtroom doors? No keyholes. The basement? Sealed tight, no lock in sight.

That left only one option.

A strange energy surged through Seojun, adrenaline cutting cleanly through the dull ache in his palm. Gripping a colored pencil between his fingers, he began writing furiously, ignoring the sharp throb radiating from his injury.

[I think I know the password to the room you’re in.]

— Really? There was something like that in there? Oz, you don’t need to come all the way here. Just tell me.

[I’ll unlock it myself.]

Let’s see that arrogant face of yours in person.

Seojun gritted his teeth, pressing the pencil so hard it left deep indentations in the sketchbook pages. His injured hand pulsed painfully, and the blood—stalled until now—began to seep through the coarse burlap. Crimson droplets stained the paper, blending into the red ink, making it hard to tell where the writing ended and the blood began.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

The Wizard’s voice crackled through the buzzing speaker, sharp with anticipation. He clearly expected Seojun to spit out the numbers he thought were the password without delay. But Seojun wasn’t about to hand it over that easily.

Static fizzed through the speaker, followed by the Wizard’s impatient whine.

— Well? You’re not gonna…

Seojun shut it out. Not now. He wasn’t going to humor the Wizard, not when he was this close.

He grabbed the doorknob and gave it a twist, heart racing—and to his relief, the door to the staircase swung open without resistance.

At the top of those stairs, Seojun knew he’d probably come face-to-face with both the Wizard and the mastermind behind their kidnapping. His legs felt stiff, each step sending sharp jolts through his muscles, as if his own body wanted to turn back. But his heart kept pounding harder with every movement, as if trying to beat its way out of his chest.

Unlike S, Seojun had no plan. His only goal was to free the Wizard, see his ally’s face, and look their captor in the eye. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hope he had, and that thin thread frayed a little more with each step.

“Phew…”

The sigh slipped out before he could stop it—not relief, exactly, just habit. The gavel swung from his hand now, replacing the sketchbook he’d clung to earlier. With each step, his boots left shallow prints in the thick dust coating the stairs, marking his slow, reluctant progress. A draft slipped through the stairwell, cold and restless, like a whispered warning stirring the back of his neck.

The staircase narrowed as it climbed, the walls squeezing in and the ceiling sloping lower, pressing down as if it could crush him if he lingered. Shadows thickened along the steps, swallowing the faint trickle of light filtering in from somewhere distant. Not that the floor below had been much brighter.

Seojun clicked his tongue in frustration, gripping the gavel tighter. A place like this—forgotten, suffocating, steeped in silence—was more than a prison for the body. It was the kind of place that could mess with your mind, where the shadows weren’t content to stay on the walls. If you stayed too long, they’d crawl under your skin and settle inside you.

At last—after what felt like hours—a burst of light spilled across the top of the stairs, so sudden it stung his eye. It rushed over the landing, bright and unrestrained, like water breaking free from a cracked dam. He had made it to the second floor.

Despite everything, something unfamiliar flickered in his chest—joy, maybe, though faint and flickering like a dying match. His lips twitched, and before he could stop it, an awkward smile crept onto his face, pulled upward by some invisible force. For the briefest moment, hope fluttered. Fragile, ridiculous, but alive.

Then his foot hit the last step, and he froze.

His knees bent without thinking, muscles locking up as instinct took over. His breath snagged in his throat, and his eyes went wide, disbelief sweeping over him like a blast of ice water.

What stood before him made no sense.

A savage wind howled through a jagged tear in the ceiling, as if some monstrous force had ripped it apart in a fit of rage. The roof was gone—swallowed by a gaping hole, leaving only rotting beams that jutted out like broken ribs. Exposed to the sky, the warped floorboards groaned under years of rain, their wood stained and streaked with grime. Dead leaves tumbled across the ground, swirling like restless ghosts caught in the grip of the wind.

Seojun forced his stiff legs to move, straightening with a hiss of pain as his joints protested. He squinted upward, toward the sky where a pale sun lurked behind a thin veil of clouds. The light was there, but it gave no warmth, no comfort.

The fragile joy from the stairs flickered out, leaving behind a heavy emptiness that sank deep in his chest. He was here, finally, but it didn’t feel like enough. The awkward smile that had found its way to his lips faltered, slipping away like a thought he couldn’t quite hold on to.

Seojun’s gaze swept across the ruined space, sharp and deliberate. No more stairs to climb. No secret doors waiting to click open. This was it. The end of the line. The Invisible Man’s mansion, whether real or some replica, stopped here.

“……”

The silence settled thick around him, broken only by the wind’s lonely howl as it threaded through the crumbling beams overhead. No crackling speakers, no Wizard’s voice buzzing to fill the void. Just the cold hum of the wind, steady and strange, but oddly soothing. It eased the tight knot in Seojun’s chest, unwinding the pressure bit by bit. He let his eyes drift shut for a second, exhaling slowly. For once, the silence wasn’t suffocating. It was… bearable.

With a sigh that seemed to pull from his very bones, he took a step forward.

The second floor was nothing like the maze of chaos below. This layout was painfully simple. Five or six identical rooms lined the space, spaced too precisely, too perfectly, as if someone had pressed copy-paste on the blueprints. Seojun’s shoulders tensed. His thoughts raced through the possibilities, traps waiting to spring at the smallest mistake.

He could already feel it. Electric currents snapping through his body, razor-thin wires slicing flesh like paper, acid raining from hidden compartments. His pulse hammered in his ears, his imagination conjuring threats before his eye could prove otherwise.

But the longer he stared at the peeling walls and debris-strewn floor, his fear was silenced. There was no hidden genius behind this mess. The damage was random, careless—a storm’s handiwork, not the work of a trapmaker. No wires. No mechanisms. Just rot and time, unraveling everything.

“The kidnapper didn’t seem to care about this place.”

His gaze lingered on one of the doors, hesitation flickering across his face before settling into quiet resolve. The door wasn’t locked. It swung open without resistance, as if it had been waiting for him all along, daring him to step inside.

Each door looked nearly identical, except for the crude doodles scratched into the corners. One showed a girl with wild pigtails, another a jagged-limbed robot, the next a lion with a mane so messy it seemed alive. But the last door featured a crooked scarecrow, its form awkward and lopsided, like it didn’t belong.

Seojun found himself drawn to that last door, his worn sneakers coming to rest before it. He tilted his head, staring at the crude drawing etched into the wood. Despite the rough lines, something about it felt strangely familiar.

Its patchy hat drooped unevenly, vacant button eyes staring into emptiness, and slumped shoulders sagged beneath the weight of imagined straw, as if it was exhausted just standing there.

His fingers brushed against the coarse burlap sack draped over his head, tracing its uneven texture.

The scarecrow’s head looked just like his.

T/N Schedule Update: Hey everyone! Just a heads-up. I’ve got a certification exam coming up, and I need to pass it within a month. So, I’ll have to cut back on uploads to once a week for both series until it’s done. I know, it sucks, but I don’t want the quality of the translations to dip if I try to juggle both. Fingers crossed I’ll pass soon, and once I do, I’ll update you all and things will go back to normal. Thanks for understanding! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧