Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#132Reader Mode

T/N: Ugh, first the flu and now COVID. Seriously, are Fabio and Seojun’s bad luck rubbing off on me? Is this what I get for translating only psychological horror works? Maybe my next project needs to be something super wholesome where nothing bad happens, ever. Anyway! Here’s your warning:

Trigger Warning: May contain scenes of violence that are graphically depicted, which may upset sensitive viewers. ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼)

#132

Wendrick exploded. The change was instantaneous, violent beyond comprehension, leaving Seojun’s mind reeling in stunned silence.

One moment, she was there—alive, breathing, undeniably real. The next, she was gone, reduced to a gross abstraction of blood and flesh splattered across the kitchen in horrific reds. The force that erupted from within her was unlike anything Seojun had ever seen, ripping her apart in an instant.

What remained was a bloody mess. Pieces of her—skin, muscle, everything—were flung across the room, clinging to walls, the ceiling, and every surface in sight. The thick, metallic stench of blood saturated the air, coiling in Seojun’s throat and turning his stomach. A creeping dread washed over him as he noticed the sticky wetness clinging to his skin. It wasn’t sweat. It was her.

One tiny glimmer of mercy in the midst of this was that Wendrick’s bones lay a few feet away from the rest of her shredded remains. A detached corner of Seojun’s mind registered that if her bones had shattered into deadly projectiles, no one in the kitchen would have made it out alive. A grim, hollow comfort, at best.

As the initial shock ebbed, a bone-deep horror pulsed in Seojun’s chest. He blinked, and something sticky caught on his lashes. A fat drop of blood fell, momentarily turning his world red before joining the slick of gore on the floor. The fog in his mind began to lift, and the scene snapped into sharp focus.

Leimia was locked in place, her earlier gender reveal suddenly feeling irrelevant, dwarfed by the horror that had just unfolded. Beside her, Camry and Alice were mirror images of shock, their faces frozen in identical masks of disbelief, eyes glued to the carnage. Even Oliver, who’d been practically vibrating with rage moments before, was stunned silent, mouth hanging open as if the very air had been ripped from his lungs.

The silence was deafening. No one moved, no one spoke.

They were trapped in a moment too massive, too horrific to process. Blood clung to their clothes, their skin, their hair, turning them into grotesque reflections of the slaughterhouse around them. Their wide, unblinking eyes held the same silent scream, a shared trauma that pinned them to the spot.

Seojun felt it most of all… a crushing pressure that felt like a giant fist squeezing his chest, making him tremble. He wanted to look away, to breathe, to scream until his throat was raw. But he was paralyzed, caught in the blood-soaked stillness of their living nightmare.

Had I really made the right call?

Doubt wormed its way into Seojun’s mind. He’d acted decisively, certain he was doing the right thing. But this… this was beyond comprehension. Wendrick’s horrific death defied every shred of logic he clung to. It wasn’t just a death… she had exploded.

Seojun’s certainty began to crumble. Had he been reckless? Blindly overconfident in his ability to control what was clearly uncontrollable? The more he tried to rationalize the bloody scene before him, the more it seemed to mock his pathetic attempts at reason.

“W-Wendrick…”

Charles’s gut-wrenching voice made everyone jump. He’d been closest to her, and now he stood at ground zero of this nightmare, his once-spotless chef’s whites now covered with Wendrick’s blood and remains. The contrast was sickening, the pristine white devoured by gore, a horrific and irreversible corruption that seemed to scream its presence.

Charles’s hands shook uncontrollably as he lifted them, a helpless, almost childlike gesture, as if to ward off the horrific reality closing in. He staggered back, slamming into the counter, sending knives and spoons clattering to the blood-slick floor in a jarring cacophony.

“Wendrick? My… my queen… You can’t be mad at me, right? No… not you… you wouldn’t… you couldn’t… be this cruel.” His words faltered, his voice dissolving into a broken whisper. “Someone like you, so kind, so brave… you’d never just leave me. Not like this. Not like this.“

Charles crumpled to his knees, his movements spastic and uncoordinated. His blood-soaked hands reached out, grasping at nothing, as if trying to pull her back from wherever she’d gone. Each swipe of his hands left a faint, fading smear in the air, a crimson echo of her absence.

It was a hopeless, desperate act, each motion more futile than the last. But Charles kept reaching, kept clawing at the emptiness, his desperation a tangible. He was a man trying to grasp smoke, his sobs bouncing off the blood-spattered walls.

Beneath the mask of blood coating his face, Seojun guessed that Charles’s skin had gone deathly white. The horrific scene had broken Charles, draining every last bit of strength from his body. He collapsed to the floor, his entire being wracked with a deep agony.

Low, guttural sounds ripped from his throat, more like the keening of a wounded animal than anything human.

“Urgh… argh…”

The cries echoed off the walls, a haunting lament that seemed to vibrate in the air. Charles’s imposing frame folded in on itself, curling up tight like a helpless grub retreating into the depths of his own pain. The confident, commanding figure they all knew was gone, replaced by a broken man, trembling under the crushing weight of his grief.

Such was the depth of Charles’s devotion—a love so intense it felt capable of moving the heavens themselves. Even now, with Wendrick reduced to nothing more than a wet pile of remains, he gazed at her with a mix of reverence and despair, tears overflowing. His gaze clung to the remains, as if, through sheer force of will, he could somehow piece back together the fragments of her body and breathe life back into her.

And perhaps… perhaps it was this very desperation, this all-consuming, obsessive love, that made him hear it first.

A sound.

Faint, wet, and rhythmic. It started as a soft whisper, almost lost in the silence, but grew steadily louder… an obscene thud, like blood pulsing through a torn artery.

Charles’s sobs stopped abruptly, his body going rigid, his gaze snapping up to lock onto Wendrick’s mangled remains. A squelching sound came from somewhere near her lower torso, making Seojun’s stomach lurch. Amidst the tangled mess of intestines, something strange caught the light… a translucent, pulsing sac that seemed to quiver with a life of its own. Each rhythmic thump was a heartbeat.

Charles’s tears carved jagged trails through the blood on his face as his focus sharpened. His trembling hands pressed against the floor, as if he might crawl closer…

Wendrick’s lower half was a wreck, shredded at the abdomen, yet somehow still intact—if “intact” could even describe something so broken. Her legs splayed out awkwardly, useless now, unable to support the devastation above. But it was the mangled remains of her lower torso, shifting almost imperceptibly beneath the intestines, that sparked a desperate, almost crazed hope in Charles.

His trembling hands gently moved her legs aside. He leaned in close, his face hovering above the viscera spilling onto the floor…

“Wendrick? You’re still here, aren’t you? My queen…”

The plea was cut short, replaced by a horrified gasp as Charles froze. From the torn cavity of her stomach, something nightmarish emerged. A mass of pale, writhing larvae spilled out. Each one, thick as a man’s thumb, glistened obscenely as they pulsated and squirmed.

Before Charles could even react, the larvae were on him. In a flash, they swarmed his face, their slimy, muscular bodies sticking to his blood-spattered skin like glue.

The irony was almost poetic. Charles, the butcher who’d carved up countless victims without a second thought, was now paralyzed by a primal fear of larvae. Just moments before, he’d been crouched in anticipation, rear-end practically wiggling with excitement. Now, he was pure, unadulterated panic, flailing like a trapped animal as the pale creatures slithered across his skin. His shriek ripped through the thick, blood-soaked air, shattering any lingering pretense of his tough-guy facade.

“Hyaaagh!”

But terror doesn’t give you a moment’s warning. It doesn’t let you brace yourself.

“Ughhh…”

Someone nearby gagged, but it barely registered in Seojun’s numb brain. His gaze was locked on Charles, fixed in horror as the scene played out. The big man, soaked in blood just moments ago, was rapidly vanishing beneath a writhing mass of white. Hundreds of larvae swarmed him, their pale bodies replacing the crimson of his skin with a sickly, corpse-like pallor. It was as if Charles was being consumed alive, his very flesh being replaced by a writhing, pulsing horror.

His limbs thrashed wildly, a desperate, frantic flailing that was both useless and pathetic. Every movement was jerky and uncoordinated, but the larvae clung to him like starved leeches, their grip unyielding against his frantic struggles. It was like watching a grotesque puppet show, a horrific parody of a struggle that was both terrifying and pitiful to watch.

“No! Get off! GET OFF!”

Charles’s desperate screams sealed his fate. His open mouth became an invitation, and the larvae surged forward to claim it. One particularly bloated larva slid obscenely onto his tongue, dangling in a way that was both repulsive and hypnotic. In any other context, it might have been darkly comedic, but in this living nightmare, no one dared to even think of laughing.

The tide of pale, squirming bodies surged onward. They covered him inch by inch, engulfing his legs, torso, and arms in a living shroud. Finally, his face vanished beneath the seething mass, erased from view. The man who was Charles was gone, consumed by a pulsing cocoon of larval flesh.

And then, the impossible happened.

The larvae moved as one and began to breathe. Their slimy bodies pulsed rhythmically, expanding and deflating in unison. It was sickening—an entire mass of tiny, grotesque lungs inhaling and exhaling in eerie synchronicity.

“No… get away… stay back…”

Charles’s voice surfaced faintly, muffled and distorted, like whispers swallowed by a storm. And then, just like that, it was gone. Lost in the midst of the writhing horror.

“What… what the hell is happening right now?”

Alice’s voice was a choked rasp, the question hanging unanswered in the thick, blood-soaked air. The truth was too monstrous to even consider: nobody in that kitchen, not even Charles, whose body was at the epicenter of this abomination, could process the sheer terror unfolding before them.

Even Seojun, whose actions had helped set this whole nightmare in motion, was lost. If he couldn’t make sense of it, what hope did anyone else have? The certainty he’d once clung to was rapidly dissolving, leaving him grasping at the fraying edges of his sanity.

Think positive. This is a necessary evil. That bastard’s death buys my survival.

Seojun squeezed his burning eyes shut, forcing his mind down the path of cold logic. Fortunately, his thick skin made it easier to silence the nagging voice of his conscience.

As if reacting to his dark thoughts, the larvae moved with a horrifying purpose, their bloated, glistening bodies pulsing in a rhythm that was both alien and deeply disturbing. They clung to Charles like a second skin, each undulation seeming to leech the life from him, shrinking his form beneath the relentless tide.

Then, a chilling realization struck Seojun, shattering the fragile detachment he’d built: the larvae weren’t breathing in sync… they were feeding.

The gruesome truth had been hiding in plain sight, obscured by the sheer madness of the scene. But now, it was impossible to ignore. With every pulse, every sickening swell of their pale bodies, the larvae were consuming Charles – slowly absorbing him into their collective, squirming mass.

Was this Wendrick’s final act of vengeance? A supernatural sentence carried out on Charles, exacted by some malevolent force? Or was this simply nature’s ruthless, opportunistic side manifesting in these pale, repulsive creatures? The answer lay with Charles, and he would soon be taking it to his grave.

“Aaahhh! This is f*cking insane! What the actual f*ck is that!?”

The piercing scream jolted everyone in the room. Seojun wheeled around to face its source—Leimia. Her usual cool, haughty demeanor had crumbled. Her face was pale, her jaw trembling violently.

But her terror wasn’t for Charles and his horrific end.

Her eyes, wide and panicked, were locked on Hugh’s slumped figure. Seojun followed her gaze and felt his heart drop.

Hugh, like everyone else, was soaked in Wendrick’s blood, but something happening to him was horribly wrong. His body wasn’t just coated; it was dissolving. His flesh was literally melting away, turning into some kind of gruesome sludge, like he was made of wax under a blowtorch.

Only his eyes were left, two glassy marbles reflecting the harsh overhead lights. But these weren’t the eyes of a living man. They were the eyes of something dead, something hollowed out. No soul, no spark, just…nothing. Like looking into a black hole, sucking in the light, sucking in your hope.

Staring into those empty eyes, a terrible realization dawned on Seojun. Hugh hadn’t been holding together for a long time – not since his arm was severed. The fragile balance that had kept him intact was gone, his body pushed past the breaking point. What they were witnessing wasn’t just death.

It was erasure.

Hugh was being wiped from existence, one molecule at a time. His body was failing catastrophically, melting into a puddle of goo.

Charles’s dramatic reaction when Wendrick’s arm fell off wasn’t just theatrics—it was a goddamn preview. It all makes sense now. These “protein humans”… their bodies are literally soft.

Seeing Hugh dissolve drove the point home with brutal clarity. The memory of his arm being pulverized in the blender suddenly took on a new, disturbing significance. No human bone, no matter how brittle, should have shattered so easily. A bitter, guilty relief cut through Seojun’s horror: he hadn’t just been complicit in the death of an ordinary man.

But this wasn’t the time to indulge in dark speculations.

“Hugh! Goddamnit, Hugh! Don’t you dare close your eyes! Please stay with me, I’m begging you!”

Oliver cried desperately for his lover to stay. But it was a futile effort. Hugh’s glassy, unblinking eyes stared into nothingness, devoid of any spark that had once made him who he was. Whatever essence had made him was long gone.

Seojun, however, didn’t have time for sentimental indulgences.

“Hugh, ugh—!”

“Ahh—!”

Bound hand and foot, Seojun’s options were limited. But he made up for it with raw grit and, it seemed, his trusty skull. Proving its worth once again, he slammed his forehead into Oliver’s nose with a burst of adrenaline, ignoring the searing pain that followed. Blood gushed down Oliver’s face, dripping from his mouth and chin.

The second headbutt was the final straw. Oliver’s restraint snapped like brittle ice, his face contorting in rage as he roared, “What the f*ck are you doing!?”

“That’s my line, you psycho! What the hell is wrong with you?!” Seojun fired back, losing all traces of his earlier composed, brooding self. He thrashed against the restraints like a wild animal, blood and spit flying in all directions, like a dog shaking off rainwater. Even Oliver couldn’t help but flinch from the furious, snarling madman.

“And while we’re at it, for the love of all that’s unholy, keep that suspicious food product away from me! Take it to your own damn room and play with it there!”

“Hugh! His name is Hugh, a-and he’s not ‘food’!” Oliver’s voice wavered, a flicker of something that might have been understanding crossing his face. “Wait a minute… you’ve seen that commercial too, haven’t you? That’s why you’re wearing those gloves!”

“Not food? Every single ingredient that went into making him was edible, wasn’t it? And for your information, these gloves are because I have a perfectly rational fear of germs! A completely reasonable condition in this batshit insane world we live in! Why are you trying to turn this into some creepy bonding moment? I already have someone perfect for me, so back off, you bastard!”

Okay, so maybe the suspicious parchment covered in cryptic incantations and the ripped-off fingernails weren’t exactly food, but Seojun wasn’t about to concede that point. He’d learned that these kinds of verbal brawls went to the loudest, most obnoxious voice, and he was a gold medalist in spewing utter nonsense. He was all in, throwing everything he had at this performance, a mix of truth and pure bullshit, a wall of indignant noise.

“You actually think something sold by a literal devil would be harmless?! Are you seriously that stupid?? Just look at what that bastard Charles did! Open your goddamn eyes and see the kind of f*cked-up shit he was capable of! And what’s with the obsessive screaming at Charles, you deranged groupie? You trying to get us all killed, huh?? What possible reason could you—” Seojun paused, a look of fake realization dawning on him. “Oh. Oh, wait. Don’t tell me. Is basic survival instinct some kind of add-on you couldn’t afford? Spent all your cash on that ‘Build-a-Boyfriend’ crap, didn’t you?!”

“A devil…?”

Alice’s voice was barely heard over the shouting. She wanted nothing more than to move away from Seojun, who was thrashing around like shrimp tempura dropped into boiling oil, his voice reaching a fever pitch. But she stayed put. It wasn’t just the ties around her ankles. Something else, something way stronger, was keeping her glued to the spot.

Through Seojun’s unhinged rant, she caught a glimpse of the truth. He understood what was really happening. He knew the dark reality of their situation.

But her questions would have to wait.

Suddenly, Seojun’s rant was abruptly silenced, his words suffocated by an unearthly stillness that flooded the room. The air grew thick and heavy, as if the very atmosphere itself had congealed. The mass of larvae on Charles’s body had become eerily silent.

It wasn’t just the absence of sound that was unsettling… it was a presence. A bone-chilling cold that seeped into the room, curling around them like frost spreading across a windowpane. It carried with it a promise of agony and suffering so profound it raised gooseflesh on the arms.

Seojun’s throat locked mid-snarl, the sound dying in his chest. His neck creaked as he turned, weighed down by dread. His gaze was drawn to the source of the unnatural silence, despite every fiber of his being screaming at him not to look.

In that moment, he made a desperate wish: that whatever he was about to see would somehow defy his darkest fears, that it might be less terrifying than whatever his imagination had conjured.

But Seojun’s luck had never worked that way. His wish, like so many before it, was destined to be brutally shattered.

What remained of Charles was barely recognizable as human. The withered form beneath the counter resembled an ancient mummy, its flesh so dry and brittle it seemed a mere sigh could reduce it to dust. Under different circumstances, Seojun might have felt a grim sense of triumph – maybe even mustered a dark smirk. But that fleeting emotion was quickly extinguished as his gaze rose, locking onto the horror looming over the corpse.

The larvae.

No longer mere parasites, the larvae had evolved into something far more malevolent. A squirming, pulsing mass of bloated bodies, now energized by their grisly feast. They glowed with an unnatural vitality, their coordinated movements akin to sinister executioners surveying the aftermath of their work.

All of Seojun’s defiance and anger vanished, replaced by paralyzing terror. His throat constricted, and his breath came in short, shaky gasps.

The silence was deafening. No one moved, no one spoke.

The larvae had finished with Charles, leaving behind nothing but a desiccated, lifeless husk.

And now, they were hungry again.

Death wasn’t coming for Seojun in a quick, merciful end. No, it was inching toward him. An unhurried advance driven by the hungry throbbing of those pale horrors.