Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#136Reader Mode

#136

Johan’s eyes sparkled with a mix of excitement and reverence as he gazed up at the haunted house looming before him. It was an ominous sight, but one that filled him with anticipation—a fitting response, considering the long, incredible journey that had brought him to this moment.

When Johan had first left the hospital, he felt lost. No plan, no ride, and no clue what to do next. Thankfully, his near-death experience had given him a vague idea of where to find Seojun, but knowing and actually getting there were two very different things.

But sometimes, the universe has a funny way of working things out. See, Johan had always meticulously jotted down every random thing Seojun said—especially his grumblings about how even his crappy luck had to turn around eventually. How blessings often showed up disguised as misfortune.

And now, standing here, Johan couldn’t help but feel like those words were prophecy. Because just when Johan needed it most, a stranger had appeared out of the blue, like a gift from the heavens themselves. And with that, his bad luck finally turned around.

***

The scent of sizzling street food hit Johan the second he stepped out of the hospital. A food truck was parked right out front, filling the cool night air with an aroma so mouthwatering it might as well have reached out and dragged him in by the collar. Stomach growling, he handed over a few bills, took a bite of a hot dog, and let his mind wrestle with the problem of how to get to his next destination.

That’s when a man stepped up to the food truck.

The man had the kind of presence that made people look twice. He was a truck driver, but he might as well have been plucked straight from an action movie. His rider’s jacket had the sleeves stylishly torn off, revealing muscular arms. A thick beard shadowed his chiseled face, and his black sunglasses reflected the neon glow of the food truck’s sign. If anyone could pull off that level of effortless cool, it was this guy.

The mysterious driver ordered his ‘usual’, then turned and noticed Johan’s dejected expression. With one curious eyebrow cocked, he seemed to assess the entire situation in an instant.

“Kid, you look like you need a ride.”

After a brief conversation, the truck driver chuckled knowingly and jerked his thumb towards his rig with an easy grin. “I’m heading that way. Hop in.”

And before he knew it, Johan found himself riding shotgun in a massive eighteen-wheeler, watching the miles disappear beneath the wheels. With each passing minute, the haunted house grew closer.

By the time they rolled to a stop, Johan was grinning. He practically jumped out of the cab, landing with a light bounce before spinning around to wave at his unexpected savior.

“Thanks, Hot Dog Man!”

The driver answered with a lazy thumbs-up, the very picture of effortless cool, before his rig rumbled back onto the road. Johan watched until the taillights disappeared from view, leaving behind only the whisper of an engine and the distant hum of the highway.

Then, with a deep breath, he turned toward the woods.

The ground beneath his feet was soft, damp, giving way just slightly with each step, but he barely noticed. His focus narrowed, pulled toward a single, undeniable point—

The haunted house.

And so, after a journey full of dead ends and wrong turns, here he stood at last. Johan’s chest heaved, his heart pounding wildly against his ribs. It was ridiculous. He was an athlete known for his stamina. Yeah, he had practically sprinted through the forest, but that was nothing. This breathlessness, this feeling of his heart trying to escape from his chest, wasn’t from exhaustion. He was nervous.

Hastily, Johan tried to smooth the wrinkles from his clothes and comb his fingers through his wind-tousled hair. It didn’t make much difference, but he felt slightly more put together. Without thinking, his hand found its way to the cross at his throat.

At that moment, a stray shaft of sunlight broke through the thick canopy, striking him like a spotlight. The golden light skimmed across his face, tracing the proud line of his nose and setting his broad shoulders aglow, as if the heavens had decided, just for a second, to paint him in divinity.

For a fleeting moment—standing there in the quiet hush of the forest, eyes closed, bathed in ethereal light—Johan looked almost holy. Like a figure lifted straight from the pages of an old painting, a saint lost in prayer.

Anyone stumbling upon him then, head bowed in reverence, lips moving in hushed words, might have mistaken him for a true believer deep in devotion. But the words falling from his lips were anything but pious. And if any gods happened to be listening? There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell they’d grant a wish as sinful as his.

Yet Johan remained blissfully unaware of just how shameless his prayer was. A grin—wide, sharp, utterly pleased—spread its way across his face, stretching his cheeks near to aching.

His eyes gleamed as he gazed at the looming lodge ahead, face lit with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for newlyweds stepping into their first home. For once, he wasn’t too late. Surely, fate was on his side. After all, hadn’t he rushed here the second he realized where Seojun was headed? The timing was too perfect to be mere chance. And the house’s proximity to the hospital he’d just left only reinforced his certainty that the heavens themselves were guiding his steps, pulling him ever closer to his heart’s desire.

And then there was Hot Dog Man—who, after hearing Johan’s love story, had flashed a toothy grin before wordlessly proving just how fast his truck could go. That unexpected kindness had sealed it. If even the universe’s most unlikely allies were helping him, then this was meant to be.

Unable to hold back his desire any longer, Johan circled the perimeter of the haunted house, peeking through the windows like an overenthusiastic puppy searching for its owner. Seojun’s truck was nowhere in sight—not that it was surprising. Driving something like his truck through the woods would’ve been a challenge. Instead, a lone motorbike sat parked nearby.

“……”

Johan frowned, absently scratching his cheek. Seojun wasn’t the type to ditch his beloved truck for a motorbike.

He’d already heard over the phone that this run-down cabin in the middle of nowhere had, for some reason, become a hotspot. His plan had been simple: sneak inside, surprise Seojun, and then dramatically proclaim, “Wow, what are the odds? This must be fate!”

But as much as he didn’t want to consider it, there was the very real possibility that the person inside wasn’t Seojun. And if that was the case, well… that person was bound to be just as startled as he was.

Johan weighed his options. If he lingered too long, someone might mistake him for a squatter in the abandoned house. But if he made himself too obvious, he risked drawing the wrong kind of attention. His expression flickered cold for a moment as he calculated the odds, running through scenarios in his head.

Then, just as quickly, he blinked and smoothed his face into an easygoing smile. No need to spiral into worst-case thinking. Maybe it was the lingering kindness of the truck driver rubbing off on him, but the world suddenly seemed a little brighter. Of course, the real reason for his optimism was probably the anticipation of seeing Seojun again.

“Kindness begets kindness, after all.”

With that, he pushed open the front door. The rusty hinges groaned in protest, the sound stretching through the empty house. Johan raised his voice, letting it ring out with confidence.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Silence.

He hesitated, still standing at the threshold. His tone softened.

“Jun? You here? It’s me.”

Nothing. Just the empty hush of an abandoned space.

Johan sighed, pouting slightly before finally stepping inside.

The interior of the haunted house was just as eerie as one might expect. Shadows stretched long over walls marred by thick patches of black mold, flaking away like charred paper at the lightest touch. The air hung damp and stagnant, steeped in the unmistakable scent of decay. In the center of the room, the remains of a once-luxurious leather sofa slumped in quiet defeat, its cushions gutted and spilling onto the dust-covered floor.

As Johan took in his surroundings, his gaze landed on a portrait of a woman from the early modern era, her unsettling painted eyes staring directly at him. No matter where he moved, her eyes followed.

Now that I think about it, didn’t Tim mention something about this place being haunted?

Johan chuckled to himself, recalling the vague ghost story he had half-listened to from a hitchhiker earlier. Leaving home had certainly given him more experiences than he ever could’ve imagined back in his hometown. With each new adventure, Johan was beginning to realize that firsthand experiences were just as valuable, if not more so, than anything he had learned secondhand.

The more stories he collected, the more excited he felt about sharing them with Seojun. With a grin, he gave the woman in the portrait a casual wave before making his way toward the staircase.

Since the lodge only had two floors, Johan figured he could reach the top in just a few quick strides. But the moment he set foot on the stairs, a loud crack echoed through the house.

“Whoa—!”

Johan yelped as his leg nearly plunged through the rotting wood. He barely caught himself in time. It wasn’t a long drop by any means, but if his foot got wedged in the decayed planks, he’d be in serious trouble. Worse than that, though, was the thought of his wallet suffering a fatal blow. The last thing he needed was an overpriced medical bill because some haunted house decided to take a bite out of him.

And what if this place actually belonged to someone?

Even if he argued that the staircase was falling apart on its own, any halfway reasonable owner would still demand to know why he was stepping on it in the first place.

Johan rolled his mental gears with the seriousness of a squirrel cracking a walnut. Carefully, he freed his foot and reached for a dusty rug draped over the staircase railing. A firm tug later, and he had it haphazardly covering the worst of the damage. Out of sight, out of mind.

Satisfied, he resumed climbing, this time with the exaggerated caution of someone trying to sneak past a sleeping dragon. His steps were light, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, his entire approach downright ridiculous. A man his size creeping up the stairs like a cat burglar? If ghosts were watching, they were definitely laughing.

Johan reached the second floor landing and looked around. He hadn’t bothered counting how many rooms were on the first floor, but it was clear that there were more up here, their closed doors stretching down the shadowy hallway.

“I remember hearing something about a famous room…” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. The story had probably changed as it passed from person to person, like a game of telephone. Even though he’d only heard it from two people, neither had given him an exact room number. He wished he hadn’t rushed through his online research, too focused on just finding the building’s address. That oversight was coming back to bite him now.

Well, no point beating himself up about it. He’d just have to check them all.

His grand plan was still intact though—sneaking up on Seojun and wrapping him in a surprise hug. The thought made him smile as he approached the first door that caught his eye at the top of the stairs.

Heart pounding, he gripped the doorknob and turned it with painstaking slowness, trying not to make a sound.

Thud.

Johan froze. Something had caught against the door.

After a quick glance over his shoulder, he pushed the door open wider and peered inside. Heavy curtains blocked the window, leaving the room in near darkness. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, shapes began to emerge from the shadows, helping him navigate where to step.

But that sound… what had caused it?

He pushed the door wider. Thud. There it was again—something was definitely blocking the path behind the door.

Johan decided to be methodical: close the door first, open the curtains, then check what was causing the noise. But whatever lurked in the darkness had other plans.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, a slow, eerie noise crept through the room… creeeak, creeeak. In the shadows, something stirred—a subtle shift, like a whisper of movement drawing closer.

It was a rope.

More precisely, a noose with a body hanging at the end. The strangled figure twisted slowly in the stagnant air, its head tilted at a disturbing angle.

A pale face with an unnaturally wide grin emerged from the gloom, swinging toward Johan. Instinctively, he batted it away, watching as the figure retreated back into the darkness.

“Oh, so that’s what was in the way,” Johan laughed to himself, as if he’d just figured out a small annoyance rather than discovered a body hanging from the ceiling.

On closer inspection, the mysterious figure was actually just a stuffed doll hanging from the noose. The fabric at its neck was pinched tightly, creased deeply where the rope dug in. Unless someone cut it down, the doll would stay there, gradually losing its shape and falling to pieces.

Johan booped the doll’s nose playfully before striding over to the window. In one quick flick, he threw the curtains wide open, letting way more light stream into the room. While he was at it, he opened the window too, figuring some fresh air wouldn’t hurt.

A crisp, woodsy breeze blew in, bringing that cool, damp smell you only get in forests. Keeping with the haunted house vibes, some of the window panes were busted, and the wind whistling through made this weird, almost funny whimpering noise.

If Johan had to describe the first room on the second floor in a word, it’d be filthy.

The rotten furniture was no shocker – any self-respecting haunted house has busted up, forgotten junk lying around. But the open plastic bottles and bread wrappers that were barely past their expiration date? Those were definitely new.

Johan tapped one of the empty bread bags with his shoe.

“For a haunted house, this place sure is popular,” he mused.

Johan looked around the room, his face showing no interest at all.

The wardrobe was totally bare—no clothes, not even any hangers. He even dug through the big, heavy jar in the corner, searching every inch. There wasn’t a single hair from Seojun to be found.

His heart remained calm.

Honestly, that creepy doll hanging by the door was the only thing that gave him even a tiny thrill—like some bargain bin jack-in-the-box jump scare. But that was it. When he left the first room, he walked out with nada, the search a total bust.

Room number two wasn’t any better.

The whole place smelled like blood, that gross coppery stink that coats the back of your throat. Pills were scattered all over the floor, and two bizarrely clean bags sat propped against the dresser, like someone had carefully posed them there. Sketchy for sure, but no matter how hard he looked, there still wasn’t any trace of Seojun.

Just to be thorough, Johan peeked at the huge mirror on the wall.

“Haunted houses always have secret compartments behind the mirrors, right…?”

Carefully, he took a look behind it.

Nothing.

Just a thick coating of dust, so ancient and caked on it was basically one with the wall now.

Then, he heard running water.

At first, Johan figured it was all in his head. But as the sound got louder, he realized it wasn’t just his imagination.

Was it raining again?

He went back to the first room and stuck his head out the window he’d left open. The thick canopy of leaves blocked a lot of the sky, but beyond them, it was surprisingly clear out.

Only when he stepped into the hallway again did he see it.

A thin veil of steam seeped out from under a door—the one he’d made a mental note of as the third room. Except it wasn’t a bedroom. It was a bathroom.

Which raised the obvious question.

This place was 100%, without a doubt, abandoned. So how the heck was there running water? Did someone seriously leave the plumbing on?

Johan made a conscious effort to keep his steps quiet. Sneaking around wasn’t really his strong suit, not with his size and the old, creaky floorboards—but he gave it his best shot. Luckily, the loud rush of water covered any noise he made.

From the other side of the door, he heard someone humming cheerfully.

He nudged the door open just a crack. Through the thick, foggy steam clouding his view, Johan glimpsed someone’s back.

Their long, dark brown hair was drenched, plastered to their bare skin.