Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#164Reader Mode

#164 

Seojun’s stomach plummeted. He bit down hard on his tongue, swallowing the scream rising his throat. The sharp sting was familiar; he’d bitten the same spot again, and it hurt like hell. But it worked. His fear escaped as nothing more than a quiet, choked gasp. 

Unfortunately, quiet wasn’t quiet enough. 

Luciel’s head snapped toward him, her gaze quickly locking onto the dark doorway. She grabbed Brown by the sleeve without a word. He turned—and the moment he saw the eyes gleaming through the small window, his composure cracked. He staggered back, nearly losing his balance. 

But he was also the first to recognize him.  

“McCullan?”  

At the sound of his name, McCullan’s head jolted back in a twitchy, unnatural spasm. He smacked his forehead against the small window before dropping out of sight. 

“McCullan, what the heck are you doing in there?” Brown asked, more confused than anything. 

Cautiously, the three of them crept toward the door. The moment Brown reached for the handle, McCullan’s face popped back into view, pressed flush against the window. Paranoia would be the word to describe him. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and darting between them—not with any sign of recognition, just the wild panic of a trapped animal. 

What the hell happened to him? 

Seojun had only met McCullan a few hours ago, but even he was shocked by how terrible the man looked. His skin was gray and drawn, almost as pale as Seojun’s had been when Brown got him out of the freezer.  

The door creaked open into a cluttered office. A single desk sat near the wall, three filing cabinets were crammed into a corner, and a torn leather couch sagged beneath layers of dust. McCullan was perched awkwardly on the armrest, hunched into himself like he was trying to disappear. 

Brown didn’t wait for the door to swing shut. He stormed in, face flushed with frustration.  

“You were in here this whole time? Why didn’t you say anything when I called for you?” 

A fair question. While Brown had been running around trying to find him, McCullan had apparently just been sitting here. Sure, Brown hadn’t had time to search every room while Luciel and Seojun were on the verge of freezing to death, but still. Brown had assumed a grown man could take care of himself for a few minutes.  

McCullan didn’t respond. He just clenched his jaw shut, his defiant eyes fixed somewhere on the far wall. Brown froze, thrown off by the silence. Everything was already strange and tense enough without McCullan acting like a total weirdo on top of it. 

But the moment Seojun really looked at him, he knew.  

That wasn’t defiance. It was fear. 

To anyone else, McCullan might’ve looked angry, guarded, maybe even hostile. But Seojun had seen that same pathetic, trapped-animal glare staring back from his own reflection, years ago. Asking why McCullan hadn’t come out was the wrong question entirely. 

Only after obsessively double-checking the lock on the door did Seojun turn and approach him. McCullan flinched with each step Seojun took, his entire body tensing up. Seojun registered the fear but felt a cold blankness in himself. He was too exhausted to care.  

“McCullan. You weren’t just hiding. You were hiding from him, weren’t you?”   

McCullan jerked like he’d been shocked. His eyes darted around the room, wild and panicked, scanning for exits that didn’t exist. It took a moment, but then Brown’s expression shifted to recognition, then dread, dawning across his face like a slow sunrise of horror.  

“Oh my god, you saw him too! The man in the pig mask? McCullan!” 

McCullan hugged a crumpled paper bag to his chest like a shield, head bowed. He didn’t say a word, but the tremors shaking his shoulders gave him away. After a long, heavy silence, his voice finally emerged. 

“I was looking for the key, but then… I heard a noise. I thought it might be you, Brown, maybe Luciel tripping over something as usual. But the sound… it was wrong. It wasn’t footsteps. It was something heavy… wet… being dragged across the floor. I knew we were the only ones up here. So I looked. That’s all. I just looked. I swear, If I’d known what I was about to see… God, I wish I hadn’t. Shit!” 

Suddenly, he threw the bag aside and grabbed his head, rocking slightly. His next words came out in a hoarse, broken whisper.   

“The psycho in the pig mask… he wasn’t alone. He was dragging Dennis.” 

Brown gasped. “Dennis? He’s here? You mean, on this floor?” 

Luciel knelt in front of McCullan, her gaze so sharp and focused it seemed to pin him to the spot. He cringed away from it.  

“I-I barely recognized him. It was so dark. But I saw the glint from the Polaroid he always wears. If not for that… I wouldn’t be sure. I was too scared to use a light… but something was wrong with Dennis’s head. And his arm that the camera was wrapped around… it looked… dark. Wet.” 

“Pig Mask’s knife,” Seojun said quietly, looking at Brown. “It was bloody.” 

The implication hung heavy in the small office. No one said it out loud, but they all knew whose blood it had to be.   

Luciel prodded McCullan’s shoulder. “Where did he take him?” 

McCullan looked like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but he lifted a shaky hand. His finger pointed straight at the one place they’d all been wondering about: the strange, unmarked door in the middle of the hallway. A quiet, exhausted sigh passed between the three of them. 

“He threw him in there. Like trash. Just tossed him in and kept walking down the hall. I couldn’t do anything. If I’d opened that door… he would’ve seen me. I’ve been stuck in here ever since.”   

So that was the story. While they were freezing to death and Brown was searching, McCullan had possibly witnessed a murder and been too terrified to make a sound. He glared at Brown, his fear sharpening into resentment. 

“Must be nice,” he spat, the words dripping with an ugly envy. “All of you. How the hell did you get so lucky? How’d you miss him?” 

The jealous accusation was so absurd Seojun almost laughed. Lucky? They were all trapped in this abandoned factory. McCullan hadn’t been the one minutes away from turning into a human popsicle. But the man was too deep in his spiral of self-pity to notice, his mouth running unchecked.   

“Why me? Why am I always so damn unlucky? And of course the phones don’t work. No signal, no nothing. Shit, I should’ve just gone to the hospital. Then I wouldn’t be stuck here with some psycho cosplaying the dead factory manager.”   

Seojun and Brown exchanged an uneasy look. Brown spoke up again, his voice cautious.  

“McCullan, what do you mean by that? Does the guy in the mask… look like the manager who died here?”  

“Obviously!” McCullan snapped, his temper apparently having soured while he was stewing alone in the dark. “It has to be some copycat! Some freak who got off on the Frank brothers!” 

Hic.  

The hiccup slipped out of Seojun before he could stop it. He quickly looked away, mumbling, “S-Sorry. Just… came out of nowhere.”  

The awkward moment passed, mostly because it was dark and nobody was feeling particularly chatty. But Seojun’s mind was reeling. The Frank brothers. McCullan was talking about the infamous serial killers who saw themselves as horror movie villains who had to act out their purpose. 

Seojun knew them. Not just from the news. He’d met them.  

And he had killed one of them. 

So it wasn’t just me, Seojun thought. I guess the resemblance really is that obvious. Those psychos left more of an impact than I thought.   

“You know, Brown,” McCullan grumbled, “those freaks got a whole cult following after the news broke. This pig-head bastard is probably one of them.” 

Seojun felt a sick twist in his gut. He hadn’t realized the Frank brothers’ fan club was still so active. It made him uneasy how the media could turn killers into myths. And it made him quietly grateful that his own secret and the truth about Monster X had stayed buried. If that had ever come to light, the whole country would’ve imploded with alien conspiracy theories. He rubbed at the goosebumps prickling his arms and let out a slow breath.   

Brown gave a forced smile, thin and tight. “Well, at least we know where Dennis is now. That’s a relief. We need to get him out. With a head wound like that, he could have a serious concussion. We need to hurry.”  

“Yeah,” Seojun agreed, his mind already jumping to the next obstacle. “We’ll need to find a crowbar to pry that door open.” 

McCullan, however, was still shaking. 

“I-I’m not going! What if we run into him again?”   

Luciel, looking completely unfazed, crossed her arms with a look of smug satisfaction. “Banish such foolish thoughts, you trembling mortal,” she declared. “Worry not. The man has been sealed in a tomb of eternal ice. He shall not emerge lightly.”   

“She’s right,” Brown added quickly. “We locked him in the freezer. Don’t freak out, okay? Now, let’s—”   

“Wait.”  

The word, spoken quietly by Seojun, stopped them cold. A detail that hadn’t mattered before suddenly felt critical. 

“Brown… you told me that room in the center of the hallway was locked, right?”  

“Yeah. It was. I couldn’t get it open. I… oh, God.”  

The blood drained from Brown’s face. He turned to McCullan, a different kind of horror rising behind his eyes. 

“McCullan… Where did you say he put Dennis?”  

“I told you! That big room in the middle!” McCullan was exasperated, his face slick with a mixture of sweat and terror. 

Seojun’s patience finally ran out. He grabbed McCullan’s shoulder, his voice a low hiss. “Think, McCullan! If the door was locked, how did the man in the mask get in?”   

“Well, obviously he… he must’ve had the key…” The words died on McCullan’s lips. You could almost see the moment it hit him—the thought finally landing. His irritation vanished, giving way to a stunned, hollow confusion… then melting into a pure, silent dread.  

And then, almost as if summoned by their collective realization, a sound began to echo from the darkness down the hallway. Faint at first, but unmistakable.  

The slow, steady beat of footsteps approaching.