Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#165Reader Mode

#165 

The silence that followed was heavier than the cold creeping into their bones. Seojun rubbed his arms, a useless gesture against the goosebumps crawling up his skin. The chill wasn’t from the air—it was the memory of that freezer, of being locked inside with the dark pressing in. 

Brown spun around, his voice thin with desperation. “Luciel. That freezer. You can open it from the inside, right? Please tell me you can.” 

Luciel didn’t answer. She just looked at Seojun, and in that single glance, they shared the same grim memory. The silent understanding of two inmates who’d done time together in that freezer. Seojun spoke for her, his voice sharp enough to cut. 

“If we could open it from the inside, don’t you think we would’ve gotten ourselves out? Stop pretending everything’s fine, Brown. Face it.” Seojun waved a hand toward the hallway. “This bastard was ready for us. He has the key, he knows we’re here, and we walked right into his goddamn trap. He might be an idiot, but at least he had a plan. That’s more than I can say for us.” 

The harsh words were out before Seojun could stop them. He caught the flash of hurt and anger on the faces around him and felt a brief pang of regret. Had he gone too far? He squashed it. No. They had screwed up.  

Should’ve researched the place. At the very least, picked a spot that didn’t come with its own wannabe serial killer. 

But blame wasn’t a key. It wouldn’t get them out of here. It would only waste time. 

And time was running out. The steady thump… thump… thump from the hallway was getting closer. 

That was all it took. The argument died, replaced by a sudden, frantic scramble for cover. Like roaches when the lights flick on, they scattered into the shadows. 

Brown dove for the desk, grabbing for Luciel’s arm to pull her down with him. She just planted a boot on his shoulder and shoved, leaving him to cram his large frame into the tight space alone. 

McCullan made a choked, frustrated sound. The desk had been his idea, too. The paper bag in his grip crackled, the only sound he dared to make as he stared at the remaining, terrible options. 

With no time left, Luciel scrambled for a nearby cabinet, but the dark fabric of her dress billowed out, a dead giveaway. Muttering curses under her breath, she abandoned the cabinet. The footsteps were right outside the door now. She squeezed herself into the narrow, dusty gap behind the door, pressing her back against the cold wall and praying it was enough.   

That left three cabinets and two men. One had a broken door that hung open like a crooked jaw. The other was crammed with old cardboard boxes. McCullan didn’t hesitate. He practically dove into the one stuffed with junk, burrowing into the mess before Seojun could even move. 

Leaving Seojun with the last one. Of course. 

With a grimace, he folded his lanky frame into the tight space, pulling his knees to his chest. It was a miserable fit, but at least his lean build meant nothing was sticking out. He yanked the metal door shut. 

The latch clicked softly just as the final, heavy footstep landed outside the room. 

Then… silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.  

Inside his pitch-black metal coffin, Seojun’s own breathing was deafening. Every exhale felt like a roar, every thud of his heart like a drum against the steel. He was sure the whole world could hear it. 

The footsteps stopped. Right outside the door. 

Seojun froze. His whole body ceased to exist except for his ears. He was just a pair of ears in a box, straining against the suffocating dark. 

Creeeeak.  

The unmistakable groan of old, rusty hinges. The door to the room swung open.  

Slow, deliberate steps entered the room. One footfall. Then the next. Confident. Unhurried.   

The cabinet had a narrow ventilation slit near the top, but it was useless to see through, just a line of black against black. Seojun could only sit in the dark and breathe as silently as possible, clinging to the one mercy left: thank God thoughts don’t make noise. 

Luciel’s in the worst spot. 

The realization hit like a stone in his gut. Anyone with half a brain checks behind the door first. He bit his lip until he tasted blood, picturing her flattened against the wall, praying the killer was even dumber than he looked. 

If one of us is found, we’re all dead. We’re just rats in a box, and the lid is about to slam shut.  

His heart was going to beat its way right out of his ribs. Seojun squeezed his eye shut, a useless attempt to muffle the sound of his own blood thundering in his ears.  

The factory manager had gotten here like his ass was on fire, but now he was taking his sweet time. The slow, dragging footsteps were a form of torture, making every muscle in Seojun’s body scream to move. He gritted his teeth, locking his body rigid against the fire erupting in his cramped legs. Pins and needles sparked up and down his arms, but he didn’t dare shift, didn’t dare even breathe. 

A sharp clink hit the concrete, followed by the metallic skitter of something small and round rolling across the floor. 

Seojun’s eye snapped open to the same suffocating black. Somehow it felt thicker now, pressing against his skin. Sweat trickled down his temples, stinging as it slid into his eye. 

What was that? What did he drop?  

Seojun tried to picture what the bastard had been holding, but his mind just served up that leering, pig-like face, distorted like a funhouse mirror.  

A knife doesn’t roll. 

A knife wouldn’t make that sound. 

The question was a hook in his brain, but the thought of cracking the door to look made bile rise in his throat. He swallowed it down, hard.  

And then his entire world tilted as a heavy hand shoved his cabinet. A testing push. 

Apparently, the factory manager believed in being thorough. 

The groan of metal hinges tore through the silence—the broken cabinet, mercifully empty. It bought him seconds. But the math was brutally simple. Broken cabinet. McCullan’s cabinet. Then his. 

Two more doors to open. Two more sitting ducks waiting for the slaughter. 

He’ll find us. There won’t be time to run. Not even time to fight. 

The image flashed behind Seojun’s eyelids, vivid and sickening: his own body, tossed aside like trash, limbs twisted at angles they shouldn’t bend, eyes locked open on whatever horror he’d see in his last moments. Just another mess of blood and mangled flesh on a dirty floor. 

Seojun’s heart was a wild animal, trying to claw its way out of his chest. He could already see it: the cabinet door swinging open, the grinning pig mask filling the space. He forced his head to turn, just a fraction, a soundless crackle of bone and sinew in his neck. Is this what a premonition feels like? The thought whispered through his panic. Not just fear, but the cold, calm certainty of seeing your own end? 

Cold sweat wasn’t just trickling; it was sheeting off him, drenching his back and neck. The urge to scream, to burst out of the cabinet and just get it over with, was a physical thing fighting at the base of his throat. But Seojun stayed rigid, a corpse in waiting. 

The second cabinet door creaked open. 

A deep, profound silence fell. The killer said nothing. No threats, no gloating monologue. Worse, McCullan made no sound. For a man who never shut up, his silence was a gaping wound in the air. What is he seeing? Seojun’s mind screamed. Is he staring up at that mask right now, just waiting for the knife to fall? 

A dozen bloody scenarios flashed through his mind. But there was no wet, heavy thud. No strangled cry cut short.  

Just the soft click of the door swinging shut.  

Only his was left.  

The heavy boots stopped. Directly in front of his cabinet. Seojun could feel the presence on the other side of the thin metal, a weight that seemed to press the air from his tiny space. Every last drop of fight, of hope, of anything but pure terror, evaporated.  

Too late… 

Seojun should have bolted when the killer was at McCullan’s door. He should have done something to fight back. Now he was pinned. A bug in a box, and the hand was reaching for the lid.  

Another metallic clank. Something else hit the floor.  

Seojun’s body screamed at him to flinch, but he remained frozen. His eye, stretched wide in the blackness, began to water—not from tears, but from the sheer strain of staring into nothing, refusing to blink, while every nerve ending shrieked. 

Then, impossibly, the footsteps moved away, tracking the sound of whatever had rolled across the floor. Is he leaving? A tiny, fragile bud of hope started to bloom in Seojun’s chest. The death-grip he had on his own muscles began to ease— 

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 

Not a clang. Three percussive, deafening blows slammed into his cabinet door. The metal screamed and buckled inward, folding toward Seojun’s face like the jaws of a press. The only thing that saved him from being crushed was the sheer lack of room to move. 

Then came the knife. 

It slid through the new, warped gap with a high, thin shrrriiiink that set Seojun’s teeth on edge. The scream that had been clawing its way up his throat died in a choked, soundless spasm. Good. It would have been the last sound he ever made. 

The knife was too wide for the gap, but that didn’t stop it. It twisted, probing the darkness. Hunting. It was pure malice given a physical edge, a sliver of polished death that radiated a cold so intense it felt hot. 

Time dissolved. Seojun didn’t breathe. He didn’t swallow. His entire existence shrank to the space of that cabinet and the patient, searching blade. One twitch, one gasp, one tremor… 

The steel slid deeper, scraping the warped metal, searching for the soft resistance of flesh. 

And then, with a final, whisper-quiet hiss, it withdrew. 

The cabinet door never opened. 

Footsteps retreated. The old, rusty shriek of the main door sounded once more as it swung shut. A detail his terrified mind snagged and filed away for some reason. 

He’s gone? He’s actually gone? 

Seojun stared at the warped metal just inches from his nose. Doubt, sharp and acidic, ate away at his relief. In the darkness, the deep dent looked exactly like a grin. 

What if it’s a game? 

The thought was a cold spike in his gut. What if he’s standing right out there, silent as a statue, just waiting for the first idiot to peek out? 

The silence didn’t feel safe. It felt deliberate. A baited hook. This was exactly the kind of twisted game where one wrong move got you killed. He could crack the door, just a sliver, but the image of that pig mask floating on the other side, waiting, made his stomach churn. 

No. He had to wait. 

Seojun squeezed his eye shut and gave himself an order. Count. Count to a thousand. Don’t move a muscle until you hit a thousand. 

One… two… three… 

The numbers were anchors in the swirling blackness of his fear. 

…seven, eight… ten—no, nine… eleven, twelve… twenty… 

Seojun’s mind started to slip. The numbers blurred, skipping ahead, doubling back. He lost his place. Thirty-one, thirty-two… fifty-something… one hundred and… and what? 

The higher he tried to climb, the more his brain rebelled, the numbers scattering like dust. Soon Seojun had no idea if he was at fifty or five hundred. The confusion was a fresh hell, his heart hammering against his ribs as he lost his only anchor. 

Is this what it feels like to break? Seojun thought, panic taking hold. Not just being scared, but having your own mind turn on you, dissolving into useless static when you need it most? 

Seojun was drowning in it, lost in the failed count, when— 

The cabinet door was wrenched open, and the world exploded in a blast of blinding light.