Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#169Reader Mode

#169 

10. The Abandoned Hospital, Are You There? 

The sky was the color of a fresh bruise. Clouds churned overhead, dark and swollen, racing across the horizon as if chasing one another. The air felt humid enough to grab by the handful. 

Seojun stuck his gloved hand out the truck’s open window as the vehicle bounced and groaned over the uneven dirt road. He turned his palm up, letting the cool, wet air brush his wrist, and squinted at the clouds. Yeah… if those things broke, it wouldn’t just rain. It’d pour—the kind of relentless downpour that turned dirt tracks into sludge. Definitely not part of the plan.  

With a grunt, he pulled his hand back and tightened his grip on the steering wheel, keeping his gaze on the van ahead. His guide had just swerved sharply onto a trail so narrow it was practically a rumor, disappearing into a wall of tangled brush. Instantly, the forest swallowed them. Green and brown closed in tight, sealing off the world beyond. No birds. No rustling leaves. Just the wet, sucking squelch of tires grinding through mud. 

The dark earth clung to their wheels, dragging at them with each turn. Both vehicles carved deep tracks through the ground, two fresh scars slashed into earth that had been left undisturbed for years. 

A lone cricket, startled by the vibrations, launched itself off a weed with an angry chirp. Seojun eased the truck to a stop behind the van and cut the engine. The sudden silence rang in his ears, settling heavy around him. For a moment, he just sat there, breathing it in. Then he shoved the door open.  

A pair of long legs unfolded first. His sneakers—maybe white once upon a time, now just a muddy gray—prodded the soft ground before taking his weight. The rest of Seojun’s lanky frame spilled out after them, a clumsy, unfolding thing. 

“Huuuugh…” 

The groan slipped out before he could stop it. 

Seojun scrubbed at one bloodshot eye with the back of his glove, feeling the rough drag of rubber against his knuckles. The worst part was that this exhaustion had nothing to do with the long drive, or even the fight with the Factory Manager earlier that morning. 

“Shut the hell up, you crazy bastard! My ears are actually bleeding!” 

McCullan’s voice cracked through the quiet like a snapped branch. He staggered out of his sports car a beat later, looking wrecked—cheeks hollow, eyes twitching, one hand braced on the door while the other pointed a trembling finger at Dennis.  

The source of their shared misery, naturally, didn’t give a damn. Dennis just snorted. 

“Better than having no ears at all, right McCullan? You should be thanking Luciel, too.” 

“Aaaaargh!” 

McCullan howled and grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, yanking like he was trying to rip the thoughts straight out of his skull. Watching the meltdown, Seojun shoved his phone—still warm from overuse—deep into his pocket as if it were contaminated. 

Why. Why. Why did I give that lunatic my number? 

He shot a sidelong glance at Dennis, who was muttering to himself like some unhinged cultist, and felt a full-body cringe. Back at the Happy Pig factory, handing over his number had seemed harmless. Maybe an impulsive little peace offering born out of… what, exactly? Camaraderie? The shared-trauma bond of surviving the Factory Manager? 

Yeah. No. Wrong. 

Seojun should’ve known better. It wasn’t like he and Bobby became best friends after Hamon campground. Dennis had exactly one purpose in life: preaching the gospel of Luciel to any poor bastard cursed with functional ears. Seojun giving him his number was basically shoving the hook in deeper. 

The entire drive had been hell. His phone had been under siege the whole time—a relentless flood of texts, links, and voice memos, every last one an unholy hymn to Luciel’s “glorious miracles.” 

After Seojun finally managed to kill the call, McCullan became the next unlucky soul in Dennis’s line of fire. Since he couldn’t drive drunk, he’d been trapped in his own sports car, forced to marinate in Dennis’s nonstop sermon with no escape. Self-inflicted torture, really. Even now, standing on solid ground, McCullan was still swaying, moaning about motion sickness and a skull-splitting headache. He looked like someone had grabbed him by the soul and wrung him out like a filthy dishrag.  

“M-Mina… please, I need to hear your nightingale voice… cleanse my ears…” 

McCullan’s fingers fumbled across his phone screen, frantic as he tried to summon his angelic-voiced savior. But Mina wasn’t picking up. His rapid-fire walls of text were also being met with the digital equivalent of a slammed door. 

After their little misadventure at the factory, Seojun had a pretty solid read on McCullan’s player personality, and he didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out why Mina was ghosting him. Sure, they’d saved each other’s asses once, but that didn’t make them friends. 

Seojun was already kicking himself for giving Dennis his number. McCullan was getting cut loose, pronto. 

The second I find that teddy bear, I’m changing my number. 

Just as he was making that vow, Brown and Luciel strolled over from the lead van. They’d clearly been scouting ahead—Seojun noticed a damp leaf stuck to the toe of Luciel’s shoe, proof enough they’d been nosing through the undergrowth. 

He tore his gaze away from them and looked up at the silhouette of the building looming through the tangled trees. 

“So this is it? The abandoned hospital?” 

Honestly, it looked better than he’d expected. He’d been picturing collapsed floors and jagged rebar jutting out like broken bones. Instead, it was just… sad. A grimy, four-story block that had given up years ago, streaked with rain stains, windows clouded with dust, but still standing.  

For a place with “abandoned” in the name, it could’ve been worse. 

Still, it wasn’t the hospital that made his skin crawl. It was the town they’d driven through to get here. The memory alone was enough to make his stomach twist. A few houses scattered on a dead-end road, no lights, no cars, no people. Dead silent. It felt like everyone had just… vanished. 

How the hell did the Occult Night crew keep finding these places? Did they have some kind of creepy radar? 

Luciel’s ponytails bounced in sync as she nodded eagerly, not a single hair out of place. Of course she’d taken the time to retie them. 

“Indeed, Eye Carrying the Star of Utmost Darkness,” she declared, voice ringing with solemn authority. “This is St. Montgomery Hospital, a place where gloomy spirits gather and writhe.” She paused, switching back to her normal tone. “Oh, right. I used this well.” 

She held out the can of pepper spray. 

Seojun just stared at it. 

Well, if by “used it well” you mean “it did absolutely nothing,” then yeah, nailed it. 

When he didn’t take it, Brown stepped in instead. 

“Want me to buy you a new one?” 

“Nah, it’s not that…” 

The truth was, Seojun couldn’t afford to get his hopes up about a place like this. Sure, he wanted nothing to happen. He’d love for this to be a boring ghost hunt, a quick in-and-out job. But let’s be honest, when had anything in his life ever been simple? 

Life’s got a pattern, right? Sweet, then salty. I’ve had ghost after ghost… so by my logic, I’m overdue for some regular humans. 

Not that his math skills were any better in this life than his last, but hey—thinking like that was oddly comforting. 

“Tell you what,” Seojun said, gently pushing her hand back. “You keep it for now. Just in case we run into some living, breathing thugs in there.” 

He scratched his cheek, lips twisting wryly. At least pepper spray actually worked on things with functioning noses and pain receptors, unlike a certain ghost he’d recently crossed paths with. 

Okay, if something has to jump out at us, please let it be human this time. Wait, no, scratch that. That bastard Fred was human, and he still took my squishy eye away from me. Ah, that son of a bitch… 

The thought of Fred still made Seojun’s teeth ache. That day had been pure chaos—a blur of panic, pain, and a desperate fight where there wasn’t even time to breathe, let alone think. But the anger? That hadn’t gone anywhere. If he were being honest, the only way to really settle that score would be to dig the bastard up and return the favor. 

Unfortunately, that would put a pretty noticeable stain on his otherwise spotless criminal record. 

Seojun pressed the heel of his hand hard against his eyepatch, willing the thought away. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, forcing his mind to shift tracks. 

Realistically, what were the odds of stumbling into two supernatural shitshows in a single day? Life could be cruel, sure, but it couldn’t be that much of a bitch. …Right? 

Seojun let out a slow, steady breath, and the thought seemed to help. A breeze kicked up, cool and clean, ruffling his hair. It actually felt… nice. He pushed a few messy strands out of his face, grimacing at how long it’d gotten. At this rate, he was one bad week away from looking like he lived under a bridge. Tucking the hair behind his ear, he turned to Brown. 

“So, uh… this is the spot, right? Where is everybody?” 

A small knot of unease twisted in him. What if they’d taken a wrong turn somewhere? But Brown just shook his head and jerked his chin toward a tangled wall of overgrown weeds. 

“This is it. That mess over there used to be the parking lot. You can’t really see it now, but when we first pulled up, there was a van and a couple of motorcycles parked there. Guess they went on ahead.” 

“Dammit, Mina! Kira! Neither of them are picking up their goddamn phones!” 

McCullan came stomping over, his frustration radiating off him like heat. He immediately started taking it out on Brown for no better reason than proximity. 

“They’re probably just exploring, McCullan,” Brown said, trying to soothe him. “It’s a big place.” 

“A big place?”  

Those were the last words Seojun wanted to hear. He was aiming for a quick grab-and-go mission, not a guided tour of a creepy, abandoned hospital. 

“Oh, right,” Brown added, turning to him. “I probably should’ve told you, Seojun, but this place has a bit of a… history. A few ghost stories, too.” 

So this isn’t just some hospital that had gone out of business.  

Brown must’ve caught the look on his face, because he immediately looked a little sheepish, clearing his throat before telling the story:  

So, the story goes, St. Montgomery Hospital started out as one of those “restore your faith in humanity” projects. Built from donations, they say. A local track star, Montgomery Maladarli, auctioned off his old running shoes to kickstart the fund. The person who bought the shoes got so inspired, they donated them right back, and just like that, the whole town joined in. For a while, it was beautiful. The hospital was hope made of brick and steel. 

You see, back then, folks around here were driving hours just to see a doctor. St. Montgomery was supposed to change all that. 

But… fate’s funny like that. Within a few short years, the place was bleeding money. Then came this businessman, slick suit, big plans. The man wanted to flip the hospital into a long-term care facility. 

That’s when it happened. 

“The businessman ended up murdered,” Brown continued. “And there were thirty-four suspects. Six wives. Nine divorces. Eighteen kids, once you counted the illegitimate ones. Half the family made the suspect list. Can you imagine trying to sort out that estate? The legal nightmare alone…” 

Seojun’s jaw went slack. He just stared at Brown, brain buffering like a dying computer. And here he was thinking his life had veered into some weird side character’s subplot from The Murderer of the Bloody Lake. Apparently, reality had decided to one-up fiction. 

Brown caught the look on his face and gave a small, knowing nod, like yeah, I know. Total mess. 

“So yeah, nobody wanted St. Montgomery Hospital after that. The place’s been abandoned for years now. No buyers. No new owners. The court’s still tangled up in the inheritance. And for a hospital that ain’t worth much anyway… people just stopped talking about it.”