Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#182Reader Mode

T/N: 🔥🔥 Double Release 🔥🔥

#182

The mystery key felt like it was searing a hole through his pocket, but whatever door it opened would have to wait. Right now, survival meant one thing—staying the hell away from the Nurse.

Seojun eyed the staircase ahead. The steps told their own grisly story—deep gouges carved into the floor, dark stains dried to a crusted black. Blood that old didn’t lie. The Nurse had come down from the second floor.

It checked out. They’d already searched through every corner of the first floor earlier and come up empty. She’d been up there the whole time, just waiting. The idea that she might’ve stood right where he was now made his skin crawl. He’d lost his phone because of her. Because of McCullan.

And speaking of McCullan, the guy was barely keeping it together. Jaw clenched, face crumpled, tears streaming down his cheeks. At least he’d finally learned to shut up. Only took an hour and a near-death experience.

If only he figured that out sooner.

Seojun wasn’t the type to offer a pep talk to someone who nearly got them all killed. Instead, he reached over mid-walk and jammed his hand into McCullan’s pocket.

McCullan flinched like he’d been slapped, eyes wide with outrage.

Seojun didn’t even look at him. Just fished out the phone like it was his own. Fair was fair. He’d lost his phone saving this idiot. This wasn’t theft, it was compensation.

Seojun swiped the screen as they climbed. No passcode. Of course McCullan was that guy. The wallpaper made him want to bleach his eye: McCullan shirtless, flexing in a bathroom mirror like every gym bro cliché on the internet. What had he done to deserve this punishment?

He slipped the phone into his pocket, trying not to think about the one he’d lost. By now, Samantha had probably turned it into plastic bits. He could always call his parents’ number later to hear Johan’s voice again, at least. But the photos from his trip? The notes he’d been collecting? No cloud backup. Gone. Probably for good.

People said life was fleeting. They usually meant it in a poetic, live-in-the-moment kind of way. Not literally—as in you might be dead in five minutes.

His legs stopped moving.

Not because of the exhaustion—though that was real. Not because of the metallic-sugar taste in his mouth—though that was real too. Not even because his brain was spiraling with useless thoughts he couldn’t afford.

No. This was simpler.

Seojun looked up, blinking hard to clear his vision.

A security shutter blocked the stairs to the third floor. Deep slashes clawed across the metal. Fresh ones, still catching the dim light. Like something had tried to cut through, and nearly succeeded.

The Nurse. It had to be her.

Seojun shook his head and pointed back toward the second floor. There was no way he could force that shutter open, not even on his best day. And right now? Half-dead, lungs burning, running on fumes?

No chance.

Worse, the floor around it still had bolt holes where the shutter used to be anchored. Someone had ripped those bolts straight out. Even if he could lift it—which he couldn’t—the noise alone would make Samantha come running. After all that effort losing her, it’d be suicide. Might as well text her their location and throw in a GPS pin.

It was the worst choice in the worst possible moment.

They turned to head down to the second floor.

Then came a crash from downstairs. Not a scream. Not voices. The unmistakable thud of heavy furniture being shoved aside—dragged, then hurled.

McCullan froze, trembling, his panicked gaze darting between Levi and Seojun.

Too late. She’d noticed they were gone.

And then came the sound they feared most.

Metal on concrete.

That grating scrape-click rhythm—inhuman and inevitable—rising from the first floor, one step at a time.

She was coming.

Scrape. Click. Scrape.

Seojun scurried down the steps and onto the second floor like a mouse with its tail caught in a trap. The air reeked of rotting soil—overturned flowerpots smashed along the walls. He stumbled past them, barely registering the mess, and lunged at the nearest door.

Locked.

“Dammit!”

If he had the strength—or the time—he could’ve probably broken the worn-out doorknob. But he didn’t have a second to waste. He pivoted left, grabbed the next closest handle, and yanked.

The door flew open so fast he nearly stumbled backward. Levi caught him just in time, with McCullan barreling in right behind her.

“Get in, now!”

She shoved him forward, McCullan crashing into them as they all spilled through the doorway in a tangle of limbs and adrenaline. The door slammed shut behind them, but the frame was warped—it wouldn’t latch properly. A thin sliver of hallway darkness remained, uncomfortably visible.

Still, they pressed their backs to it, hearts pounding loud enough to drown out thought. Their breath came in ragged gasps, each one too loud in the dark, hollow space.

Seojun fumbled for the phone in his pocket and turned on the flashlight, its narrow beam slicing through the gloom. McCullan’s panicked muttering buzzed in his ear, his shoulder digging hard into Seojun’s ribs. Whatever he was saying, Seojun wasn’t listening.

Nothing mattered except surviving the next sixty seconds.

The room they’d ducked into was in worse shape than anything on the first floor or in the basement. The floor tiles were a wreck—shattered, cracked, uneven—leaving barely any solid footing. There wasn’t a single chair in sight. Just a heavy desk, large and useless, toppled onto its side with one broken leg.

A second door stood across the room, half-obstructed by the fallen desk, making it awkward to reach. A wall-mounted monitor had come loose and now lay on the floor, screen shattered and corners crushed beyond repair.

What was this place? An exam room? Maybe.

Seojun’s eyes darted around, scanning the dim space. In the back corner, a curtain rod hung across a small alcove—changing stalls, probably. Cramped. Too tight for all three of them. But maybe two could fit—

SCRAPE. CLICK. SCRAPE…

Closer. Much closer now.

Without a word, McCullan darted into the farthest stall. The curtain rings screeched as he yanked it shut. Levi and Seojun dove into the other one, stumbling into each other in a frantic blur of limbs and panic.

They crammed themselves into the narrow space—chest to shoulder, elbow to ribs, breath tangled together. The wall dug into Seojun’s spine, but he didn’t dare shift. His heart hammered against his chest, hard enough to hurt. Even with Levi’s body warm against his, all he felt was cold.

Terror didn’t leave room for anything else.

No excitement. No awkward tension. Just fear.

The scraping outside didn’t stop.

Seojun couldn’t stop sweating, couldn’t work up enough spit to swallow. Levi was too close—her pale face just inches from his, eyes wide and glassy with fear. Her fingers clenched his shoulders as she ducked her head against his collarbone, trying to whisper without making a sound. He knew she was just trying to stay quiet. But her breath brushed his neck, making him shiver.

“Is that really Samantha? Seriously? Since when—no, how is she even moving?”

Seojun rested his chin lightly on top of Levi’s head and whispered back.

“If I knew that, you think I’d be hiding here like this? I’d have written a thesis, won a Nobel Prize in biology, become a famous cult leader…”

“I saw it with my own eyes, and I still can’t believe it. This is bad. Really, really bad. I didn’t think she had that much left in her.”

Her voice had gone thin—defeated, almost numb. Seojun wanted to throw out a sarcastic one-liner. Maybe offer some half-baked reassurance, something to make her laugh, or at least roll her eyes. But nothing came.

Because she was right. And he was right there with her.

How was Samantha still moving?

The stamina alone was horrifying. Ghost stories always said spirits faded once their grudges were resolved—that was the whole point. But Samantha didn’t seem bound by any of those rules. Whatever was keeping her going, it wasn’t unfinished business anymore.

It was hatred. Pure, unrelenting, bottomless hatred.

She was running on it like a battery that would never die.

Seojun exhaled through his nose, slow and careful.

“Doesn’t matter how we got here, how much gas she’s got left. It changes nothing. Plan’s still the same.”

Their frantic escape earlier had taken them all the way up to the blocked third floor, but that was never the real goal. The emergency exit on the second floor had always been the target. Getting stranded here was a fluke. A lucky one, actually. They were already where they needed to be.

Now all they had to do was slip past Samantha and make it to the basement.

Easy. Right?

Seojun quietly outlined the plan to Levi. She didn’t say a word—just listened, then shifted slightly, shoulders curling inward, chin dipping low. Something hard in her chest pocket jabbed into Seojun’s ribs.

“Hm…”

Levi swallowed. Her eyes flicked sideways but never quite met his. She clearly wasn’t convinced about Seojun’s ghost-pepper spray theory. And honestly? He didn’t blame her. Whether or not she hung out on occult forums, it was easy to talk about believing in that kind of thing. Believing was cheap. Betting your life on spicy mist working? That was something else.

Seojun froze.

Why was it so quiet?

The rhythmic scrape-click of her feet had stopped.

That was the only warning they got.

Thwip—

A scalpel punched through the curtain just above Seojun’s head, the blade flashing in the faint light. A full hand followed—five scalpels for fingers—ripping sideways. The curtain shredded like paper, dust and fabric raining down on them.

And then the curtain fell away.

She was there.

Nurse Samantha. Looming above them.

From the floor, Seojun could see every blade jutting from her fingers, each one glinting wet where metal fused with flesh. She had known. The whole time—every whisper, every breath—they’d never fooled her.

She had been listening.

The scalpels had sliced through the air right where his throat would’ve been—if he’d been standing. If Levi had been standing. Either way, someone’s neck should’ve been split open.

Seojun’s legs wouldn’t stop shaking. The tremors ran from his thighs down to his ankles, his muscles turning to jelly. Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision—soft, gentle, almost kind.

Just close your eye. Just for a second. Let it all disappear.

No. Pass out now, and you won’t wake up again.

“Aaaargh!”

The ugly scream tore out of him. It wasn’t courage. It wasn’t anything noble. Just fear with nowhere left to go.

Seojun shoved Levi aside and kicked upward with everything he had, all that useless height finally doing something. His heel slammed into Samantha’s thigh—the ruined one. The one they’d crushed with the waiting room chairs.

The Nurse buckled and went down hard with no proper toes to balance her.

Seojun was already scrambling up, trying to vault over her writhing body, but the space was too narrow. Her limbs flailed wildly in the gap between stalls, blades flashing in the dark.

Something stung his ankle like a whip.

“Ugh!”

Fire exploded along the bone. Seojun didn’t stop. He burst through the door and staggered into the dark corridor, no plan, no direction—just run. His legs moved on instinct alone, his brain completely out of the loop.

Unfortunately, his instincts were idiots.

He didn’t know the second floor’s layout. The stairs to the third floor were blocked.

So—

Down.

His mind clung to the only option it could understand. Second floor unknown. Third floor blocked. Down was the only answer left. Down made sense. Down meant away.

Warmth pooled in his shoe with every step.

Seojun was bleeding.

Every footfall left a mark—bloody breadcrumbs leading straight to him. Something caved in inside his chest. Not physically. Nothing touched him. But something still collapsed all the same, leaving a hollow where hope used to be.

Despair.

The walls didn’t move, but they felt closer. The corridor didn’t shrink, but the air thickened, turning heavy and syrupy in his lungs. His mind understood before his body did.

There was no way out.

No miracle waiting.

Just him, and the thing hunting him.

I’ll never escape.

The door behind him exploded outward.

Samantha burst into the corridor, one finger bent at an odd angle. He’d put some distance between them, but it was obvious she’d followed him immediately. The air went icy as she closed in, that unnatural cold pouring off her like winter through a cracked window.

Seojun stumbled backward. His heel caught on the edge of the top step.

There was nowhere left to go.

“Ha…”

Even breathing hurt. His body felt like it had been poured full of lead—arms, legs, lungs. His ankle screamed the loudest, throbbing in time with his pulse, each beat a reminder of how badly he’d already lost. Outrunning her wasn’t an option.

No Levi. No McCullan.

Whether they’d been caught or were still hiding, Seojun had no idea. There was only the dark corridor, and the thing charging toward him through it.

Give up.

The thought crept in uninvited, sticky and persistent. Kneel. Close your eyes. It’ll be quick. And some small, shameful part of him wanted to listen. Samantha still had nine working scalpel-fingers left. Nineteen if you counted her feet. Seojun had his bare fists. And a body that could barely stand.

He didn’t even have a stick.

Seojun bit down on the inside of his cheek. Hard. Harder. Until the sharp sting bloomed and the taste of copper flooded his tongue. His eye watered from the pain.

Not yet. Not yet.

His hands trembled as they clenched into fists. Useless, maybe—just bare fists against a ghost stitched together with scalpels. But still. It was something.

When she lunges, move. Sideways. Just sideways.

Could he actually pull it off? Did it even matter?

Samantha was nearly on him now, looming in his bloodshot vision. Her stitched-shut eyes bulged unnaturally, as if she could see through the seams, through the dark, through him. Seojun couldn’t look away. He wondered if this would be the last thing he saw.

Then—footsteps.

From behind. From the stairwell. Fast. Urgent. Someone pounding up the stairs—three, four, five steps. No time to turn. Heat brushed against his back. Fingers skimmed the side of his neck, feather-light. Then a steady hand gripped his shoulder.

“Jun, duck.”

The voice was low, calm, and all too familiar.