Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#071Reader Mode

#071

Johan stilled like a wild animal poised before the hunt, but somehow the person trapped in the storage room seemed to possess an uncanny sense of awareness. There’s no way they could’ve heard him approach – his footsteps were practically silent. But then a desperate, raspy cough echoed from inside, followed by a heartbreaking plea:

“Please open the door. Please help me…”

Johan didn’t budge, even after hearing those pitiful words. The owner’s stern warning echoed in his mind: “Don’t go wanderin’ off, ‘specially not near that storage area back there. Employees only.” It seemed like a reasonable rule, considering the guy owned the store.

But when Johan weighed the man’s warning against the trapped person’s cries for help and what’s considered basic human decency, the right choice was obvious. He reached for the door handle, only to recoil in disgust. The handle was smeared with a sticky, black viscous substance. For a second he thought it might be blood, but the stench that hit his nose was too thick, too putrid. And the texture was way too slimy.

Sighing in resignation, Johan wiped his hand on the wall and turned the handle easily, surprised to find it unlocked. The rusty metal door swung open with an eerie screech. A thin shaft of light crept inside, slowly revealing a pitiful scene.

He saw a pair of frighteningly skinny, bare legs first. They belonged to a frail woman huddled against a metal shelf, wearing nothing but a flimsy white gown that was nearly see-through in the dim light. Her feet were bare and her lips dry and cracked as she gasped for each shaky breath. Though shadows still hid most of her face, Johan could make out the heavy exhaustion showing on her delicate features.

As the door creaked open, the woman’s eyes fluttered open and struggled to focus. At first her stare was hazy and vacant, but her pupils gradually sharpened as she noticed Johan standing there. She gazed up at him imploringly and whispered in a voice barely louder than a breath:

“Please…help me…”

When she shifted slightly, Johan spotted the harsh cable ties binding her ankles together. He could easily guess why her arms were unnaturally positioned behind her back.

But rather than immediately rushing to free her, Johan paused. He glanced back and forth between the trapped woman and the gum and candy still gripped in his hand. After pondering for a long moment, he set a single piece of sugar-free hard candy on the checkout counter.

Only then did he finally step into the dark storage room and approach the captive woman.

The room was an odd size—spacious enough to feel roomy yet cluttered enough to seem small. Various boxed items filled the shelves, making it less open than it could have been.

“It’s so dark in here. Any idea where the light switch is?” Johan asked, his large hands feeling along the walls.

After fumbling around unsuccessfully, he reached for his phone to use as a flashlight. That’s when a woman’s rough, raspy voice cut through the pitch blackness.

“There’s a pull-cord. Move a bit closer… yeah, right there in the middle.”

“Ah, found it,” Johan said, grasping the dangling cord and giving it a tug.

With a pull, the filament sparked, and the bulb sputtered to life. Although not as bright as daylight, the storage room was now bathed in a dim glow, a welcome contrast to the previous inky darkness. The sliver of light from the open door was no longer the only thing keeping the shadows at bay.

In the light, Johan finally got a good look at the woman’s face – and it wasn’t pretty. She was clearly hurt, with her hands and feet bound and blood matting her hair around a wound on her forehead. The dark red liquid had trickled down, staining her eyebrow and eyelid. Under the incandescent bulb, the ominous blood-soaked top of her head almost made her blond hair look red.

Averting his gaze from her injuries, Johan reached up and flicked the bulb with a finger. He was no expert in physics or science, but he knew an old-school incandescent lightbulb when he saw one. It reminded him of the rotary phone at his friend Christina’s grandma Dolly’s place.

As Johan contemplated the light fixture, the woman was getting impatient, her bound legs shifting restlessly. Through eyelids half-crusted with dried blood, she glared at him.

“Hey, snap out of it! That nutjob who runs this place could be back any second. That man’s not right in the head! We don’t have time for this.”

“Ah, is that so? That’s quite troubling.”

Johan nodded absently, unconsciously licking his lips. His eyes darted to the convenience store’s security cameras by the entrance before settling back on the distraught woman he now knew was named Lacey. Johan’s expression was lukewarm at best, clearly preoccupied and lacking any sense of urgency to help. Lacey immediately picked up on his distracted air. How could she not? It would have been harder to miss.

“Do you really think I’m lying to you?” Lacey questioned, her brows furrowing with a hint of disbelief. “Please, you must believe me. I’m simply a regular customer, just like you, who happened to stop by.”

She paused, swallowing hard as if to soothe her parched throat before continuing her story. “Can you hear that? The barking outside? That’s my beloved dog. I merely stopped to refuel my car, and now…” Lacey’s voice wavered, filled with anguished concern. “I can’t even imagine what might be happening to my poor baby out there, as dear to me as my own life. You don’t understand—the owner of this place is a dangerous man.”

Lacey hesitated, visibly shaken as she recounted the unsettling encounter. “After filling up, I came into the store to get a drink because I was thirsty. At first, there was no one around. But then, out of nowhere, it felt like… like someone struck me with a terrible blow to the head.”

“Your head?”

“Yes, my head—this injury,” she confirmed, gesturing cautiously with her shoulder. “When I opened my eyes again, I found myself here. And to make matters worse, my clothes had been removed.” Lacey shuddered at the memory. “The owner said to me, ‘Catching dumb scaffolding like you is my hobby.’ It was so dark that I couldn’t see anything clearly, but hearing those terrifying words left me confused and frightened. That man, the owner, wiped his hands on my handkerchief before simply… leaving me here.”

Johan nodded slowly, taking in her words.

“I see.”

“I was desperate, really desperate for someone to listen and help me. And then… you heard my voice calling out.”

“Hmmm, Did I now?”

“Yes, so please, come closer and untie me…” Lacey shrugged her shoulders, indicating her restraints, but seemed hesitant to move too much.

Johan crouched down before her, his movements usually agile and fluid, but it was clear that his tall frame was composed of resilient, powerful muscle. In what he considered a very serious tone, he asked, “Ms. Lacey, do you know how to save CCTV footage separately?”

Lacey blinked, surprised by the sudden change in topic. “CCTV? Why are you asking about that all of a sudden…” However, realization quickly dawned on her.

“Oh! You want it as evidence to show the police. Yes, I can definitely access and save that CCTV footage. It’s not too difficult.”

While her answer came quickly, it wasn’t entirely the correct assumption. Nonetheless, Johan didn’t particularly care whether it was the shady convenience store owner or this bound woman who could retrieve the footage, as long as one of them could manage it. A satisfied grin spread across his lips, flashing his teeth.

Suddenly, Johan swiftly rose from his crouched position at Lacey’s feet and glanced over his shoulder. There, standing in the now open doorway of the storage room behind them, was a man wearing a bewildered expression.

At first, Johan almost mistook him for the gruff owner due to his dark yellow shirt. But it quickly became clear that this was someone else entirely. Instead of a sweat-stained undershirt and grungy overalls, the man wore a cap with a bent visor and a faded store uniform vest. A toolbelt hung around his waist, equipped with various wrenches and tools. Most notably, he had a thick mop of dark brown hair on his head.

The clerk stood frozen in an awkward stance, his eyes darting between Johan and the bound Lacey, clearly confused. As he hesitated in the open doorway, Lacey cried out desperately, “Please help me! I’m trapped here. Please, let me out!”

“Wh-what’s going on with you two?” the clerk stammered.

“Are you deaf? I said I’m trapped here!” Lacey snapped impatiently.

“Oh, uh, yeah…” The clerk looked around frantically as if searching for guidance from some unseen authority figure. Finding none, he seemed to give up, hunching his shoulders and crossing his arms defensively over his chest as he reluctantly stepped into the storage room. He appeared completely clueless about the bizarre situation unfolding before him.

“What in the world is even happening here?”

“I was assaulted and imprisoned by the deranged owner of this place.”

“My boss?” The clerk’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“Ah, how many times do I have to repeat myself?” Lacey cried out, beyond frustrated by his uncooperative demeanor. “We don’t have time for this oblivious act!”

Turning away from the clerk, she fixed Johan with an imploring look. “This guy is useless. Please, come and untie my wrists at least. Then I can try to deal with my ankles myself.”

“Hmm…”

Johan rubbed his chin, deep in thought as he considered the suspicious situation between Lacey and the hapless employee. “So…you two don’t know each other at all, is that right?”

Lacey let out a tired sigh. “Yeah, I have no ties to this place at all. I was just attacked from behind while it was empty.” She shook her head. “It’s so dark in here, I can barely see a thing. But at least I could hear some sounds from outside. You have no idea how relieved I was when you showed up…”

The clerk nodded vigorously, looking quite shaken. “Honestly, I really had no idea the boss was capable of something like this,” he confessed. “I’m just a minimum wage worker, you know? How would I know about his personal life? Maybe his family would know more about that side of him.”

He paused for a moment, steadying himself with his left hand against his forehead while his right hand fidgeted inside his uniform pocket. “But hey, it’s a good thing the boss went out for a smoke break when he did. He has to go all the way over by the dumpsters to light up, you know, away from the gas pumps.”

As the clerk muttered this detail, Johan’s eyes caught the name tag pinned to his chest. “Alright, Ben,” he said calmly. “Since you work here, I assume you know how to operate the CCTV system, right?”

“Huh? Oh, uh… I mean, I guess I know the basics if I need to…” Ben stuttered.

A bright, almost inappropriately cheerful smile spread across Johan’s face, given the tense situation they were in. Ben visibly shuddered, as if he sensed something off about the stranger’s expression. Johan’s gaze darted down to the various pockets on Ben’s uniform vest, particularly the one the clerk had been fidgeting with, its opening tilted slightly upward.

As Ben turned a little, his arm swung and a few loose coins spilled out from that tilted pocket. They clattered against the rough, cold concrete floor of the storage room, which wasn’t as smoothly finished as the store’s interior. The coins barely managed to roll an inch or two before coming to a stop on the uneven surface. Instinctively, everyone’s attention was drawn to the fallen coins at that moment.

Under those purely coincidental circumstances, one coin spun slowly for a few rotations, almost hypnotically. It must have been a strangely mesmerizing sight. The spinning coin soon lay flat, its movement ceasing as quickly as it had begun—a fleeting moment passing in the blink of an eye.

In all honesty, there was nothing particularly remarkable about a coin falling onto a dirty floor. What was the big deal? But Johan was there. He looked at the coin lying on the floor and muttered, “I know it might sound strange, but even though our neighborhood is out in California, the coin we always used for games seemed to be from Georgia.”

It was an abrupt, seemingly nonsensical statement that left both Lacey and Ben frowning in confusion. But Johan continued speaking in that same calm, unbothered manner as if his words held no special meaning.

“I still don’t know why that is… Anyway, the side with the peach engraving was always offense, and the other side was defense. And I always liked having the first move.”

Before he had even finished speaking, Johan reached out and grabbed Ben by the shoulder, simultaneously delivering a powerful blow to the clerk’s stomach with his other fist. “Ugh!” Ben’s body folded inward at the impact, his waist bending as saliva spattered from his pursed lips. His legs, suddenly drained of all strength, gave way beneath him, and he thudded to the concrete floor.

Lacey’s chest heaved rapidly with shock and confusion as she bit her lip, struggling against the bindings around her legs. “What are you doing? What the hell is going on?!”

Johan didn’t provide any kind of explanation for his sudden attack. Instead, he looked back down at the fallen clerk and began rummaging through Ben’s clothes—not just patting his pockets but thoroughly checking inside his pants and underneath his shirt. Once satisfied, he turned back to the horrified Lacey.

“Luckily, it looks like he didn’t have a gun hidden on him anywhere.”

“No, why did you suddenly—”

Johan opened his mouth as if acknowledging that Lacey’s confusion was understandable.

“Think about the way this supposed boss behaves—it’s pretty bold, don’t you think? Attacking innocent people right inside his own store when employees are around, then carelessly dumping them in an unlocked storage room anyone could stumble into…” Johan shook his head slowly. “Does that really seem believable? Like he doesn’t care at all about covering his tracks or cleaning up afterward. It made me wonder if it’s even possible for an employee to be completely clueless.”

“But… but what if you’re wrong?”

“Ah, well then, of course, I’d have to apologize,” Johan stated with a casual shrug.

As he lightly shrugged his shoulders, his hand dipped into Ben’s pocket once more. When it reemerged, he was holding a syringe between his fingers, the glass cylinder filled with an unidentified milky liquid. Johan turned it back and forth, examining it in the low light. It was clear this was no nutritional supplement.

Lacey nervously licked her parched lips, staring at the syringe with a glimmer of desperate hope in her eyes. “Okay, so… so now, please untie me, h-hmm!”

Her words morphed into a yelp of shock as Johan abruptly jabbed the needle into her neck without warning. Her wide eyes darted incredulously between the needle burrowing into her flesh and Johan’s calm expression as he gradually pushed the plunger down.

As their eyes met, Johan smiled at her warmly. “Yeah, you too. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry?”

“You motherf-“

Before Lacey could even get the profanity out, the sedative took effect. Her eyes unfocused and rolled back as she slumped limply to the side, out cold. Johan looked down at her motionless body, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head.

“Ah…” he mumbled, face scrunching up. Probably should’ve just left her tied up since she was already restrained. Dealing with the knocked-out Ben first might’ve been easier. Grimacing, Johan massaged his neck.

“I really do make a lot of mistakes.”

It would be nice if Seojun found this clumsy side of him cute, but that was likely wishful thinking. Since what was done couldn’t be undone, he decided to take this latest slipup in stride.

Johan reached down and unhooked the hefty monkey wrench dangling from Ben’s tool belt. The cold, solid metal felt heavy in his warm hand. He gave it a practice swing, tapping it on the concrete experimentally.

“Hmm…what should I do now?”

Clang!

The startlingly sharp, reverberating ring of metal striking concrete echoed through the small storage room.

T/N: Johan is the horror this time! ∑(; °Д°)