Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#116Reader Mode

#116

Seojun’s face stiffened at the Wizard’s teasing words. For once, he was actually grateful for the rough burlap sack hiding his expression. He never thought something so annoying could bring him comfort, but here he was, oddly relieved by it.

He didn’t bother giving a response. Instead, he just nodded, his movements a little clumsy as he began collecting his scattered items: a sketchbook, colored pencils, a key, and a gavel. With no bag or pouch to keep them in, he awkwardly hugged them to his chest like a kid trying to hold on to too many toys at once.

As he glanced down, Seojun couldn’t help but feel that the gavel was the most useless of the bunch. The sketchbook and pencils were like magical wands, allowing him to communicate with the Wizard. The key, obviously, was essential for getting into the storage room. But the gavel? It served no real purpose other than calming him when his nerves got shaky. If his captor was standing in front of him, he might’ve been tempted to use it to bash his head in. But no, the guy was safely locked away somewhere with the Wizard, leaving Seojun alone with nothing but his growing frustration. A bitter smile crept onto his face as he cursed his own foolish temper and trudged toward the storage room.

As he approached, the weathered storage room door loomed before him. Its plain, ordinary appearance somehow made it worse. This was the kind of door you’d expect to see in a peaceful suburban home, not one guarding secrets tainted by murder.

Seojun paused, straining his ears against the silence. Only the soft whistle of wind sneaking through the cracks greeted him. Taking a steadying breath, he slipped the key into the lock. He was surprised by how smoothly it turned, offering no resistance. The thought of the kidnapper meticulously oiling the lock, as if it were just another chore on a quiet day in this messed-up place, gave him the creeps. With a groan, the door creaked open, its hinges protesting the movement…

“Cough, cough.”

Seojun’s hand shot up to cover his mouth as he coughed, each step kicking up thick clouds of dust that puffed around him like smoke. The air was heavy and sour, reeking of dampness and decay, and the smell hit his nose hard, making him scrunch up his face in disgust. Mold spread like ugly veins along the darkened walls, and the rotting wood beneath his feet groaned, releasing a sickly odor that made his stomach churn.

“Meticulous, my ass!” Seojun cursed, feeling a sudden flash of anger at the kidnapper’s half-hearted attempts to keep the place clean. No one had promised him anything better, but somewhere along the way, he’d let himself hope. Foolish. That was his real mistake.

“Damn it…”

The icy grip of fear that had clung to Seojun’s skin started to melt away, replaced by a growing sense of irritation. The tension knotted at the base of his skull loosened, allowing his stiff posture to relax, if only slightly. For someone like Seojun, with a weak body and spirit, staying alert was a constant uphill battle.

He cast a wary glance around the cramped room. It couldn’t have been more than thirteen square meters, if that, and even that felt excessive. The walls seemed to press inward, as if the space itself might cave in at any moment.

To his right, rusty metal shelves lined the wall, cluttered with useless junk and scraps, adding to the overwhelming sense of chaos. Above the front wall, a narrow, filthy window rattled with every gust of wind, making the room feel like a fragile, neglected box.

Seojun’s heart quickened as he approached the window, a flicker of hope rising within him. Could this be his way out? But as he inspected it more closely, that glimmer quickly faded. The opening was far too small. Even if he dislocated his shoulders or twisted himself unnaturally, the thick iron bars were unyielding, standing like prison teeth. It was clear that he wouldn’t be able to squeeze through. At least, not without leaving pieces of himself behind.

Something else had been nagging at him since he entered the room. Slowly, he set down the bundle of items he’d been hugging close and crouched low to the floor. His gaze locked onto faint marks smeared across the walls and the worn, splintering floorboards.

Bloodstains.

Old, dried, and dark, they stood out like grim reminders of what had happened here. Someone had bled here, and by the look of it, whoever it was hadn’t died quickly. The room hadn’t been cleaned in time to hide the traces of whatever horror had taken place. Seojun’s fingers twitched beneath the rough burlap sack covering his hands, curling and uncurling.

Until now, Seojun had held on to the hope that the shared journal’s disturbing confessions were just lies. But those bloodstains shattered that naïve optimism. S’s crimes were right there, staining the walls and floor, and proving otherwise now seemed impossible.

Is there even a way to prove his innocence? No… was he ever innocent to begin with?

A cold sweat trickled down Seojun’s back as the weight of the realization sank in. But before he could fully process it, a sudden voice boomed from above, startling him so badly that he nearly jumped out of his skin.

— Can you hear me clearly?

The words echoed through the room, and Seojun landed hard on his rear, his heart hammering in his chest. His gaze shot upward, catching the blinking red light of a CCTV camera mounted in the corner, its eye watching his every move. He pressed a hand to his chest, trying to calm the frantic beat of his heart.

Shakily, he dragged his sketchbook closer, but his hands trembled too much to write anything coherent. Flipping through the earlier pages, he searched desperately for something already written to respond with. But page after page came up empty.

His gaze flicked nervously between the sketchbook and the camera. The Wizard’s voice always seemed to cut in at the worst possible moments, jarring him out of his thoughts. Was that on purpose? A tactic to mess with him, to keep him off balance?

The seed of distrust, planted earlier, began to grow. Its roots curled deeper into his mind, making him question everything.

Seojun glanced warily at the ever-watchful eye of the camera. Reluctantly, he reached for a colored pencil.

[ㅇ]

Without thinking too hard, he scribbled the Korean letter “ㅇ.” It looked like an “O” to an English speaker, just a simple circle. But maybe that was enough for now. He waved the letter in the air.

— Hmm?

The Wizard muttered under his breath, his voice barely registering as Seojun’s attention shifted. Taking advantage of the pause, Seojun pressed his hands against the cold, creaky floor, searching for anything out of place. As he scooted back, his fingertips brushed against something rough.

A protruding nail.

The Wizard’s voice suddenly spiked with excitement as he spotted what Seojun had found.

— Open it, quick!

This bastard… acting all excited when he’s not the one doing the hard work.

Seojun scowled, but despite the Wizard’s enthusiasm, a knot of fear tightened in his chest. What if something horrible happened the second he lifted that floorboard? But if he didn’t do it… he might be stuck here forever.

In this decaying mansion, where cruel experiments once took place in the pursuit of invisibility, Seojun could be trapped forever, with only the Wizard’s disembodied voice for company.

And what about his parents? They’d search for him, tireless and desperate, plastering his face on missing person flyers, distributing them far and wide. Grief would consume them, their lives falling apart as they struggled to make sense of it. They’d lose focus at work, their relationship would unravel, maybe even leading to divorce. And Johan… he’d be a wreck, following them with haunted eyes, clutching a worn-out photo. Tears would stream down his face as he traced the features of someone they could no longer find…

“F*ck!”

No. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d fought too hard to survive just to give up now. Seojun clenched his jaw, his pulse quickening as a surge of determination took hold. Without a second thought, he yanked the nail free. Eyes squeezed shut, breath held tight, he pulled the floorboard loose, bracing himself for whatever lay beneath.

“……”

— There’s nothing there.

Seojun blinked, his eyes slowly fluttering open. First one, then the other.

The Wizard was right. When he pushed the floorboard aside and leaned over to peer into the hollow space beneath, it was completely empty. The gap was just big enough to hide a small person, but for now, it was barren.

“So this is the place, huh.”

Seojun’s gaze flickered between relief and disappointment. At least there was no putrid stench of decay, which would have been a horrific experience, no matter how long the body had been hidden. But even so, the emptiness felt like a letdown, as if he’d braced himself for a grim discovery only to find… nothing.

A dry, self-deprecating chuckle slipped from his lips. This wasn’t a field trip, so what was he even hoping for? He tapped his knee absentmindedly, thoughts swirling as he tried to make sense of it all.

Did they get rid of the body quickly? According to the journal, they didn’t plan to keep it here for long…

With a groan, he stretched his stiff legs and ambled toward the window. He didn’t need to stretch or stand on his toes to reach it. He extended an arm and knocked his knuckles against the iron bars. They felt solid—firmly set in place. But the people behind the invisible woman’s murder were hardly ordinary. They were something more, beings with powers that didn’t follow the rules of logic or reason.

These bars must’ve been here when they were locked up. They must’ve found a way to remove them…

Seojun took a step back, his eyes narrowing as he studied the window. Even if he stripped every bit of flesh and muscle from his bones, there was no way he’d squeeze through that narrow opening. But D, with her small, lifeless body? Death would’ve made her immune to pain, numb to the horror of being forced through those bars. She wouldn’t cry out or flinch… just a silent, motionless corpse.

The image twisted his face into a grimace. The thought of pushing a dead woman through that window was too much to handle. He shook off the sickening image, leaning forward to press his face against the cold glass and peer out into the world beyond.

A hazy sky hung overhead, casting a dull, gray light over the barren clearing. In the distance, the shadowy outline of a forest stretched out, its dark trees standing like silent sentinels. Somewhere beyond, the swamp likely cradled D’s submerged body, lost in the murky depths.

There wasn’t a single soul in sight. Still, Seojun wasn’t about to give up that easily. He drew in a deep breath, clinging to the faint spark of hope still burning inside him.

“Hey! Is anyone out there? Help! Somebody, please! Fire!” he shouted, his voice cutting through the stillness, thick with raw desperation.

He grabbed the iron bars, shaking them with all the strength he could muster as his muffled cries fought their way through the small holes in the burlap sack covering his head. Each shout bled into the next, merging into one continuous, anguished plea. But there was no answer. Only the distant rustling of leaves, indifferent and uncaring. His own voice echoed back to him, cold and hollow.

The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive. Seojun bit his lip, the weight of crushing disappointment settling over him.

“Yeah, I didn’t expect my luck to be that good anyway,” he muttered, the spark of hope dying out as quickly as it had flared.

A cynical, sharp look crossed Seojun’s face, much like a fox pretending not to care about the sour grapes just out of reach. He let go of the bars and slumped against the windowsill, propping his chin in his hands with a defeated sigh.¹T/N: The idiom refers to Aesop’s fable “The Fox and the Grapes,” where a fox tries and fails to reach a bunch of grapes hanging high on a vine. After several attempts, the fox gives up and walks away, claiming the grapes were probably sour anyway. In this context, Seojun is similarly pretending not to care, though he clearly feels defeated.

There was so much to think about, but no answers seemed anywhere close. His mind was a jumbled mess, yet the only thing really bothering him in that moment was the miserable sensation of his fingers trapped inside the coarse burlap sack—it nearly brought him to tears. Out of habit, he’d rested his chin on his hand, expecting to see his thin, bony fingers. Instead, all he felt was the crinkling texture of the sack.

Seojun had always been meticulous about his precious body, treating it with care. He could deal with pain in life-or-death situations, sure, but under normal circumstances, even something like losing a fingernail seemed unthinkable. So how could T have been so heartless, cutting off her own hand like that? Did she really think that would strip her of her power?

Yet after all that, T’s abilities had only grown stronger. In fact, wasn’t she the one who had quietly disposed of D’s body? She must’ve used her telekinesis to lift D’s petite corpse and dump it into some swamp deep in the forest.

Wait a minute… this doesn’t make sense.

Seojun’s scattered thoughts suddenly crystallized into a single, nagging question. Sure, D was small, but was she really small enough to be squeezed through a window like this? And even if she was, wouldn’t she have been too heavy for T to lift?

He pictured D’s frail, emaciated body. But even a thin person still has weight, right? Could T’s telekinesis really be that strong? Seojun remembered how unpredictable T’s powers were. Moving little things like chalk or shoes was one thing, but an entire human body? That seemed impossible.

But D’s body really did disappear, and T’s powers were supposed to be the key to getting rid of her.

Frustration erupted inside Seojun as he paced back and forth, his thoughts spiraling faster and faster. His fists clenched tightly, and in a moment of helplessness, he struck his own head repeatedly. He wanted to grab his hair and scream, but even that small release was impossible with the burlap sacks on him.

— What’s wrong with you, Oz? Losing your mind? Or did a T-Rex just stroll by?

The Wizard’s sarcastic voice cut through Seojun’s turmoil, completely lacking any hint of empathy. His exasperation was clear, as if Seojun’s breakdown was just an annoyance, nothing worth genuine concern.

Seojun froze. His gaze drifted slowly upward, locking onto the blinking red light of the CCTV camera. For a fleeting moment, his desperation faded. He realized something he’d overlooked in his panic. From the very start, he hadn’t been truly alone in this mess. He wasn’t the only one trapped here.

T/N For those not familiar with the fable:

The Fox & the Grapes

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.

The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.

Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.

“What a fool I am,” he said. “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.”

And off he walked very, very scornfully.

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

“Aesop’s Fables”—also called “the Aesopica”—are a collection of stories designed to teach moral lessons credited to Aesop, a Greek slave and story-teller thought to have lived between 620 and 560 BCE.

Credit: Library of Congress