Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie

#170Reader Mode

#170 

St. Montgomery Hospital was the kind of place you weren’t sure was forgotten or just flat-out abandoned. Not that the distinction mattered much. Without anyone to patch its leaks or pull its weeds, the building was losing its fight against time, same as any other. Some of the locals called it Maladali Hospital, after the founder, but either name led you to the same pile of crumbling brick. 

“Ruins like this always collect stories,” Brown said, sounding about as excited as someone reading assembly instructions. 

He stood there looking at the wreck of a hospital without any of that wide-eyed thrill you’d get from occult junkies like Luciel or Dennis. Seojun remembered he’d been the same way back at the Happy Pig Factory. The man had been polite enough, sure, but distant. Like he was perpetually just passing through other people’s lives. 

When Seojun’s gaze wandered from the hospital’s grimy walls over to Brown, he caught the guy already watching him. And it hit him then. Beyond the quiet competence and the rock-solid loyalty to Luciel, what did he actually know about Brown? A handful of random facts, maybe. The thought didn’t sit well: I don’t know this guy at all. 

…Nope. Not going there. 

Seojun pushed the thought away. He was exhausted down to his bones, and there was still this low buzz humming in his ears from what had happened earlier. They’d be splitting up soon anyway. Why bother digging into something that wouldn’t matter? It was easy enough to let it go. 

Seojun managed a smile that felt pretty thin on his face. “So, what’s the story with this place? Just looking at it gives me the creeps.” 

Though honestly, the real horror story here was probably watching prime real estate like this go completely to waste as a modern adult. 

Brown gave a little laugh. “Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic. It’s just the usual ghost story stuff. The really infamous places are, like, Buncher Hall, Limbo Asylum… Blue Cotton University Hospital. But this place?” He gestured vaguely at the building. “St. Montgomery’s only claim to fame is how many different stories people tell about it.” 

Whether that was a selling point or a red flag was up for debate. 

“So how many stories are we talking?” 

Brown held up a hand, fingers spread wide. “Five or six, supposedly. I only looked into three of them myself.” 

“Why not all of them?” 

Seojun wasn’t trying to give him a hard time. He really was just curious. You’d think someone in an occult society would come fully prepared for a haunting. 

Brown shrugged. “Kira and Mina were covering the others.” 

“Ah.” 

Right. This wasn’t just a ghost hunt—it was a social mixer with a spooky backdrop. That explained McCullan, at least. The guy clearly cared more about impressing girls than hunting any actual ghosts. 

Seojun glanced back at the old hospital. How scary could the stories be if this place barely made the C-list, let alone the B-list, of haunted locations? Still, might as well know what he was walking into. 

“So what are we talking here? The usual urban legend stuff? Like the patient in the next bed who turns out they’ve been dead for three days?” 

That actually got a real laugh out of Brown. 

“Nothing that cliché,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s see… the ones I looked into? Two about doctors, one about a pair of sneakers.” 

Brown’s voice dropped as he slipped into storytelling mode, the casual tone giving way to something quieter, darker. 

“The first doctor story goes back to when this place was still open. They say the hospital’s first ghost was a doctor. Greedy, cruel, the type who’d smile while screwing you over. One night, he cornered a young woman in the stairwell and tried to force himself on her. She fought back. Pepper-sprayed him right in the eyes.  

He staggered, groped for the railing, but missed. His neck snapped halfway down the stairs. Died right there on the landing. 

Now they say there’s a mirror hanging in that exact spot. Right where he drew his last breath. If you ever see his reflection in it… you won’t see yourself anymore. You’ll see him. Face twisted, eyes bloodshot and bulging. And once you’ve seen him? That’s it. 

He follows you. 

Every mirror, every window—he’ll be there. You can shut your eyes, smash the glass, throw a blanket over every damn surface. Doesn’t matter. 

You’ll still hear him breathing, right behind you.” 

“……” 

So this total scumbag gets what’s coming to him and decides to spend eternity terrorizing random innocent people? What an asshole. 

Brown caught Seojun’s expression and nodded like they were thinking the exact same thing. 

“The second one’s more your classic ‘abandoned hospital’ type. According to the story, when St. Montgomery finally shut its doors, everyone cleared out… except one doctor who refused to leave. He brought along this nurse with him, the kind who obeyed without question, eyes blank like a doll’s. They started calling themselves the ‘keepers’ of the hospital. Only, their patients weren’t sick anymore. They were trespassers. 

Anyone unlucky enough to wander in would get dragged off for ‘treatment.’ Bones broken and reset at the wrong angles. Skin stitched where it had no business being. Human experiments, basically. People say if you go near the east wing at night, you can still hear scalpels scraping and muffled screaming. It really blew up a few years ago when some forum post went viral. The user claimed they’d explored the building and barely made it out alive. They uploaded some grainy photos of bloodstained straps on rusted gurneys, and at the end of a hallway, a blurry figure in a doctor’s coat just… standing there. Most people brushed it off as another creepypasta until someone noticed the account that posted it? Went completely dead afterward. Never logged in again. That’s probably what made it go viral in the first place. No one’s ever found actual proof, but the story stuck.” 

“Sounds like a bad horror movie I saw once,” Seojun said, an image of a gory, blood-red poster flashing through his mind. 

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” 

Brown gave a small, tired smile. He didn’t seem annoyed just… quietly resigned. Like a man who’d explained the same ghost story one too many times. 

“Not surprising. Okay, the last one’s the weirdest. The sneaker story. This goes back to when the place was still running. 

Nurses used to whisper about hearing footsteps echoing through the halls after lights-out. Fast and loud like someone was sprinting for their life. One nurse swore she followed the sound, corner after corner, until she finally saw them: a pair of white sneakers—Maladali’s own donation to the hospital—running down the hallway with no one in them. Whether it really happened? Who knows.” 

Seojun raised an eyebrow. “So what, people think it’s Maladali’s ghost… haunting a pair of shoes?” 

Now that one actually had something going for it. Creepy, but oddly grounded. Had that dusty, old-hospital vibe from the early days and was way more unsettling than that bargain-bin slasher setup with the murderous doctor. 

Brown’s mouth curved into a crooked grin. 

“Well, That’s the popular theory. There’s just one tiny problem with it. Maladali’s not dead. Saw an interview with him last week, actually. He’s trying to break the world record for oldest living man.” 

Before Seojun could respond to that, Luciel’s voice cut in, dramatic as ever. 

“By the duty of the Great One, I shall strip bare the true face of Ergastulum, devoured by blood and terror!” 

“The what now?”  

“Ergastulum.” She intoned the word with deadly seriousness.  

Brown, without looking up from his phone, leaned in. “It’s Latin. Means ‘forced labor camp.’ Don’t worry about it. She reads Latin dictionaries for fun.” 

“……” 

Seojun offered up a silent prayer that whatever deep-seated illness Luciel had, it would be cured as soon as possible. 

“Hey! Enough chit-chat!” McCullan strode over, with Dennis trailing a step behind him. “Let’s get in there already. I’ve gotta tell Mina about our deathmatch with that factory ghost.” 

Seojun nearly laughed. McCullan had run away from the Factory Manager without so much as throwing a punch, but in the version of events playing in his head, he’d apparently walked away with an Oscar for Best Action Hero. 

If this were a horror movie, you’d be the first to die, Seojun thought, shooting him a withering look. 

Not that McCullan noticed or cared. The man was immune to dirty looks. Dennis, on the other hand, was just as eager to get inside, practically vibrating with anticipation to find the others and start preaching about what he was already calling “Luciel’s miracle.” 

And so, the group drifted toward the hospital’s main entrance, with Seojun somehow ending up at the front of the pack. He braced his shoulder against one of the heavy double doors and pushed. Nothing. He jiggled the handle. 

“It’s locked?” he muttered, rattling it again to be sure. A quick glance confirmed it: every door was locked, and the windows were either boarded up or barred. They were completely shut out. 

Just as the group began to argue about what to do next, McCullan let out a triumphant whoop. 

“Mina! I knew you wouldn’t let me down!” 

He held his phone aloft like a religious icon, actually blowing kisses at the screen. Dennis made gagging noises beside him, but McCullan was way too caught up in himself to notice. 

Unable to help himself, Seojun leaned in for a look. Sure enough, there was a message from Mina, who had been completely unreachable until now. The timing was just a little too perfect… almost like she’d been watching them struggle around out here. 

McCullan shouldered him out of the way, puffed up his chest, and declared, “Amateurs. You guys obviously don’t know the first thing about women The key is to knock politely.” 

Looking ridiculously overdressed in whatever he thought counted as proper ghost-hunting gear, he swaggered up to the door and knocked three times. 

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a deep groan reverberated from somewhere inside. It sounded like something heavy dragging across stone, followed by a metallic clank so harsh and jarring it made the hairs on Seojun’s arms stand on end. 

He edged closer to Brown and whispered, “Did Mina install something in there?” 

“She likes a good prank, sure,” Brown murmured, squinting at the door, “but… that sounded different. Maybe she found something that was already here?” 

Even he didn’t sound convinced. 

Before Seojun could press the question, a fat raindrop landed right between his brows. Another followed. Then another. 

“Damn.” 

The drizzle gave way to a sudden, punishing deluge. Rain pounded the weeds flat into the mud, and then, as if the sky had been ripped open, the storm hit full force. 

And as if waiting for that exact moment, the hospital door creaked open all by itself. 

There was a mad scramble for the doorway—a clumsy tangle of limbs, elbows, and shouted curses as everyone rushed to escape the downpour at once. The heavy door slammed shut behind them with a final, echoing thud, cutting off the storm like a curtain had dropped between two worlds. 

The first thing to hit Seojun was the smell: stale dust, metal, and something foul like a pocket full of old pennies left to rot in a fish market. The second was the silence. Out there, a storm had been raging. In here, it was as if the world had gone mute. 

Then came the darkness. 

It wasn’t just dark. It was the kind of thick, oppressive black that didn’t just hide things—it swallowed them. Light didn’t stand a chance. 

Seojun pulled out his phone, its screen a blinding white rectangle against the gloom. A tiny red battery icon blinked in the corner like a taunt. He’d already drained most of it using the flashlight back at the Happy Pig Factory, and Dennis’s relentless spam texts on the drive over had done the rest. 

“Anyone bring an actual flashlight?”  

There were a few guilty shuffles. No one replied. 

Seriously? A whole group dedicated to ghost-hunting and not one flashlight between them? 

Seojun’s last hope was Brown. Surely, the one competent person in the group had come prepared. He turned toward where he thought the man was standing. 

Brown cleared his throat, the sound unusually loud in the hush. “Well… phones these days do come with flashlight functions, so…” 

Unbelievable. Modern laziness at its finest. 

Seojun thought back to Hamon Camp. Even Christina and her friends, who were just there for the vibes, had brought a full set of vintage lanterns. Not because they needed them, but for the aesthetic. 

And yet here he was, stuck with a so-called paranormal investigation society—people who supposedly did this kind of thing regularly—and not a single one of them had packed an actual flashlight. 

It had to be the schedule. This insane rush to cram two sites into one day was making everyone careless. 

The frustration crystallized into a question. Seojun tapped Brown on the shoulder. 

“By the way, why are we hitting two places in one day? Is it always this chaotic?” 

Before Brown could answer, a different voice pierced the darkness—high-pitched, trembling with the kind of religious fervor that made you instinctively take a step back. 

Dennis. 

“We must follow Luciel’s divine foresight!”