Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie
#189
#189
The keycard reeked. So bad, in fact, that Seojun found himself hesitating to touch it even through his gloves. But he really didn’t have much of a choice here. He gingerly pinched one corner between his thumb and forefinger, sliding it into the reader by the door to the third-floor stairwell.
He waited. Nothing happened. Not a click or a beep.
Frustration burning up his neck, Seojun reinserted the card. Still nothing.
Johan looked over his shoulder. “That’s weird. Worked perfectly fine when I came down earlier.”
Is this thing seriously discriminating against me? It’s just a keycard.
Seojun glared at the suspicious keycard as if it had personally wronged him. Johan, observing this little standoff, reached over and took the card from Seojun to give it a try. The reader remained silent. Well, at least it wasn’t just him.
“Huh. Could there be a limit on how many times it can be used?”
“What, like those old prepaid phone cards?” Seojun flipped the card over, examining it. “Seems too advanced for something like that.”
Johan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers. “Oh! What if it’s not about limits at all? What if it’s about permissions? Maybe this card only lets you go down, not back up.”
“Permissions? Ah, of course.”
Levi had said she’d gotten her keycard from secretly taking it from the doctor. If it was the doctor’s personal card, that would explain why it had such high-level access in the first place.
“Okay, that could be true,” Seojun conceded. “But if it is, we’re basically stuck below the third floor until Levi comes back down, right?”
“Seems like it, Jun,” Johan replied, looking up at the ceiling, his face calm and not at all worried. “Why? Is that a problem?”
Johan’s casual question took Seojun by surprise. His indifference was seriously unsettling sometimes. Now that Seojun thought about it, Johan had never once mentioned the doctor. Seojun had assumed—after seeing him effortlessly handle situations with Samantha and Pete—that Johan understood the gravity of their predicament.
Apparently not.
“Johan… you know there’s a doctor around here, don’t you?”
“A doctor? In an abandoned hospital? I really doubt that. Then again, we’ve seen some odd nurses running around, so who knows?”
Johan clearly had no idea. Naturally, he hadn’t run into the crazed doctor Levi had warned about. Seojun stifled a sigh and was about to explain, but Johan spoke up first, scratching his eyebrow.
“Hold on, is this about that doctor you and your friends talked about? The one into… what was it, human modification?”
So Johan hadn’t been completely oblivious. He’d picked up enough from their conversations to know there was a doctor and an accomplice involved. His eyes, as deep and dark as midnight waters, met Seojun’s.
“Human modification… huh. People really do have all sorts of hobbies in this world.”
His voice held not a shred of fear, just a curious detachment. Johan tilted his head, the sharp line of his jaw catching the faint light. Then he leaned in slightly and spoke in a softer tone.
“Fixing things is my hobby, Jun. Taking things that are completely broken and putting them back together. It’s noble work, I think. Quite meaningful.”
No one normal talks about themselves like that.
Seojun shot Johan a look of skepticism. “I thought your hobby was morning jogging.”
“That’s more of a daily routine,” Johan said with a wave of his hand. “Though I’ve been slacking off lately, which is a bummer. Hey, once we’re out of here, you should join me, Jun. We could run every morning, get that post-workout high.”
Seojun resisted the instinct to back away from the invitation to exercise. “No thanks. I’m sticking to strength training.”
Johan just blinked at him, his expression clearly asking, Why not do both? Seojun’s internal alarms went off. If he didn’t change the subject fast, he could already see his future filled ungodly early mornings and Johan’s cheerful pep talks about “just one more lap.” Time to redirect the conversation.
“More importantly,” Seojun said, maybe a bit too quickly, “did you hear this place has ghost stories?”
“You mean like the one Kira talked about?”
To Seojun’s immense relief, Johan took the bait. He tapped his temple, eyes briefly closing as he recalled.
“Right, something about a teddy bear. One of those comfort toys they had for the hospitalized kids here. The story goes that some kid was being a real brat, wouldn’t listen to the doctors, and took it out on the poor bear. That night, a giant, terrifying version of the bear supposedly appeared in the kid’s room, ready to eat them up. The next morning, the kid became an obedient angel, doing whatever the adults said.” Johan opened his eyes, a hint of amusement dancing in them. “Kira called it a morality tale, but really, it’s just adults using a scary story to get a sick kid to behave.”
The mention of ‘teddy bear’ made Seojun’s shoulders twitch. Of all people, he had received one from the very guy standing before him, and then lost it. This detail pricked at what little conscience he had left, leaving him feeling uneasily guilty and stiff.
Johan looked down at him, a knowing smile tugging at his lips. He didn’t say anything about it though, and Seojun let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He managed a weak smile back before hastily pulling out the phone he’d taken from McCullan to check the time.
How long has it been since Samantha fell down there?
They were wasting valuable time just chatting. Yet, as Seojun took in Johan’s easygoing smile, he felt an ridiculous sense of duty kicking in. Sure, the big guy could take care of himself, but throwing him into whatever dangers awaited without a heads-up felt wrong. Maybe it was the straightforward trust in Johan’s eyes. Seojun pursed his lips, carefully choosing his words.
“I’ve heard three ghost stories about this place. Two involve the doctor. Let me give you the short version.”
After a quick and somber rundown, Seojun let out a sigh that carried about twelve different flavors of exhaustion.
“Johan, you saw Samantha with your own eyes, so you know ghosts are real.” Seojun shrugged a little. “Honestly, after fighting a monster from outer space, ghosts don’t even sound that crazy. At least they’re from Earth.”
“I know, Jun. What a terrifying world we live in.”
Johan’s voice rang through the cold stairwell, echoing off the concrete walls. He hugged his arms around himself with an exaggerated shiver, though the easy brightness in his handsome face showed he wasn’t frightened in the slightest.
A frown settled across Seojun’s delicate features. He recalled how Johan had talked about ghosts and invisible people right after they reunited. Initially, Seojun dismissed it as typical Johan weirdness. But now, he thought about how Johan had taken Samantha’s head off without hesitation.
He wouldn’t have done that, Seojun realized with a jolt, unless he already knew for sure she was dead.
What the hell? I thought I was the only one running into ghosts and monsters… or has everyone’s life suddenly turned into a horror movie?
For a moment, Seojun wondered if he’d gotten a bit too wrapped up in his own perspective and developed protagonist brain rot, acting like the main character of some story where the whole world existed just for him.
“Oh, so the plan is to find this ghost doctor who’s making all these nurses and pepper spray him? And here I thought Levi mentioning an accomplice meant he was human.”
Johan burst into laughter, while Seojun just stared, confused about what was so funny. Johan swiped the keycard at the downward door’s reader, and a soft click resonated through the stairwell. He looked back at Seojun, his face bright and almost daring.
“Well? Let’s go, Jun.”
Despite all that talking, neither of them spoke on their way down to the first floor. As usual, Seojun’s paranoid mind was busy imagining every possible worst-case scenario, and his stomach tied itself in knots thinking about the others trapped in the basement. He probably looked like death warmed over with dark circles under his eye and gaunt face. Frankly, he was so exhausted he could have just collapsed on the stairs and called it quits.
He had barely reached the landing when he noticed it: the emergency exit, slightly open.
He froze, with Johan stopping right behind him. That stairwell door had been securely locked when they were fleeing from Samantha. Seojun tapped Johan’s arm, making the bouquet rustle softly.
“Johan, hang on a sec.”
Ordinarily, Seojun wasn’t one to investigate, but in a haunted hospital, you couldn’t ignore anything suspicious. That was how people ended up dead. He cautiously peeked through the opening.
The emergency door and the floor around it were covered in countless slashes. Clearly, using his phone as bait had worked. Maybe a little too well. Johan leaned over Seojun’s shoulder to see.
“Oh, this is where I found your phone, Jun.”
There was a hint of playful pride in Johan’s voice, almost as if he was waiting to be praised for it. He pushed the battered door open without the slightest hesitation. The calm look on his face was almost frustrating in how unfazed he seemed.
“So anyway, should we leave? I heard there’s a meteor shower tonight. Want to go watch it with me?”
“Wait, what? Stars?”
Johan’s casual suggestion caught Seojun so off guard, his brain momentarily stalled. It took him a moment to process what Johan was proposing. While Seojun stood there, mouth agape as he tried to form a response, Johan scratched his cheek, almost shyly.
“Yeah, Jun. Let’s just take off. We don’t need to check the basement or go upstairs. No need to meet that high-salary urban legend guy. Sometimes, keeping a little distance is healthy.”
Seojun realized he hadn’t misheard. He stared at Johan, his brain working overtime to make sense of the cheerful madness coming out of this man. Trying to understand Johan felt like looking into a kaleidoscope. Seojun unconsciously took two steps back, needing some distance between himself and whatever bizarre alternate universe Johan was living in.
“You-you came here with Kira,” Seojun finally got out. “Aren’t you two friends?”
“Of course we’re friends,” Johan replied, resting his hand over his chest with this oddly heartfelt seriousness. The sincerity of it all made Seojun’s teeth ache. “It wasn’t long, but it was real.”
Seojun needed to drag him back to reality. “You do realize the front entrance is locked, right? We can’t just leave.”
“A door’s really just a suggestion when you think about it. Put in enough effort and it’ll open.”
He didn’t even have an actual plan. While Seojun stood there, completely lost for words, Johan’s expression soured into a slight pout.
“Besides, you’re friends with Luciel, aren’t you? Even so, your own life should come first.”
“Friends? Her and me?”
They’d known each other for what, a day? Apparently that was enough time to become besties now. The whole idea was ridiculous—Seojun’s social skills were barely functional on a good day. Luciel was just someone he happened to be stuck traveling with. Plus, calling her a friend felt wrong on some deep level. The cultured part of him that still clung to his past life was practically waving a cane around, yelling about the age gap.
Watching Johan’s pouty expression, Seojun rubbed the bridge of his nose. The headache he’d been keeping at bay all night was threatening to return.
“My life always comes first, Johan. But in case you’ve forgotten, the people in the basement are in danger because of us. Doesn’t matter if we didn’t mean to. You saw Samantha. She’s an unkillable ghost, and we led her right to them.”