Reborn as a Prophet in a Horror Movie
#190
#190
Look, Seojun wasn’t going to stand here and pretend he was some kind of hero ready to throw himself into danger for a bunch of strangers. He had his own skin to worry about, and frankly, Johan’s plan to just brute-force the front entrance open was incredibly tempting.
But he couldn’t shake McCullan’s reaction. For all of his countless flaws, there was one thing McCullan excelled at, and it was breaking into places where he definitely didn’t belong. And yet he’d taken one look at those doors and backed off without trying. That meant something. McCullan’s self-preservation was sharp, maybe even sharper than Seojun’s own, and it was howling that messing with those doors wouldn’t end well.
Besides, hanging around the front entrance was basically asking to get killed. The lobby was a bottleneck with nowhere to run or hide. If Samantha, Pete, and their psycho doctor was lurking around decided to rush them all at once, it would be a slaughter. Trying to fight off a wave of ghosts in a cluttered space was a terrible plan.
One glance at Johan’s earnest, expectant, and utterly unconvinced face told Seojun he’d done a piss-poor job of explaining this. He’d listed all the reasons why the front entrance was a bad idea, but failed to provide the one compelling reason they needed to turn back and deal with Samantha.
Deal with wasn’t quite right either. What they actually needed was to… search her. A deeply unpleasant thought, and one he quickly pushed aside.
Seojun stepped closer, closing the gap between them until barely a foot of stale hospital air separated them. Time for round two. After speed-running through McCullan’s résumé as a professional trespasser and his ominous warning about the doors, Seojun finally got to the part he’d been dancing around.
“Johan,” he said, dropping his voice lower. “Before I ended up here, I was trapped in a factory. A factory haunted by a ghost.”
“What?”
Johan went rigid. The rhythmic tapping against the wall stopped dead, and the monkey wrench nearly slipped through his fingers. For a second there, Seojun was sure it was going to clatter to the floor. When Johan finally turned around, all the color had drained from his face, his eyes blown wide with what seemed like way too much panic for the situation.
“Are you hurt? You’re not hurt, are you?”
Johan’s hand landed on Seojun’s shoulder, trembling with barely contained anxiety. Seojun couldn’t figure out why his comment had triggered such an fussy response. He carefully peeled Johan’s fingers away and shook his head.
“Hey, breathe. It wasn’t that bad. I’m fine, okay? Just hear me out.”
He needed Johan to calm down and actually listen, needed him to see the pattern he was seeing.
“The building was completely normal until the ghost of its manager appeared. The second that bastard showed up, the building just… sealed itself. Like some kind of supernatural force locked us in. Doors and windows wouldn’t open no matter how hard we tried. We were trapped.”
Seojun remembered the oppressive silence in the Happy Pig Factory, the awful finality when they’d realized the exit was sealed. The place had felt like a coffin. He’d escaped that hell only to land in this one unfortunately. But he’d learned something there. How to escape a place haunted by ghosts.
“The only way out was to take down the ghost. We got lucky, got rid of him, and the second he vanished, the exit in the Happy Pig Factory unlocked. Don’t you see?”
Seojun locked eyes with Johan, willing him to understand.
“This place is running on the same rules. I’m certain. We take out the ghost in charge—this psycho doctor and his sick experiments—and I bet you every locked exit in this hospital will open up like we just said Ali Baba’s magic words.”
Despite Seojun’s passionate spiel, Johan’s attention never wavered. His blue eyes stayed fixed on Seojun’s face, scanning frantically like he was searching for some hidden injury. Seojun stood there, increasingly awkward, as Johan’s gaze traced along his jaw, across his nose, checking every inch. Only after this impromptu medical exam apparently found nothing did the tension finally drain from Johan’s shoulders.
The intensity of that stare made something strange prickle across Seojun’s skin. He looked away, rubbing at his nose with his knuckles. Just an itch, he told himself. Absolutely not his face heating up.
“The doctor’s probably on the fourth floor,” Seojun said, pulling himself together. “The bastard’s most likely sitting up there right now, watching us scramble around for his entertainment while his nurses do all the grunt work. If we just hang around here, he’ll keep sending them after us,—and since they’re already dead, it’s not like they’re gonna get tired. The longer we wait, the worse our odds get. We need to move.”
Saying it out loud actually helped. A rush of determination cut through the lingering unease. He met Johan’s gaze head-on.
“We need a keycard that can get us upstairs. Johan, you saw Samantha’s ID badge, right?”
“I remember she had something around her neck,” Johan muttered sullenly.
He could hear the reluctance loud and clear. Seojun softened his voice, coaxing now, with the same practiced warmth politicians used when they wanted people to smile and agree to something obviously bad for them. “Hey. Trust me, I’m not jumping for joy about round two with her either. But she’s just going to keep coming back like some unkillable cockroach. We might as well try this while she’s still… disoriented. She was a nurse, so her keycard should have decent access.”
Seojun swallowed, shifting a step closer. Johan’s face scrunched into an odd, dissatisfied frown—so unlike him that Seojun didn’t know whether to laugh or worry. He was halfway to an awkward smile when Johan spoke up, his voice dropping to something unexpectedly serious.
“Okay, Jun. I get it. But you need to remember something. For me, you always come first. That’s all that matters.”
“Uh…”
The half-formed smile froze on Seojun’s face. Meanwhile, Johan looked like someone had just lifted a boulder off his chest. He even let out this light, almost relieved laugh.
“Then again, I’m friends with Kira, too.”
Seojun’s jaw tightened, his fingers finding the outline of the keycard in his pocket. Johan had gone through hell to get this thing, only for it to be useless. A hot, tight feeling lodged itself in his throat, making his nose prickle. Having someone care this much, someone willing to fight this hard just to keep him safe… His gloved hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides. He’d spent so long convincing himself he was better off alone, that he didn’t need anyone. He’d been lying to himself, Seojun realized. These feelings he’d dismissed as meaningless had meant everything all along.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his squishy eye, annoyed at the sudden dampness there. Kindness, it turned out, was the one weapon he had no defense against. He had to swallow twice before finding his voice.
“I always thought… I was better off on my own. That I liked it that way,” he said quietly. “Maybe I was wrong.”
Johan leaned in a bit. “Hm? What was that?”
“Nothing,” Seojun muttered, immediately backpedaling. Heat crawled up his neck, his throat closing up even tighter than when he’d said the most embarrassing, cringy nonsense of his entire life. He threw an arm up to hide his face, but not before catching Johan’s eyebrow creeping upward in that knowing way.
He heard Johan make a soft understanding sound. When Seojun dared to peek back, Johan was holding out his hand, his expression surprisingly gentle.
“Ready to head down, Jun?”
Seojun stared at the offered hand. It was big and rough, calluses from actual work. The practical part of his brain, the one that had kept him alive this long, immediately started screaming that this was stupid. They were in a death trap of a hospital where death lurked around every corner. They needed both hands free, ready to fight or run.
But if he was being honest about practicality, he should’ve ditched the mangled bouquet ages ago. The flowers had gone from white to rust-colored, completely ruined by blood. They weren’t even decorative anymore—just dead weight. Yet here he was, death-gripping them through every mad dash, every fight, every close call. Whatever meaning they’d started with had long since faded, but he couldn’t let go.
“…Yeah.”
He took Johan’s hand.
They headed down the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the thick silence. Usually, Seojun would’ve been fine with quiet—better for listening for things trying to kill them. But right now his brain was a mess, thoughts tangling up on themselves, and the silence just made it worse. He felt like he was going to vibrate out of his own skin if he didn’t say something. He gave their joined hands a small swing.
“Hey, Johan,” he started, going with the first thing that came to mind. “How’d you and Kira meet anyway? And what are the chances you both ended up in this hellhole?”
What he really meant was how the hell did your luck tank this badly, but he figured he’d be polite about it. Johan, being Johan, answered with complete sincerity.
“Well, you see, I met Kira by coincidence, we started traveling together by coincidence, she was coming here so I came here by coincidence. And then, really, truly, by total coincidence, I ran into you here.”
It was the most genuine, completely empty answer Seojun had ever heard. He had to physically stop himself from trying to yank his hand free from Johan’s surprisingly octopus-strong grip.
“If you say ‘coincidence’ one more time, I’m letting go of your hand. Seriously, how many times can you cram it into one sentence?”
“But it’s true,” Johan said, still radiating that baffling sincerity. “I wouldn’t want to lie to you, Jun.”
Right. This from the guy who’d improvised an entire romantic poem on the spot barely an hour ago. Seojun glanced over and immediately regretted it. Johan’s eyes were beaming such pure earnestness at him it felt like getting hit with a spotlight. He looked away just as Johan started chuckling beside him, the sound vibrating through their clasped hands. Seojun frowned and turned back to see Johan actually wiping away a tear with his wrench hand.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry Jun,” Johan gave in. “I’ll tell you the whole story when we find Kira. I’ve got something to give her anyway.”
“You do that,” Seojun grumbled. Johan just smiled, that easy, uncomplicated smile he always seemed to have ready. His good mood was almost infectious, right up until he opened his mouth again.
“But hey, why are we taking the emergency stairs to the basement? Didn’t we decide the main stairs was safer now?”
Like it had been waiting for its cue, the heavy steel door to the basement appeared at the bottom of the stairs. The question hit Seojun like a slap upside the head. He’s right. Johan was completely, undeniably right.
Seojun’s mouth went dry. He had no clue if this door would even open. He was banking everything on Johan’s keycard working. And Pete… hadn’t they basically locked Pete in that room, making the main stairs safe again? There was literally no good reason to be standing here. He swallowed hard, glaring at the door like he could bully it into cooperating. His grip on Johan’s hand tightened without him meaning to, his palm going clammy inside his glove.
He mapped out the basement in his head. Not exactly complicated. A straight shot from the stairs to the elevator, minus a few piles of random junk.
Then the real reason they were here hit him like a bucket of ice water: he’d chickened out. After that whole big speech about facing Samantha head-on, he’d gotten cold feet and automatically picked the path with less murder potential. His brain went into panic mode, fishing for a halfway decent excuse.
“Uh—well, we should check all the exits anyway. Make sure this one actually opens. You know. For a… backup plan. Yeah. That’s it.”
He tried to make it sound tactical instead of like he was pulling it out of his ass. Thankfully, Johan didn’t call him on his bullshit. He just nodded along.
“Oh, right. Smart thinking. Never hurts to have options.”
“Haha, ha…”
Seojun let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It wasn’t just that he was scared, he reassured himself. He did have a rough plan for dealing with Samantha. This wasn’t him being a coward. This was just… being cautious.
They finally reached the basement door. Nowhere to go but through. Seojun wrapped his hand around the cold metal handle.
“Alright, I’m opening it,” he said quietly. “If it’s locked, we bail and take the main stairs.”
“Got it.”
The screech of rusty hinges was their only warning. A silver flash erupted from the darkness, heading straight for his throat. Nothing fancy about it—just fast and lethal. Vertigo slammed into him like a truck.
Same instant, something crashed into the back of his knees. His legs folded like paper, and suddenly he was dropping. A metallic clang rang out inches above his head as Johan’s monkey wrench intercepted the knife mid-flight. The blade went spinning, clattering across the concrete somewhere in the dark.
Seojun gasped, his lungs burning. When had he stopped breathing? The whole thing had lasted maybe a second, just a violent blur of motion and noise. A figure emerged from the shadows.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!”
“Scared you? You almost took his head off, Kira.”
Johan’s face was pure what-the-hell-were-you-thinking disbelief.