Where The Compass Points. |Han Jisung

9- The Compass.

I was sure.

It wasn't another illusion or anything. I was sure that the portrait was different. It's nothing I could mistake. I stop by those portraits every day and night. I talk to them. I bid them my goodbyes before going to work and get welcomed by them when I come back. I was sure.

I stood facing the portrait, still having my wide eyes and dropped jaw. I looked at those eyes that were piercing through mines fiercely. I was seeing him in a different way. Although his eyes were always bothering me, that was another whole new level of 'bothering'.

My stiff body refused to take one step away from the portrait. My stubborn mind refused to ignore what was happening. I was standing there, building theories about what happened when the lights came back again making me jolt at the amount of light that filled the house. I blew the candles off before I start examining all the portraits. They all were the same except for that one.

I literally jumped down the few steps, sprinting into the living room. I looked up at the huge photo frame placed above the fireplace. That photo was taken at the entrance of the house with my great grandpa and the rest of the portraits behind him. I squinted my eyes, trying to figure out the pose in the portrait behind him, but somehow that portrait was hazy with no definite outlines in the photo. Only one thing was clear, the eyes.

I tried to brush the thought away for like two minutes till I get my phone charger from upstairs. I turned my body slowly to take the stairs up while fixing my eyes on the portrait. I left the living room after I dropped the candlestick that was in my hand on the TV table and took the stairs to my room. I grabbed the charger and headed down again. Passing by the portrait, I eyed it again as if that would give me an explanation to what was happening.

I walked into the living room, not looking around me as I was busy plugging my phone into the charger to save it before it goes dead. Although I wasn't looking, in the corner of my eyes I could see light. I lifted my head up and shoved it to my right to be faced with my turned-on TV. I cocked an eyebrow at the scene ahead of me.

Surely, I was in that room two minutes ago. And, surely the TV wasn't turned on. I even sat there reading the letters for hours -in which the TV was turned off- and that was before the lights went out. I walked slowly to the TV table. I pulled the remote control suspiciously and turned it off.

That creepy shiver started to reach the bottom of my spine again. That house had something off. Something that would make your hairs stand most of the time without any obvious reason. And that off thing started bothering me.

"It's okay. It's just because of my nightmares that keep me awake. It's okay. Everything is fine." I told myself in a reassuring way.

I looked around, trying to find something to keep me busy in order not to think much of what was happening. There was nothing to do. I didn't feel like practicing or playing games on my phone.

Just before giving up, my eyes landed on the keys that were still on the couch. That was it. I decided to look for what the other key could open. Feeling excited at the thought, I walked to the couch, grabbed the keys, and looked at them.

"What more secrets would you hold?" I asked the key.

That won't answer for sure but it became a habit since I was living alone.

I looked all around me in the living room but there was nothing that could be unlocked. I searched the kitchen cabins and cupboards. My feet then took me upstairs to my bedroom but there was nothing that might need a key except the closet I use and that closet's keyhole didn't fit the key.

I tried my luck at the bathroom, but the only lockable thing was the little cabin below the sink where the towels lie. I went to the last room, knowing that there would be nothing there since the room had nothing inside. That room was left empty with no furniture.

I opened the door, walked in, and rested my hands on my hips, looking all around the empty room. The whole house was having poor electricity but that room had no electricity at all. I scanned the bare walls quickly before I turn around and leave.

I stepped outside and was pulling the door closed when a faint sparkle hit my eyes as if an object reflected the light from outside the room to my face. I pushed the door wide open again and stepped in. I looked at the far corner of the room opposing the door to find that there was something lying in that corner to the floor.

I walked up to the object, picked it up, and walked outside to be able to examine it in the light. Once I was out, I looked down at the metal circular object that was in my hand. The thing was an old metallic -but not rusty- locket. It had a long chain that could be tied making it a necklace. I rubbed the dust and dirt off it with my bare hands, trying to figure its shape out. The metallic object was plain with only an 'H' letter carved to it aesthetically.

"'H'? Who is 'H'?" I questioned quietly.

My fingers kept fiddling with the locket till I opened it to find that it wasn't a necklace. It was a compass.

It was common back in those days for the noble men to have those compasses with a long chain dangling from their vests pockets. That's how I guessed that the compass belonged to my great grandpa, Monsieur Pierre.

I lifted the compass up and started observing the arrow in it that was moving right and left nonstop. I waited for it to stop moving and point to the north but that never happened. I hit the compass gently a few times and even spun around myself trying to reorient the pointer but that too never happened.

"What is wrong with you? Where do you point?" I asked the compass.

Like always, knowing that it won't answer me, I took my new friend and went downstairs, already forgetting about the key that I found earlier and the portrait that changed, because that compass kept me occupied for the rest of the night.