Faces

Faces

It was a late autumn night; I was going for a stay at my student’s house. The road I was walking on was deserted and there were eerie noises coming from all around me. In the distance I could see the mansion as I trudged along.

I am a student exchange professor at Liberty High. I review students from different countries and help them with their admission. I also hold special language classes for such students after school. In these classes I teach them communication skills. In one of these classes I met my brightest student, Jae Tsan. He was a quick learner and a very attentive boy. His appearance was deathly pale with shaggy black hair and his habit of staring at me without blinking for long periods unnerved me.

On one such day, to improve the speaking skills of my students, I proposed the idea of each student telling us a story on the spot .All my students told numerous story but somewhere they all faltered. All but Jae. He fluently told us his story .It was a scary story about a Japanese girl, Orikuro, who had been murdered by her family members because of a family feud and issues of inheritance. Since then she had haunted her district. She was a pale beauty with long black hair. But she was covered in blood. This story should not have had such an effect on me, but in the way Jae Tsan delivered his tale, I’m pretty sure he must have struck fear in every one’s heart.

The next day, Jae invited me over for a stay at this mansion. He texted me the address so that I could come over and tutor his sister too. I consented to this offer. As I reached near his mansion I could not see anyone around, for miles I could only see trees and a dilapidated playground.

I reached the mansion and rang the doorbell but no one answered. I waited for a couple of minutes. As I turned to leave Jae opened the door and invited me inside. I went inside and was welcomed by a musty house which had minimal lighting and no furniture. I didn’t think of it much but the condition of the house gave me the chills which reminded me of the story of Orikuro.

Jae led me to the topmost floor of the mansion and led me to the bedroom I was to stay in for the night. As he opened the door a strange smell reached me. Jae explained that he had recently inherited this mansion from his aunt. The house had been rumoured haunted so no one lived there for a considerable period of time. Therefore the roof had sprung a leak and the water caused a musty smell.

The room had a small dim red light at one corner of the room which illuminated absolutely nothing. I asked Jae of there was another light but he replied that all of the rooms were furnished with one light only. Not thinking much I dropped the issues, left my bags and went downstairs. But these strange things had started creeping me out

I had dinner with Jae, tutored his sister and took a nice relaxing shower. When I went to my room, I saw multiple faces staring at me. I figured out that they were portraits which I must not have noticed during earlier. But these portraits were so realistic that they gave me the chills. One such face caught my attention because it was of a beautiful girl with a wistful look on her face which was framed by long black hair. Immediately the thought of Orikuro popped into my head but I pushed it aside.

The whole night I restlessly tossed and turned. I could not sleep a wink. I felt that the faces were watching me. I decided to leave immediately after breakfast.

In the morning, as I woke up with the sunlight streaming onto my face. As I was stretching I stopped dead in my tracks. The portraits were no longer portraits. They were curtain less windows. I was staying on the second floor of the mansion. As I peeped out of one of the windows I saw nothing but the deserted playground.

I went downstairs, calling out for Jae. I got no reply. I did not feel comfortable so I packed my bag and left the house.

Upon research I found out that there was no such person named Jae Tsan and that the mansion had been abandoned for almost a decade.