Consequences of the Compass

The moment I saw the Dutchman’s Compass in front of me, I felt as though my life had already come to an end. After watching three of my former mates die because of that cursed artifact, I knew there was no reason to believe that I would be any different. My hands were shaking as the sailors forced the compass into them, and for a moment I could not bring myself to look at the needle. I already knew what I was going to see. The compass had rejected everyone before me, and I had no reason to believe that it would suddenly show mercy.

So I grabbed it.

And much to my fear, the compass reacted immediately.

The needle began shaking so violently that it struck the glass covering with a sharp metallic sound. It spun from one direction to another, faster than I had ever seen it move before. The sailors stepped back, while Thomas stared at me with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

“So it reacts to you,” he muttered.

I could barely speak. “I don’t know what it means.”

Thomas narrowed his eyes at the compass. For the first time, even he seemed uncertain whether he should trust the old legend. He had already watched the artifact lead several people toward their deaths, and now it was reacting differently in my hands. Still, greed has a way of making people ignore their doubts.

“Set the sails,” he ordered “Follow the needle.”

The crew obeyed.

I wished they hadn’t.

The compass pointed us across the dark waters, and the Crimson Jaws followed its direction. At first, nothing seemed unusual. The storm was still raging around us, but the ship continued forward. Yet the longer we followed the compass, the more uneasy I became. Something about the direction felt wrong. It was not leading us toward safety, nor did it seem to be taking us anywhere in particular.

Then I noticed the sea stack.

We had passed it before.

I remembered the tall pillar of stone rising from the waves, its surface battered by centuries of storms. We sailed past it once, then turned and passed it again. Then a third time.

We were going in circles.

The compass continued pointing forward as though it knew exactly where it wanted us to go, while the Crimson Jaws continued following it deeper into the storm. The waves rose higher around us, and lightning flashed across the sky, revealing the same sea stack again and again.

Thomas finally realized what was happening.

“You!” he shouted at me.

I looked toward him.

“What kind of trick is this?”

“I told you, I don’t know!”

“You’re leading us nowhere!”

“I am only following the compass!”

Thomas’s face twisted with anger. He pulled his flintlock from his belt and aimed it straight at me.

“Then perhaps you can explain yourself to the dead.”

The pistol fired.

But the shot never reached me.

The ship suddenly tilted beneath our feet.

A massive wave struck the side of the Crimson Jaws, throwing everyone across the deck. I lost my balance and slammed against the railing before being thrown into the sea. Around me, sailors disappeared beneath the waves one after another. The ship itself groaned as the storm tore through it, and for a moment I could no longer tell which way was up.

The sea swallowed me.

Darkness surrounded me as I sank deeper and deeper beneath the waves. The ropes around my wrists were still tied, keeping me from swimming back toward the surface. I tried to struggle free, but the water was too strong. My lungs burned as I desperately searched for something to hold onto.

The only light I could see came from the lightning above.

For the briefest moment, the darkness beneath the sea would brighten, revealing pieces of the wreckage drifting around me before everything disappeared again.

I thought that was where I would die.

Perhaps this was what the Dutchman’s Compass had meant all along. Perhaps I had been no different from the others. Perhaps the compass had looked into my heart and found the same corruption that had consumed the men before me.

I stopped fighting.

I remember thinking that it was strange. After everything I had survived, I was going to die at the bottom of the sea because of the very treasure I had spent so much time trying to escape.

Then I saw something beneath me, a faint glimmer.

It was coming from the darkness below.

I looked down and saw the outline of something resting upon the ocean floor, a chest.

The compass was pointing toward it.

Only then did I understand.

The Dutchman’s Compass had never been leading us in circles.

It had been leading us to the treasure.

The problem was that the compass could tell us where the treasure was, but it could not tell us how deep it was.

We had been sailing around the same place because the treasure was directly beneath us.

It had been there the entire time.

I do not remember exactly how I reached the chest. Perhaps the current carried me toward it. Perhaps I simply refused to die. I only remember wrapping my arms around it as the last of the air left my lungs.

After that, everything went dark.