From the Sea

August 20 1937

To whom it may concern, my name is Frank Roberts. If you are reading this note then I am likely dead. If my plan succeeds then this note has been found among my possessions at my family estate. Perhaps it is selfish of me to write this note, In which I will ask you not to look for me. Know that despite its selfish nature I simply don’t want to die without anyone knowing why.

It started when I returned home for my mother's funeral. She had recently fallen off the balcony on the second floor of my childhood home. It was ruled an accident by the authorities however distasteful rumors spread of suicide. I was studying abroad at the time, rushing home at the news. Father had shut himself away, he barely spoke and barely ate. I grow worried but I was also mourning the loss of my mother, so I left him to mourn in his own way. We lived in some comfort, my family making its money off of the fish trade.  A meekly built guard handed me a box of my mother's belongings. The objects she had on her the day she had died. Inside the box I found the item that would cause the calamity I would soon face.

A green soapstone. No bigger than my thumb. Shaped like a teardrop with a little hole at the end with a string big enough to fit around the neck running through it. I was Immediately fascinated by the object, perhaps the first clue to its unusual nature. This stone my mother wore at the time of her death. I felt an urge to learn more about it. I spoke to an old family friend, Chester Singleton. Chester had been the groundskeeper of the family estate since before I was born and grow close to the family in all those years. The stone was new he said. It seems my father bought the object off of one of his fishermen who astonishingly fished it up from the sea.

My curiosity settled I returned to my room to try and rest. That is when I dreamed, I dreamed not of the stress or the loss of my mother but of the amulet. I held it in my hand feeling the smoothness of the object in my palm. Then the soapstone latched to my palm digging into my flesh. Panicking I tried to rip it off but it was to no avail, I could feel it sucking my energy away. I could feel the flow of my blood change course and flow towards the amulet in my hand. I awoke in a sweat, quickly i studied my hand and was relieved to see the amulet was not there. My relief was short as I noticed blood, I had cut myself somehow in my sleep. To my horror the blood staining my bed all moved towards the amulet. I throw the object into a tin box and rushed off into the night to speak to my father.

I bursted into my father's room without hesitation. My father sat in the corner chair by a fire. He looked pale, his skin looking closer to his white hair and beard. He only gave me a sad glance his eyes red and puffy. I hesitated to speak, but composed myself and opened the small tin box showing the necklace to him. His gaze became fixated on it. He then reached into his pocket to pull out an old pocket knife and before I even had time to step back took the knife to his hand causing a bleeding gash across his palm. He spoke softly to me and said “It’s hungry” before getting up and walking towards me. My father then opened his bleeding palm over the green soapstone raining his blood down upon it. To my horror the blood was soaked up by the stone like a sponge with water, vanishing without even a stain.  Upon closer inspection my father’s hands and arm were covered with such scars.

Before I could say another word I felt a sharp cut across my abdomen. My father wielding the knife had slashed me right to left along my chest, cutting past my shirt and hitting flesh. Tears filled his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, I didn't want to hurt your mother.” My eyes grow wide as adrenaline starts to pump into my bloodstream. “It’s in my head, it wants me to feed it. She understood, she heard it too.” He spoke again.  As the realization my father had killed my mother my vision started to blur. Images of gushing blood rushed into my mind. Crimson red blood, there needed to be blood. I make a fist and start to swing at my father. I was much younger and stronger then him, the first blow to his face was enough to make him drop his knife and fall to the ground in pain. I did not stop swinging my fists, blow after blow.

The violence only stopped when I saw the blood. The thick red liquid filled the room. My knuckles were worn down, possibly broken.  I watched as my own blood mixed with my fathers. My father...a mess on the floor. His face was destroyed, he could've been mistaken for something inhuman. But it was my father, I killed my father. The sin of patricide, the man who raised me gone. The green soapstone sat on the floor in the middle of a puddle of blood. I did not even realize I dropped it. It was feeding off my father's blood. Soaking it up like a cloth. I did not know what it did with the blood, what sort of ritual it was meant for but I know in my heart that I should not let it feed no more.

So I write this letter, the stone is once again secured in a tin box. My father's body lies in his room, the blood the stone did not take soaks into the wooden floor. I wish to give him a proper burial but I fear time is short. I will take this stone back to where it came, the sea. I will borrow one of the boats my father owns….owned. I plan to sail as far out into the sea as I can. I have no wish to return, I will go into the water with the stone. I can not afford a suicide that allows more blood to be spilled. I can only beg of you if the stone finds its way to land once more to throw it back, do not be lured by the unknown you find.

Farewell

-Frank Roberts