This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/UnalloyedSaintTrina on 2025-05-21 21:44:56+00:00.

I’m terrified people will believe I killed Nico.

You see, if I call the police, they won’t search for him. They won’t care about bringing my boy home. No, they’ll look for Occam’s Razor.

A simple answer to satisfy a self-righteous blood lust.

They won’t have to look too hard to find that simple answer, either. After all, I’ll be the one who reports him missing. A single father with a history of alcohol abuse, whose wife vanished five years prior.

Can’t think of a more perfect scapegoat.

But, God, please believe me - I would never hurt him. None of this is my fault.

This is all because of that the thing he found under the sand. The voice in the shell.

Tusk. Its name is Tusk.

It’s OK, though. It’s all going to be OK.

I found a journal in Nico’s room, hidden under some loose floorboards. I haven’t read through it yet, but I’m confident it will exonerate me.

And lead me to where they took him, of course.

For posterity, I’m transcribing and uploading the journal to the internet before I call in Nico’s disappearance. I don’t want them taking the journal and twisting my son’s words to mean something they don’t just so they can finally put me behind bars. This post will serve as a safeguard against potential manipulation.

That said, I’ll probably footnote the entries with some of my perspective as well. You know, for clarity. I’m confident you’ll agree that my input is necessary. If I learned anything during the protracted investigation into Sofia’s disappearance five years ago, it’s that no single person can ever tell a full story.

Recollection demands context.

-Marcus

May 16th, 2025 - “Dad agreed to a trip!”

It took some convincing, but Dad and I are going to the beach this weekend.

I think it’s been hard for him to go since Mom left. The beach was her favorite place. He tries to hide his disgust. Every time I bring her up, Dad will turn his head away from me, like he can’t control the nasty expression his face makes when he thinks about her, but he doesn’t want to show me, either (1).

I’m 13 years old. I can handle honesty, and I want the truth. Whatever it is.

Last night, he was uncharacteristically sunny, humming out of tune as he prepared dinner - grilled cheese with sweet potato fries. Mine was burnt, but I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I didn’t complain. He still thinks that’s my favorite meal, even though it hasn’t been for years. I didn’t correct him about that.

I thought he might have been drunk (2), but I didn’t find any empty bottles in his usual hiding places when I checked before bed. Nothing under the attic floorboards, nothing in the back of the shed.

Dad surprised me, though.

When I asked if we could take a trip to the beach tomorrow, he said yes!

———

(1): I struggled a lot in the weeks and months that followed Sofia’s disappearance, and I’m ashamed to admit that I wore my hatred for the woman on my sleeve, even in front of Nico. She abandoned us, but I’ve long since forgiven her. Now, when I think of her, all I feel is a deep, lonely heartache, and I do attempt to hide that heartache from my son. He’s been through enough.

(2): I’ve been sober for three years.

May 17th, 2025 - “Our day at the beach!”

It wasn’t the best trip.

Not at the start, at least.

Dad was really cranky on the ride up. Called the other drivers on the road “bastards” under his breath and only gave me one-word answers when I tried to make conversation. After a few pit stops, though, he began to cheer up. Asked me how I was doing in school, started singing to the radio. He even laughed when I called the truckdriver a bastard because he was driving slow and holding us up.

I got too wrapped up in the moment and made a mistake. I asked why Mom liked the beach so much.

He stopped talking. Stopped singing. Said he needed to focus on the road.

Things got better on the beach, but I lost track of Dad. We were building a sandcastle, but then he told me he needed to go to the bathroom (3).

About half an hour later, I was done with the castle. Unsure of what else to do, I started digging a moat.

That’s when I found the hand.

My shovel hit something squishy. I thought it was gray seaweed, but then I noticed a gold ring, and a knuckle. It was a finger, wet and soft, but not actually dead. When it wiggled, I wasn’t scared, not at all. It wasn’t until I began writing this that I realized how weirdly calm I was.

Eventually, I dug the whole hand out. It was balled into a fist. I looked around, but everyone who had been on the beach before was gone. All the people and their umbrellas and their towels disappeared. I wasn’t sure when they all left. Well, actually, there was one person. They were watching us from the ocean (4). I could see their blue eyes and their black hair peeking out above the waves.

I looked back at the hole and the hand, and I tapped it with the tip of my shovel. It creaked opened, strange and delicate, like a Venus flytrap.

There was a black, glassy shell about the size of a baseball in its palm, covered in spirals and other markings I didn’t recognize. I picked it up and brought it close to my face. It smelled metallic, but also like sea-salt (5). I put the mouth of the shell up to my ear to see if I could hear the ocean, but I couldn’t.

Instead, I could hear someone whispering. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but that didn’t seem to matter. I loved listening anyway.

When Dad got back, his cheeks were red and puffy. He was fuming. I asked him to look into the hole.

He wouldn’t. He refused. Dad said he just couldn’t do it (6).

I don’t recall much about the rest of the day, but the shell was still in my pocket when we got home (7), and that made me happy. It’s resting on my nightstand right now, and I can finally hear what the whispers are saying.

It’s a person, or something like a person. Maybe an angel? Their name is Tusk.

Tusk says they’re going to help me become free.

———

(3): For so early in the season, the beach was exceptionally busy. The line for the nearest bathroom stall was easily thirty people long, and that’s a conservative estimate.

(4): There shouldn’t have been anyone in the ocean that day - the water was closed because of a strong riptide.

(5): That’s what Nico’s room smelled like this morning. Brine and steel.

(6): When I got back to Nico, there wasn’t a hole, or a hand, or even a sandcastle. He didn’t ask me anything, either. My son was catatonic - staring into the ocean, making this low-pitched whooshing sound but otherwise unresponsive. He came to when we reached the ER.

(7): He did bring home the shell; it wasn’t a hallucination like the person in the ocean or the hand. That said, it wasn’t in his pockets when he was examined in the ER. I helped him switch into a hospital gown. There wasn’t a damn thing in his swim trunks other than sand.

May 18th, 2025 - “Tusk and I stayed home from school with Ms. Winchester”

Dad says we haven’t been feeling well, and that we need to rest (8). That’s why he’s forcing us to stay home today. I’m not sure what he’s talking about (Tusk and I feel great), but I don’t mind missing my algebra test, either.

I just wish he didn’t ask Ms. Winchester to come over (9). I’m 13 now, and I have Tusk. We don’t need a babysitter, and especially not one that’s a worthless sack of arthritic bones like her (10).

In the end, though, everything worked out OK. Tusk was really excited to go on an “expedition” today and they were worried that Ms. Winchester would try to stop us. She did at first, which aggravated Tusk. I felt the spirals and markings burning against my leg from inside my pocket.

But once I explained why we needed to go into the forest, had her hold Tusk while I detailed how important the expedition was, Ms. Winchester understood (11). She even helped us find my dad’s shovel from the garage!

She wished us luck with finding Tusk’s crown.

We really appreciated that.

———

(8): Nico had been acting strange since that day at the beach. His pediatrician was concerned that he may have been experiencing “subclinical seizures” and recommended keeping him home from school while we sorted things out.

(9): Ms. Winchester has been our neighbor for over a decade. During that time, Nico has become a surrogate child to the elderly widow. When Sofia would covertly discontinue her meds, prompting an episode that would see her disappear for days at a time, Ms. Winchester would take care of Nico while I searched for my wife. Sofia was never a huge fan of the woman, a fact I never completely understood. If Ms. Winchester ever critiqued my wife, it was only in an attempt to make her more motherly. She’s been such a huge help these last few years.

(10): My son adored Ms. Winchester, and I’ve never heard him use the word “arthritic” before in my life.

(11): When I returned from work around 7PM, there was no one home. As I was about to call the police, Nico stomped in through the back door, clothes caked in a thick layer of dirt and dragging a shovel behind him. I won’t lie. My panic may have resembled anger. I questioned Nico about where he’d been, and where the hell Ms. Winchester was. He basically recited what’s written here: Nico had been out in the forest behind our home, dig…

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