Marble Lips But No Marble Voice

20260430

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

My clomping steps echo across the flagstones, causing birds to scatter across the entire plaza. They wheel above me, peering down in a way which makes me feel even more self-conscious, even though I know they aren’t judging. They’re just puzzled by a statue walking around.
I cannot sigh. If I do still have lungs, they are indistinguishable from the rest of my marble body. Frozen in place by this curse.
‘I was trying to stop him!’ I silently scream up at the uncaring temple. No way of knowing if it could hear me, assuming there is something in there intelligent enough to understand. But I have no other recourse. ‘I believed the warnings left behind, and was trying to convince the others, and I think I could’ve managed it if you just gave me a little more time.’
No response. I’ve almost accepted that.
I fear what losing that torturous hope will leave me with.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I must take the stairs carefully. Though my stone body is thankfully supple, it’s just as heavy as any other statue, and if I lose my balance and fall getting back up is a serious struggle.
I wonder if falling down these stairs would damage me. And what that would do.
I may yet find out.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
There. The top. That cursed room. Where everyone else stands frozen, true statues. Surely that must mean that someone did this to us, yes? Why else would I be left almost alive, while the others… Well. I don’t know how much their state differs from mine. Are they mundane stone, or are they as aware as me, yet unable to move?
My flesh is now too solid to shudder. But uncertainty about their fate is part of the weight of my new form. A weight I fear I will never be free of.
Up here the wind is unceasing, and carries traces of the forest. Dust. Leaves. Bugs. I try and visit every day, to keep my comrades - or as it may be, their memorials - free of debris. Bundles of fresh twigs, gathered from the edge of the plaza, do a good enough job. I fear, however, that I may be using them up faster than they regrow.
Of course, the forest stretches out all around us, right to the edge of the islet, but… when I step off the sturdy footing provided by the stone paving I swiftly find myself sinking into the damp soil. I fear that a single stumble, made all the more likely by the mud and tree roots, might leave me floundering and unable to escape.
Staring out across my verdant prison walls, I wonder how many other poor fools suffered that fate. How quickly would you be engulfed by the trees?
And beyond the forest is the lake. Another impassible barrier, for I cannot sail the boat alone, and were I to capsize…
No. Miserable though my current situation is, it could be so much worse.
Besides, if I am right, and it was an entity housed in this temple who cursed me - cursed us - then finding some way to appease it is my best hope of escaping this fate.
And if not, well… I have been adding to the warnings scrawled around the place. Perhaps, if I am still present, those warnings might carry more weight. Perhaps I can prevent the next gang of treasure hunters from making the same mistake we did.
The birds wheel and call above me. Weightless. Free.

Prompt was “The weight I never chose”.