Sun and Stone

VI.

I woke up with a start. A morning songbird chirped nearby and then took flight. The sound of its wings flapping sent shivers down my spine, too similar to the dream I had just escaped. I was surprised that I had slept at all. I didn't think I could fall asleep curled up next to what felt like a fabric covered stone wall. It took some time for the events of the previous night to flood back. My usual nightmare already had my heart racing, and the panic upon realizing my world had not returned to normal as I slept left me spiraling. After a quiet panic attack, I began to get up. At some point while I slept, Gray had covered me with his other hand, creating a protected cave. His hands had fallen during the night, coming to rest on his lap so I was now held against his stomach. The steady movement and sound of his breath was comforting and relaxing, but I fought the urge to go back to sleep. The light that was visible through the spaces between Grays hands was slowly lightening, changing from blackness to purple in the early dawn. We needed to get moving, make a plan and face this thing head on.

It quickly became apparent that standing would not be an option. With Grays hand cupped over me, the small cave was too shallow to stand in, and I wasnt strong enough to shift the new ceiling. A mild claustrophobia began to set in. As I moved to rest on hands and knees, I felt my sore joints and muscles sharply. Without the option of going anywhere until Gray moved his hands, I began to pound on his stomach in hopes of waking him up.

I was thinking I had succeeded when I felt the hands around me tense and heard a sharp intake of breath from above that caused the wall that was his stomach to bulge towards me. But the hands didn't open, and Gray didn't make any move to let me out. Instead, he began to make pained sounds and grunts. The moment when his face changed while looking at the light shining through my skin flashed through my mind. The sun was rising, and if looking at the light in my body had hurt him last night, who knew what the sunrise would do. We were on the eastern side of a mountain in a clearing against a sheer cliff and the sun was coming up. In just a few minutes there would be no protection from the light. I began to panic, shouting and pounding against every part of Gray I could reach. He needed to move, now! I shouted for him to run for the tent or the cover under the trees, becoming more exasperated as my world shook and Grays pained moans overshadowed my shouts.

Then Gray became suddenly very still. Instead of relief, I felt a creeping dread fill my stomach. He made no further sounds and his body no longer moved with breath. "Gray? Is it over? Are you okay?" There was no answer. I moved to the largest opening between his hands to attempt to squeeze through. When my hand touched the skin outside of the darkened enclosure I flinched back, as if I had been burned. Outside of the clasped hands, Gray had become lifeless; his skin was colder, firmer, and a chalky substance came off in my hand as I pulled it back. His skin last night was hard, but now the analogy to stone was comical. Gray had really turned to stone. Anywhere the sunlight touched outside of his cupped hands had become rock hard and he was now frozen in place. His clothes wouldn't provide much protection either. Light filters through most fabric eventually.

The dread in my stomach gained weight and spread to leaden limbs as it began to dawn on me that I was trapped by Grays cupped hands, and he wasn't going to move any time soon, if ever again. As the realization sank in, I wanted to ask Gray what to do out of habit before I stopped myself, tears prickling in my eyes. Not only was I trapped. I was alone.

I was torn from my despairing thoughts by the sound of someone entering the clearing. The world outside of Grays hands was quiet apart from the sporadic birdsong, and the sound of boots hitting the loose stones and packed earth of the clearing was unmistakable.

Hello?

I immediately regretted calling out, but the figure appeared in the clearing during a weak moment. Had I been crying a fountain, and kissing my life goodbye as I faced a future of potentially starving to death stuck beside my best friend who had turned to stone? Yes. Was I being a bit dramatic instead of trying to figure out my next steps? No one who hasn't been in this exact, exponentially bizarre situation could judge.