Petrifying Curiousity

Ashley walked into the cave, curious as to what she would find. She remembered her father had warned her about what was inside. She wasn't afraid, she never was. Her father had only said to not go in...but was never specific as to what she would find.

Ashley ignored the warnings anyway. Only 17, she couldn't spend her whole life afraid. She was to meet up with her friends in an hour, so she decided to take a quick trip to see what it was all about. Wearing flip-flop sandals, wondered whether or not she should put this off until another day. In the end, she decided to take them off in order to get a grip on the trail to get to the cave. Besides, she thought, it feels great to be barefoot with nature again.

When she arrived, she walked in. Sandals in hand, she felt the cool ground beneath her feet as she pressed onward to a strange light around the corner. How odd, she thought.

She turned the corner to see the light was coming from a ball. A glowing green ball. She reached out her left arm to touch it, when it shocked her.

ZAP!!!

The force from the shock threw her against the wall, and she hit her head. Seeing stars, she was dazed. She lay against the corner coming to grip with what had happened. Her sandals lay a few feet in front of her. She reached with her left hand in order to lean forward when she noticed her hand was gray.

Interesting.

She brought her hand closer to her face.

Am I seeing this correctly?

She couldn't move her hand. It felt cold. Then the gray color started proceeding down her arm. Frightened that she in fact WAS seeing this clearly, she came to the realization that her entire left arm was turning to solid stone. She then noticed the same thing happening to her right arm. Then her feet felt cold. Sure, she was barefoot, but she had to be sure. Sure enough, her feet had turned to stone as well and the matter was moving up her legs rather quickly. Ashley was scared. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't escape now that the curse had crawled to the major joints in her body: she couldn't stand for her knees had frozen solid, forbidding her to rise. Her elbows and shoulders couldn't move. With that, she lay helpless as the stone congregated to her neck. Then, as if almost to prolong the torture, the curse went to the back of her head, then around her face. As she cried for the last time, the spell finished with her face, freezing it in the saddest expression one could imagine.

She was stone, a barefoot statue laying against the wall, trapped by curiosity.

Even worse, she was alive. Through her sad expression, she could only see straight ahead. She could feel the will to move, yet could not do so. She could not scream for help. She could not blink. She could not wipe the final watery tear that dripped from her stone chin. She could only sit there and stare ahead. In her peripheral vision, she looked at her sandals. If only I'd gone back...maybe I would have forgotten all about the cave and this wouldn't have happened to me. Well, I guess I'll be barefoot forever now...

Ashley sat and waited. She wondered if anyone would find her. She wondered if other people had come and suffered the same fate as her. There were no other statues in here. Maybe there was a cure. All she could do was hope...hope that someone could free her of this indescribable prison. One day.

One day...