The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
Walls of Stone
by A.F. Stewart
How long have we waited?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
The words vibrate in my mind, a thousandfold echo against my own thoughts. Are they real? Are they the voices of my kin? Or only memories? Are my brothers and sisters long dead? Forever locked in this prison? Are they now dried bones, only remains encased in the rock?
No. We still live. We are here. All of us.
I sigh, relief flooding my thoughts, though a small doubt lingers. What if I am mad? What if their voices are only what I wish to hear?
We are all a little mad. How can it be otherwise? Centuries entombed in stone. But we are real, brother. We are real. And like you, we hunger for our vengeance.
Inside the wall, I smile. It will not be long. Humans did this to us, with their fear and their magic. But magic wears thin, eventually, and we are still here. Eternal in mind and memory. And when the gargoyles fly free again, we will fill the sky with our numbers, a multitude of fury and strength.
A legion of warriors thirsting for human blood.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Rie Sheridan Rose.
More from A.F. Stewart:
Visions and Nightmares
Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners.
In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.
Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison.
Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew.
Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer.
Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life.
Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband.
Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death.
All that and more await within the pages.
Ten stories. Ten women.
Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil?
Find out in Visions and Nightmares.
Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.
Spreading the Writer's Word 
Oooo! Gargoyles! Great little vignette, A.F. — fear and dread!
Got to love a gargoyle (and the Weeping Angels were the scariest Dr Who monsters of all in my opinion). The sense of life trapped in the stone is a great interpretation of the prompt.