There was no response from the statue lying in our bed. I started to force myself to take some deep breaths. And the more I tried to think rationally about this insane situation, the more I thought something was fishy about it. Molly getting injected with some DNA-altering serum that gave her some mutated lizardy features - that was one thing. It sounded more or less scientific to me. But having her turn to stone the moment the sun rose? That was firmly in the realm of fantasy, and it made me think that someone was trying to trick me.
Not Molly herself, of course - I knew she would never be so cruel. But those bastards from the carnival? Could they have broken into our home in the middle of the night, kidnapped their prey right out of my loving arms, and replaced her with a stone replica? Leaving me to think that my girlfriend was magically petrified, while the real Molly was subjected to experiment after experiment, wondering why I never came back for her? Well... in the heat of the moment, it didn't sound any crazier than the other possible explanations.
Slowly, watching the statue for any hint of life underneath the stone, I climbed out of bed and backed out of the room. But still, nothing happened. Never mind, I said to myself. Wherever the real Molly is, I swore to myself that I would find her, and I would save her, no matter how long it took. I needed time to think about my next move, though, and my stomach was growling for breakfast. So I made my way into the kitchen, as if it was any other normal morning. I had just opened the cupboard to pull out a box of cereal when I heard Molly's voice.
"Honey?", she said, sounding very confused. "Where did you go?"
I breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't been kidnapped, and she wasn't a statue, either. Maybe that whole ordeal had been a bad dream and nothing more. "I'm in the kitchen," I called out in reply, not stopping to think about where in the house her voice was coming from.
In a few moments, I heard her footsteps quickly coming down the hallway toward me, loud thudding noises that shook the furniture with every step. She must be running really fast for some reason, I thought to myself. As the sound grew closer, I turned to look. I wanted to see Molly's beautiful face again. Then I would know that nightmare was far behind me.
But that's not what I saw. Instead, standing perfectly still a few feet away from me, it was the same gargoyle statue I had woken up with. Well, clearly not the same statue. That one had a peaceful sleeping look on its face, while this one had its eyes and mouth wide open in shock, revealing granite fangs. It was standing upright, instead of lying on its winged back. In fact, it sort of looked like it had been frozen in the middle of a running step, one clawed foot out in front of the other. One arm was outstretched, like the statue was trying to reach out for me. I couldn't help but notice that the statue was completely nude, the shape of its perky breasts very familiar to me. And, of course, beneath all the stone and the claws and wings and scaly gray skin, the face was unmistakably Molly's.
"Molly, where are you?", I called out, while staring the statue's frightened expression straight in its unblinking eyes. No response, of course. Maybe it sounds dense of me, but in that moment, all I could think was that this stunt being pulled on me was incredibly elaborate. "This isn't funny," I grumbled quietly to myself, thinking that no one would hear me anyway. I stepped around the awkwardly placed sculpture, wondering how anyone could possibly have moved such a large and heavy thing into position in the couple of seconds while I wasn't looking. But as I squeezed past the statue, which nearly blocked up the entrance to the hallway, my focus was on that voice. The real Molly had to still be somewhere in the house, right? I was determined to find her and put a stop to this mystery, whatever it was.
But just as soon as I had taken my eyes off the statue and moved away from it, I heard her voice again. And this time, it was a lot closer - coming from right behind me. "Please!", she cried desperately. "Baby, it's me! You have to believe-" Then the sound of Molly was abruptly cut off.
And at the very same moment that her voice stopped speaking, before I could turn around to look again, I felt something heavy landing roughly on my shoulder. Pressing against the bare skin just above my shirt collar, the cold and hard surface made a shiver run up my spine. My instinct was to jerk away from the touch, but I quickly discovered that I couldn't. The statue's hand, with its sharp stony claws, was gripping around my flesh tightly, making it impossible to wriggle out of its grasp or slap it away.
Slowly, I turned my head to look behind myself until my chin bumped against those hard gray knuckles. There, again, was the statue version of the face I loved so much, and again her expression had changed. Now, she looked not just scared but anguished, and there were even little trails of tears carved into her cheeks. Now, finally, I understood. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, Molly had become the victim of a supernatural curse, and I could guess at the rules she was now bound by. As a gargoyle, she would turn to stone if anyone was looking at her, and could only move when she was completely unseen.
As soon as the pattern formed in my mind, I immediately turned my head away and squeezed my eyes tightly shut, waiting for her to begin moving again. "I'm sorry!", I shouted in the opposite direction from her frozen form. "I get it now. I believe you. Please..." But the room was perfectly silent as I waited for Molly's interrupted voice to return, and those fingers were still wrapped tightly around my skin. The weight pressing down on me from her outstretched arm, despite being only a small fraction of her body, was enough to set me off-balance and leave me struggling to stand up straight. Each second that passed without any movement from Molly crushed my hopes as well as my shoulder.
And, though I was still only guessing at how this curse worked, I realized with dread what the problem most likely was. It wasn't just a person looking at her that would force her to freeze up into a lifeless statue. The other senses could probably do the same thing... like touch. She was stuck in that position until I stopped touching her. But if I couldn't get out of her grip, and she couldn't move a muscle to let me go free... Oh, no. We might both be standing here for a long time.