The Granite Princess

THE GRANITE PRINCESS

On the island of Ros Chepada, only a few miles from the pastures where shepherds munch olives while watching their flocks, the Granite Princess gazes over the water.

Hundreds of years ago, the statue was chipped into shape with stone tools, but no one knows why. Some say that the statue was created by a grief-stricken widower who missed his wife fiercely. Others claim that this statue is cursed, and that to gaze upon it brings misfortune.

A few minutes ago...

1. The statue blinked. All the seagulls fell, dead, upon the rocky shore.

2. Several stones from the statue's base rattled, shook, and then floated up; they arranged themselves overhead in the position of nighttime stars.

3. A deep rumble emanated from below, and the statue began to rotate slowly.

4. Anybody who looked at it started to hear whispering in their head.

5. Viscous, black liquid began to drip from the statue's eye sockets. Anyone who meets the statue's gaze is compelled to taste the black tears of despair.

6. A deep crack appeared in the statue, and a woman's hand reached out, pale and wasted.

7. The grass around the base began to brown and wither at a rapid pace while animals, and even insects, begin to flee the area.

8. The statue began to emit a low moan, growing in intensity. All those who hear it will lose someone or something dear to them within the next day.

9. The statue dissapeared (to be found in a church by local nuns 8 hours later).

10. Cold mists spread out from the statue and across the waters it watches. The first of the dark and silent ships can now been seen moving through the fog.

11. The stone of the statue began to turn into pulsating white flesh.

12. Tears of blood began to roll from the eyes as every male on the island was suddenly overcome with an unknown illness.

13. A tremblor knocked the statue over, revealing the hole in the base, carefully sealed with a mixture of resin-coated agave pulp and fired clay.

14. Huge stone arms erupted for the ground as the statue pulled herself from the ground to stand at her full colossal height. Echoes of a long-forgotten lament whisper in the breeze as the monolith slowly lumbers towards the nearest village, the earth trembling beneath her every step...

15. A sirens call emitted from the mouth; local men jostled to fornicate with the empty eye sockets grating their members and leaving behind salty tears of streaked coppery blood. These "tears" are collected by barren crones to birth familiars or worse. 

16. The villagers, animals, buildings, birds, all fell to the Earth as the statue pulled at a passing stellar body... and it pulls back.  Soon begins the feverish attempt to dig up the statue and loosen the planet from its grip.

17. The stone around the face began to crumble and fall, revealing the body of the creature beneath, awakening from its millennia-long slumber.

18. The earth rumbled as a second statue erupted from the ground a few feet from the original one. The heads of a third and fourth statue are already emerging while the first and second are beginning to form limbs. The shepherds are trying to escape the area before the stone golem army is legion.

19. A flock of undead pigeons shat upon it, turning the once proud monolith into a speleothem of fecal matter.

20. The mouth opened, wreleasing swarms of giant centipedes that devoured everything in their path.

Contributors:
Peter Amthor
Scott Dorward
Luis Velasco
Jason Morningstar
Darien Mason
Gary Bowerbank
Arnold Cassell
Jürgen Mayer
Rober Nolan