24 Hour Short Story - Trapped in Stone

_{This story was an entry for @mctiller's 24 hour story contest. But I'm late, and probably don't qualify for the contest, but I might as well post it anyway. Despite writing this yesterday, I didn't manage to look at it againt til a few minutes ago to wrap up the end.
The story contest is location here.
You should follow him. He does these contest pretty often.}

The light from the setting sun slowly faded, blanketing the city in a beautiful pink shroud of light. Slowly, lights across the city began to turn on. One by one, street lights came on, lights in windows revealed themselves as it got darker outside, or were turned on by those in the room, and headlights got turned on by those driving. The city's lights were rising as the sun set.

Gerald's consciousness was slowly rising as well, though he still felt a bit groggy from his day's rest. He looked down on the bustling city in the fading light. Some might call it beautiful, but to Gerald, it was a sight he saw every day, and it had long lost its appeal.

He could barely remember the first day he had seen it. Then, it truly was beautiful. He could remember the fear as he dangled from a rope on a crane, and was even nearly smashed on the side of the building. If it were not for his face being frozen, it would have shown a deathly fear that day, as he dangled hundreds of feet over the city, not even safely perched on his now familiar mount. Once he was perched on his mount though, he saw the glory of the city from high above it, and was awestricken. That awe slowly faded over the years though. Now he just wanted to escape.

_{Photograph by Michael Reeve, 30 January 2004. CC BY-SA 3.0 (source)}

He didn't know if he had done something wrong in a previous life to be reincarnated as a gargoyle, but he knew his life was hell from the moment he first woke up on the artist's workbench. He didn't know how it happened, but the first thing he recalled was slowly waking up and feeling the pain intensify as he did so, as the artist slowly scraped, chiseled, filed, and ground him out of the rock. Every moment was pain. By the end, he was screaming in agony in his mind, yet unable to say a word, or even show his pain in any way.

He still remembers the look of accomplishment and sheer joy that the artist had on his face when he finally stepped back and looked at his work, fully satisfied with what he had accomplished, and knowing that he was finally finished. Then the artist called up a friend, and Gerald was taken from the workbench and moved to another area, beside two other gargoyles that were nearly identical.

They seemed like they were still in shock a bit, but Gerald found that he could somehow hear them in his mind. They eventually told him their names were Andy and Herb. I know what you're thinking, what weird names for gargoyles. Perhaps you would picture them to have some regal names, or something gothic. Well, they didn't know why they were named that. It was just something they knew. Those were their names.

Gerald had tried to get them to help him figure a way out of there, but the fact that they couldn't move at all kind of put a damper on any hope of that. So he just sat there, trying to will himself to move, while the artist sat with his friend on the couch, watching the TV. Eventually, he fell asleep from exhaustion as he tried to move even a toe.

What he woke up to was sheer horror. He could hear someone screaming like they were being tortured to death. When he was finally able to overcome his fear to ask, he found out just what he was doing.

"He's carving another one of us out of the stone."

"What?"

"He's making another one of us. He was commisioned for four. He's making the final one of us. He carved us all out of stone."

"You've had to listen to this every time?"

"Not every time. I was the second. Andy was the first. I imagine I sounded much the same though after I heard you."

"You could hear me? I thought no one could hear me. I was screaming out. Why didn't you answer?"

"What was I supposed to say? I couldn't do anything. I could only hear you scream. I couldn't stop it."

Gerald waited for a pause in the screaming, and then called out, "Hey, it's going to be alright. It will be over with soon. Just try to hang in there."

"Why is he doing this to me?"

"I don't know."

"He's an artist! They're paying him to carve us out of the stone!"

"What? Stone? Where am I? What am I doing here?"

"We're in his loft. This is where he works."

"I'm a statue?"

"Yes."

"Does every statue have to feel this torture when they're created?"

"I don't know. I was only created the other day. I don't even know how I'm able to speak to you."

"What... AHHH!!!!" His scream was blood-curdling. How could the other two have sat through it? It was no wonder that Andy was the quieter of the two. He just sat to one side, mumbling to himself, and whimpering.

By the end of it all, he was more than a bit shaken. They all were. It did end though, and Jacob was taken over to sit with the others. They spent the next two days mostly still in shock. They got their chance to get to know each other though. Some men came with a hand cart and wrapped them all up in moving blankets, and carted them away. They spent what could have been only days, or perhaps weeks, packed up in their own individual little boxes, waiting for the time when they would be mounted on the corners of their skyscraper.

That first day had felt like freedom. The fresh air, the view above the city, it was all so much better than being locked in a tiny box for weeks. Now he knew better though. The bright sun blasting down on him every day burned him, bleaching his stone skin, as birds crapped on him, and scratched him with their claws. He just wanted to escape.

Then he heard a story. A statue had been placed inside the building next to where he was. He was very old. He told him about how once he was owned by a wizard of some repute, back before they dismissed such things as fantasy, and how he had a spell, to create a stone golem. Using a few special ingredients and an incantation, a wizard could bring a stone statue to life. Gerald might actually be able to escape this hell he lived in. How could he get someone to cast this incantation on him though?

"There are a few people that can hear us actually. They're rare, but they exist. You just have to find them. Most of them are a bit crazy though."

That was it! He just had to try to find someone that could hear him. Even if it meant trying to talk to every person he met for the next 100 years.

Thankfully it didn't take that long though. For weeks, and then months, he tried calling out to every person he saw out of the corner of his eye in the building. Not one of them answered. He started to be ridiculed by his fellow gargoyles for it. Then one day it paid off though. A young teen visiting his father in his office came up to the window, and looked directly at him. When he called out to him, he jumped. He had heard him! There was no doubt.

"You can hear me! Oh, thank god! I've been trying to find someone that can hear me for months!"

"Um...am I going crazy? Are you really talking to me?"

"Yes! I mean, no, you aren't going crazy, yes I am talking to you."

"Why? Why would you talk to me?"

"I need your help. I need to get off of here. I'm stuck on this perch every day, with no way to move at all. It's hell. Every day the sun beats down on me, and birds crap on me, and I can't move an inch, or talk to anyone but my fellow statues."

"You can talk to other statues?"

"Yes."

"So, you're saying that statues can talk?"

"Yes."

"And no one's ever noticed?"

"Well, most people can't hear us." The boy nearly jumped at the sound of the other statue's voice behind him.

"You can talk to?"

"Yes, I can. We can all talk. I'm Geoffrey. The one you have been speaking to is Gerald."

"Um...hi. I'm Jeremy."

"Hi, Jeremy. I need your help. Geoffrey told me a story about one of his previous owners, who was a wizard. He had a spell to bring life to a stone statue."

"Wizards don't exist! They aren't real!"

"Maybe not anymore, young Jeremy, but there was a time when they were as real as you or I. Before today, you probably would never have thought that statues would speak to you, would you?"

"Well, no..."

"Wizards existed! And I need your help to cast a spell!"

"Um...okay... What do I have to do?"

"Well, we need you to...um...actually, I don't know. What was involved in the spell?"

"I don't remember. That was hundreds of years ago."

"What was the name of the book?"

"I don't know! It was red. With gold inlays."

"This is gonna take a while..."