"It's not severed," Ian said coldly, eyes narrowed. "It's hunting."
They all stared down at the thing beside the path. At first glance, it looked like a dismembered hand.
Human. Pale. Unmoving.
But the fingers twitched again, spasmodic and searching, not random.
They weren't flinching. Not exactly.
They were reaching. Blindly. Slowly.
As if tasting the air for warmth. For movement. For life.
For them.
Ian moved past it cautiously, coat brushing the stone.
The hand twitched harder.
It brushed his coat.
And then it moaned.
Not from a mouth.
From the nails.
A soft keening, like bone being dragged across glass, barely audible—but everyone heard it.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
---
Beyond the cliff lay a field of statues.
Hundreds of them.
Men. Women. Children.
All shapes, all ages. All frozen mid-motion.
All sculpted in the throes of finality.
