So, how did it start? How can a statue be alive? What might happen later when several chapters are out? Meet Sanae.

Chapter 2

Meet Sanae

Ishikawa Hiro. According to him, a dumb name “Hiro” given to him by his father, referencing English word “Hero”. But still a fearful name for those who knew. He was a yakuza boss. One morning he knocked on the door of Kawaguchi Daishi – warlock, drug dealer, but only a religious truck driver in the eyes of the public. Hiro was accompanied by his 2 brothers and his daughter.

“Good morning.” Ishikawa Hiro said.
“Hi.” Daichi replied. “Come in.”

Daichi received his guests. When they took off their shoes, suites and made themselves at home in his traditional living room (except for the TV, PS4 and a shelf full of game discs), Ishikawa’s daughter stood up to introduce herself. She was obviously an early high schooler, her hair was black, shining and of a beautiful consistency, but tied in a traditional manner of a Japanese lady. She was smiling, but obviously tense.

“My name is Ishikawa Sanae. Nice to meet you!” She bowed.
“I’m glad to meet you, Sanae. My name is Kawaguchi Daichi, but you can call me just Daichi.”
“Thank you, ‘just Daichi’. My dad told me you offer to give me blessings of your gods.” Then she bowed again. “Please, take care of me.”

‘Blessings.’ He thought ironically. It was all but hidden behind her smile, she knew something very bad should happen to her.

“Yes. Of course, I’ll take care of you as if you were my roommate.” They both quietly laughed. “Just come over here.”

He took her to a separate table in the living room. It was small and low, one would say traditional. There was a searing incense stick on it, next to it a pot of hot tea, and on each side tea cups.
“Are you bothered by the incense?” He inquired.
“No.” She said. “It’s pleasant. It calms me down.”
“That’s good.” He smiled. “My gods can be intensive. Sometimes, when a person receives a blessing, they feel scared and give up. I can’t blame them.”
“That’s funny. Yes… I’m a little anxious… Because I met you for the first time. But you seem like a really nice talk-mate.”

‘A little anxious.’ He thought. She wasn’t a little anxious. She did a good job hiding a large amount of fear. ‘This could get out of hand.’ He thought.

“I heard about your gods.” She said. “They seem pretty solid. I asked my father if I could receive your blessings… I really hope it didn’t give you a problem hehe…”

‘Solid?’ She was a smart girl, and Daichi wasn’t a sucker, so: ‘She knows… She should be… Turned to stone. Just… Is she really content with it or…? Fuck. Fucking yakuza and fucking Ishikawas!’

“So, I think I will start.” He said. “I’ll say a prayer for you. I’ll read it from a book, and then I’ll hand the book to you to read a specific paragraph. The best you can. First you need to take off her clothes, I promise that nobody will touch you.”

She started getting naked. It was weird, she had no shame. He took out a fancy book, found a required page and started reading it. Sanae felt better. Or rather sedated. She was obviously sedated, but it helped her relax. As he was reading, tension started leaving her face. In 2 minutes he finished his reading.

“And now, Ishikawa Sanae, receive the blessings of the Earth God.”

Sanae then suddenly exploded into gray dust, and floor beneath her shook. The 3 brothers by the main table stood up from surprise. But as soon as the smoke was clear enough to be seen through, they could see Sanae. She was gray and rock solid. Relaxed, smiling and sitting on her knees.

“Unbelieveable…” Said Hiro. “She has… turned into stone.”
“How is this possible?” One of his brothers wondered.”
“A substance is added to the tea”, Dashi explained, “to neutralize her mind. The prayer is then told with her soul open to be took over by the Earth God.”

They were skeptical.
“You had 2 weeks, Daichi-san.” The other brother inquired. “Isn’t that too short to make a scrabble a statue?”
“I don’t scrabble.” He said. “I never did.”
“This is a little unbelievable, I mean, you had 2 weeks and you knew which hair style she’d be wearing.”
“Leave him be, onii-chan.” Hiro interrupted. “His family has been doing that for about 300 years, right? He is not the one to mess with.” He said with a wide smile.

‘Fuck you.’ Thought Daichi. It was not a praise, it was a subtle threat. Daichi was alone and vulnerable.

“Besides”, Hiro continued, “This is too fine for a scrabblier. I mean… Look at her. It’s Sanae. The same Sanae that we all know. Only gray.”

There was no doubt about that. It was Sanae, of course.

“What is she thinking right now?” Hiro asked. “Can you hear her thoughts somehow?”
“I can’t. But I sense she’s in panic.”
“Yea, must be frustrating, not being able to move. How… How many people, in Japan, have had their own daughter turned to statues for their house?”
“One. Back in the day before I was born… Not nearly as easy as Sanae. She was an obedient girl.”
“Obedient flower.” Her father said, caressing her face and her lips. “My good pretty flower… Naked flower…” He turned to Daichi and his brothers. “I’m not doing this because I have sick feelings for my daughter. I’m just admiring the statue. She’s not my daughter anymore. Isn’t that right, Daichi?” He said in an agitated tone.
“She is your daughter. But humans are material creatures. You’re currently caressing a statue, not a child.”

Hiro was insulted and angered by the answer, because it still, in a way, implied that he was a creep of a father. But Daichi knew he'd be unhappy even if it said it was no longer his daughter.
“Here, take your 10 million Yen, and I don’t want to see you or hear you anymore!”

Daichi took the money, thinking ‘what a miserable sum…’

The 3 brothers covered the statue and put it in their van. They took off.

Daichi turned on the TV and watched it for an hour, cursing the looney Ishikawas within his mind. When he was sure they wouldn’t come back, he went to the basement. Right in front of the stairs was the door, but to the right was a hall. He turned on the lights and travelled the hall until the end. There was a cage, and in the cage was Ishikawa Sanae, alive, but drugged.

“Whut is this?” She asked. “Why am I in a cage?”
Next to the cage was a chair. Well prepared for this conversation. Daichi sat on it and started talking.
“I didn’t turn you to stone. Rest easy.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t trust your dad.” He said. “I fucking hate your dad.”
“What? Why do you hate him?” She asked, lying down, sedated.
“He’s impulsive, psychopathic and crazy.” He said angrily. “My family is pretty… Psychopathic too, as they would call it in the media. But we’re reliable.”
“Who is reliable?” She was obviously out of her mind.
“Sleep, please. You’ll wake in a few hours and I’ll be here.”

When she woke up later, in the same cage, she saw Daichi and a cup of coffee, still hot, waiting for her.

“Please drink this coffee.” He said. “I want to have a crucial conversation with you.”

She did it, calmly.

“Relieved by the fact you’re still human, aren’t you?”
“I dunno.” She said. “Why did you lock me up?”
“I don’t want you to go home.” He said. “Do you know why you’re here and not on a… place where your dad put poor Haruna.”
“No. Who is Haruna?”
“It’s the girl that looks just like you. It took 6 days and 50 million yen to find someone who looks like you, get her kidnapped and brought here. And to think of a universal strategy to frame your father. 2 days later she was hexed, turned to stone. Then I had to scrabble her a bit to make her look more like you. I had to set up the mechanism to replace you with Haruna.” He sighed. “I did everything but have a breath.”
“Oh… I would like to hear more about Haruna but… Why didn’t you turn me?”
“I would turn you into stone if you happened not to look that much like Haruna. But I tried to avoid that as your father might change his mind.” He said. “And when he does, he’ll ask me to turn you back. And now I can set up another trick to give you back to him.”
“No… He wouldn’t do that. I understand… It makes perfect sense… But… I’ve got a baby brother and…”
“And they no longer need you. Yes. I know that. Your father talked about you in a beautiful way. He might regret you being stone.”
“In a ‘beautiful way’.” She puffed sarcastically. “He’s a creep. He’s been creeping me out since my first period.”

‘Why did she tell me that?’ Daichi wondered. ‘Her first perios? Not just that she said something so intimate to an old guy she just met, but… She’s calm. Why? She’s in a cage!’

“Look… You don’t worry about my father. But… Now that I’m alive… I’ll need to be fed and schooled. I can do a part time job if you need.”
“Your father lives 200 miles by the road. He might see you, and that concerns me.”
“Yea… You should have turned me into stone. But it’s far away. I’ll make sure he doesn’t recognize me.”

She then untied her hair. A straight art of black dropped down her back and around her shoulders.

“I hate tying my hair.” She said. “I was never allowed to do this. Ever. Except while washing my hair. Dad had wanted me to look like his ex-fiancée.”

“Did he…?” Daichi asked, considering her dad was a sexual creep. “Did he ever take your measurements?”
“No. He doesn’t believe in measurements.”
Daichi signed in relief.
“You still should have turned me.”
“Sanae-chan… Do you mind if I call you Sanae-chan?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Were you… really content about being turned into stone?”

Tension took her over again.
“How about you let me out and I’ll tell you”, she joked, “Just kidding. You don’t believe me yet.”
He then unlocked the cage and opened the cage door.
“Then convince me. Don’t run away.” He said. “I don’t care anyway. Seeing your father, I’d rather shorten my misery right now.”

Surprised, she slowly left the cage.
“Why do you hate dad so much?” She wondered.
“I hate your whole family.” He pulled his sleeve and showed her a large scar. “This was from an explosion wound. Your family blew up my family. I was the only one left.” He then took his arm back down.
“Why?” She asked.
“I don’t know. I thought you might tell me.” He sighed. “I’m not a sentimental person at all, but I used to have a strong self-sustaining house, minding its own business, and now I’m left with… Nothing. I knew everything that had been going on, but Ishikawas? Why would they fuck up my life?”
“They never told me”, she said, “But I know my grandpa had been a problem.”
“Oh.” He said. “He was a rampager. Burned, killed… Nobody knew why.”
“He was paranoid, that’s why.” She said. “I knew him when I was little, but my dad is nothing like him. Did you think that when you said ‘unreliable’?”
“Yes… So you heard.”
“Grandpa was unreliable.” She said. “His paranoia got the better of him. That’s why they killed him.”

She went upstairs, saying:
“I’m hungry and thirsty. Take care of it.”

Daichi prepared her a 10-minute rice with chicken from a box. He gave her orange juice.
“I love orange juice…” She said. “I just love oranges.”
He joined her at supper. She asked.
“Is it OK if I talk while I’m eating?”
“In here? Of course it’s OK.”
“Sorry for the impatience, but… I’m curious, how did the trick look like?”
“Well… I read several sentences in Nigerian, posing it to be the chant of some fucking Earth God. Then I released the smoke… Wait, you saw all that, right?”
“I was half-aware of myself. I know that I was swiped by something… That’s what intrigues me, how did you do that?”
“I have high education in mechanics and mechatronics.” He said. “So did most of my family. We were known for some engineer-assassinations, like in some movies. Best thing is, people would always find it unbelievable in context of the real world so it was like a secret weapon that wasn’t even secret.”
“Umm…” She made a pause before continuing. “I’m curious… About how you turn people into stone.”
“Oh, you don’t believe me?”
“I do. Or better, I’m trying to. I… Just… I’m… I told you that… It was my idea… You know.”
“Yea.” He said. “Was it really?”
“Well… It was dad’s idea, but he first asked for my approval. I approved.”
“Why?”
“Because… I like suffering.” She said. “My dad is bad with computers and thinks I don’t watch porn, but I do. As the matter of fact… The sick stuff. And once I got into petrification tag…”

She then showed him a tiny scar on her arm.
“You see this? I dug at my nerve once on purpose, hoping it to lump up while growing back. And it did. My whole hand would be in pain every once in a while. I loved it…”
“So you want to be turned into stone?”
She had a half minute pause.
“You… Have no permission to turn me into stone.” She said. “But if I ask you to… Do it. But not earlier.”
“I see. But I’m waiting at least 1 year, until I’m sure I’d never see your father again.”
“Umm… Do you have any hexed people here? Or pictures?”

He didn’t hesitate:
“Sure. Follow me.”
‘Is this for real?’ He thought. ‘Could she be truly interested? Well, she hasn’t even seen them yet.’

They didn’t even finish the supper when he took her to the basement. They went through the door right in front of the stairs. He turned on the lights.

It was like a dance hall, pretty well taken care of. But there were girls. Stone girls. And mostly… High schoolers? She was astonished. They were naked and looked beautiful. Sitting in front of tables, standing, crying… When she looked better, most of them were tortured, or in pain, or… ‘Is this girl’s asshole spread like there’s a dick in it?!’ She thought. It was not just a gallery of people turned into statues, but most of them were brutalized beforehand. Squeezed, raped, cut, impaled, chocked, broken, amputated…

“This is like a hobby to you.” She said.
“Isn’t it? Let me tell you the whole story.

Back in 17th century tiny statues started appearing in these areas. They were representing situations in our country and with our people. Nobody knew who was making them, so my witch family investigated them. And they felt life in them. A gentle form of life, far softer that life within statues in this room. Their aura radiated correct reactions. If a person was being killed, it indicated pain, and if the person enjoyed, it indicated joy. If you broke one, it still radiated the aura.

We called them life statues. Going deeper into it, my ancestors found out no human was making them, but demons did. To an experienced witch, a demon is not a creature from hell, but more of a spiritual creature. They figured these demons might be useful, so they made a contact. And the demons said their greatest wish is to turn living people into the same type of statues.

It sounded grotesque, but my ancestors wanted to have this power up their sleeve for just in case. So they tamed it. They tried it. They brought in a murderer sentenced to death in order to do experiments on him. After a few days they managed to turn him into stone. There was, of course, another problem, because lead warlock in the experiment had heard his mind for a few days. After it stopped, they had to check if the prisoner was still alive as that statue.

And check this out. His aura indicated a person in shock and worry. At times there had been regret for his crimes, which was, in normal circumstances, impossible for his psychology. In order to shorten his misery, my ancestors tried breaking him, burning him… Nothing changed in his aura. The main warlock, my close family forgot his name, took in another murderer, a female, in order to investigate her mind during the first few days when he would hear her thoughts. He wanted to know if breaking or burning or anything affects them anyhow, and use it to find a clue for killing them, because aura doesn’t give out that much information. But there had been no result. Even in pieces, she felt as a whole, didn’t feel a thing we did to her life statue.

Of course, a life statue’s posture and experience is supposed to represent an eternal state, one lyric, or one word, or one verse with a meaning. See it as a different form of life. If this life was dynamic, that one would be static. Not literally because their mind is not locked in time. But… We never managed, noted or found an entity to turn them back to being dynamic.

My ancestors decided it was too cruel and to never do it again. Until few weeks later. Before that, they did it only twice, but were already hooked up to it. It became a way of executing the worst criminals that deserved eternal hell. Several decades later, 3 of my ancestors would wield the power of these demons. It was just too addicting.

For a specific reason, there was no more practice of it during 17th and 18th century, but in the 19th… That’s when the demons got to the mind of one of my ancestors again. The first person she turned to stone was a 10 year old child. Nobody knew the kid had been visiting there. She broke him to pieces and buried him, worried others might find the statue and relate her to the missing child. But then she was hungry for more. She put out the rumor that they could turn bad people into stone, making them suffer forever. Rich people from Japan and China would come over, handing out their worst enemies, who inflicted them enormous harm, to be turned into that stone-ish structure. But the witch had an idea – she would impale these people beforehand. They would be turned into stone, and still feel the pain. For the victims, the torture would go on forever. It had become literal hell.

Of course, these cases were rare, so she, and later her brother or cousin or something, would kidnap people, inflict them great amount of pain and turn them into stone.

Of course, in 20th century my family let it become a legend. They didn’t do it anymore because… I’ll explain later. But at times a yakuza boss or something would pay huge sum for a rock solid revenge. It’s just that life statues would be broken into pieces and buried right away, for authorities not to find statues of missing people and track them down to us. One guy… I already told your dad a guy once wanted his daughter to become his decoration. He changed his mind the very day after putting her in display. We couldn’t turn her back, so we had a war with them. We killed them all, using magic, science and simple thug skills. We were a criminal family without much empathy.”

“Was that family”, Sanae asked, “somehow related to my family?”
“No. You’re asking because of the death of my family?”
“Yes. For just in case.”
“No, it was most likely your grandpa’s paranoia.”
“So… Why would, at times, your ancestors stop doing that?”
“Heh… Check this out. The first 3 get too old to keep the practice. Younger family members decide to take over. And as soon as they became capable of it, the 3 old guys were turned into stone.” He said with a laugh. “You can guess what happened to the female one. She got turned too.”
“Does it mean you’ll get turned into stone as well?”
“Most likely. If the demons find someone else to take over. Then they’ll probably take him over here to break me to pieces and bury me.”

Sanae kept walking in wonder. All these faces of terror and pain… ‘You like images of suffering too, don’t you, Daichi?’
“This one you’re looking at right now.” He said with a smiling face. “I turned her while she was burning in flames. Fires of hell really burn for this one right now. Which is ironic because she was a good girl.”
“How do you know she’s still alive and conscious?”

Daichi put his hand on the poor girl’s body, as if feeling something from the inside.
“Oh, she is alive.”
“How do you… feel that?” She asked putting the hand on the life statue, not feeling anything.
“Try to hug her.” He said.

Sanae put her arms around the girl that seemed to be just a bit older than her. It felt… As if someone was sick and calling for help. Like when Sanae herself was little and extremely unpleasantly sick.
“She does not feel me?”
“She doesn’t. You’re not making her feel any better.”

Sanae kept on investigating them, and came across a little girl with her mouth opened as if the tube had been forced in and… Dried transparent substance?

“You can see what I did to this one before turning her.” He said without shame. “And what I’m doing to her even these days. These dry traces come from the bottle on this table over here.” It was a bottle of lubricant. So that’s the dried thing on her mouth…
“Poor girl… She was… How old was she?”
“A middle schooler. Didn’t even have a taste of proper life.”
“How sad…” Sanae said. “I love it.”

Few minutes later he said:
“Do you like what you see?”
“I do…”
“Do you want me to teach you?”
“Teach me what? Sensing their aura?”
“No, silly. Teach you how to turn them into stone. Well, sensing the aura too.”

She was surprised.
“For real? So soon?”
“Sure.”
“I mean… You don’t even know me…”
“You don’t know me either, but you didn’t run away, and you were quite open.”
“I… Sure, why not. But that means the demons turn me into stone eventually?”
“Yes.” He said. “You’ll be addicted to it. You’d do it too often to escape that fate. I’ve been alone for at least 20 years. I would like to have a partner in this magical crime.”
“I’m glad to hear it…”
“It’s not that I’m lonely. I’m just bored. Killing my days with PS4 while I’m not working or hunting. You need to know this, I’m a psychopath. Like most of my family. I don’t make normal connections to people.”
“I know… So is my dad, my granddad… My mom is not. Poor mum.”
“But you’ll need one thing, Sanae-chan, and that is patience. It’ll take a while before you start receiving lessons. It doesn’t take long to learn it, however. And most importantly, if you kidnap a person every week, you’ll be discovered. You, however, must be prepared even if you do it rarely: if the authorities relate us to missing people in any way, we get caught. Eventually, that will happen. But we can’t tell them about the life statues, they won’t believe us. We just tell them we know nothing.”

After the conversation they went to the living room. They turned on the TV and fell asleep. It was an image of 2 twisted minds resting under the screen light, the older one on the sofa, the younger one on the armchair. When they woke up, they started planning how Sanae would live from then further, suppressing their impatience for the rock solid demonstration to come.