Kim Pine's Precious Little Knives

Chapter 7

Knives was the first to react, and the most strongly. She scooted back a full foot, then forward again to grasp at my stony arm where it rested on the table. I could still see and hear everything, but couldn't move, couldn't react to any of it. What was this?

"Omigosh KIM! What happened? Oh no, her skin is all grey!"

"That's because she's stone," Stephen sighed patiently, gesturing for Steph to exit the booth so he could get up. "Hang on, I think I have a bottle of Soft left in the car."

Steph goggled at him as he started walking out of the restaurant. "Wait... you have a car?!"

Knives and Steph didn't say much while he was gone. Just kept looking at me worriedly. How could I blame them? This was really fucking weird, and my life had been pretty weird all around up until that point. Knives was more aware of it than I was, even. One thing bothered me, though...

He said 'again.'

Why didn't I remember this happening before? You'd think turning to stone would stick out in one's memory, but I literally couldn't remember. Lots of weird shit, but not becoming a statue in the middle of a restaurant. And I couldn't begin to suspect why... except that I had been feeling pretty isolated and wanted to close myself off from what we were discussing before that point. Maybe that had something to do with it. But I doubted I would get any solid answers, since life doesn't come with an instruction manual.

Maybe it's a previously-owned game.

Stephen got back, and he had a little alabaster bottle that looked like it belonged in a museum in his hand. Without even waiting for anyone to react, he pulled out the stopper and poured what felt like warm water over my head. After a few seconds, the stone encasing me began to crack and crumble, and then shattered, leaving me free to move.

"Oh thank GOD," was the first thing I gasped out before I rubbed my jaw, which was the only part of my body that continued to feel stiff for some reason. I noticed Steph picking up one of the rock flecks that had broken off when the potion cured my condition.

"Ewwww."

Knives leaned a little closer and stroked my cheek, which gave me a weird flutter in the pit of my stomach. "Ooh, and now your skin is so soft... OH! Is that why they call the potion that?"

"Yeah, but only because anything is softer than she was a minute ago," Stephen grunted. I noticed the bottle had vanished into thin air once its contents were drained. "God, you're lucky I still had some left over from the last time..."

"Yeah... about that," I started. "What are you talking about?"

He snapped his fingers. "Right, you were passed out when it happened. This was at that Christmas party, the year before we met Knives?"

"Oh yeah..." Some weird sense of deja vu was creeping up my spine as he started talking about it. "That was a weird night. In fact, I could swear... I didn't wake up for a couple days..."

"You were still getting used to hanging around Scott again. Because of the history. Anyway, I could tell you weren't totally fine with him hanging around, but didn't fully get why since we didn't know each other very well yet. Anyway... eventually, the Christmas party at Comeau's house was where shit really hit the fan.

"So much eggnog was in your system, and you were jealous that Scott was hitting on Julie — or maybe just annoyed," he conceded when I glared daggers at him. "I don't fucking know. But yeah, I could tell you were really upset, and Scott asked you some question about how many Eiffel Towers it would take to reach the moon, and you just let him have it. Right there, in the middle of the party, you started tearing him apart about everything he was constantly fucking up or doing that got on your nerves. Never made it about the breakup, but you were really laying into him and you didn't care who heard you. He kind of shrugged it off, because he was already two gee-and-tees in and didn't have the headspace to understand the points you were trying to make, and that only pissed you off worse. So you bailed. An hour later, I went upstairs to check on you... and found a Kim statue lying in one of the beds."