We called the authorities immediately. Forensics confirmed they were a group of hikers who had gone missing in the jungle a few years prior. The local legends of a “breathing cave” that turns everything to stone were true, but scientific: a rare, high-concentration release of mineral gas from a geothermal vent.
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The gas didn’t kill them instantly; it paralyzed them and coated their skin in a calcified crust while they were still alive. The statues we had admired as art were a torturous monument to the last seconds of their lives. We left at dawn, but that frozen scream on the “sculpture’s” face is something I will see in my nightmares for the rest of my days.
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