My name is Abbot - Part 1

Soft drops of water gently fell from the ceiling and echoed through space.

"Drip, drip, drip."

"This tickles.", Pierre thought.

He rolled around, trying to make himself more comfortable. However, his back felt hard and stiff. So did his chest. And so did his belly.
No matter in what position he lay, it felt as if there were sharp objects poking him on the sides.

Pierre couldn't understand what was going on. Despite feeling heavy, he had never been more rested and mentally alert. Everything seemed strange to him.

Pierre slowly lifted his body off the ground and rubbed his eyes. After waking up, he would usually run his fingers over the bone just under his eyebrows.

"It's called the supraventricular ridge, I think."

This little habit of his would never actually help him shake the weight off his shoulders or the fatigue from his eyes, but nonetheless, he was quite fond of it.

"Something is strange," he noticed. "I can't reach my eyebrows!"

Incredibly spooked, Pierre quickly looked around.

"Where am I?"

He found himself gazing at a long, rocky tunnel. The orange walls, surrounding  him were carelessly chiseled, as if someone had just scratched and clawed across them. They were dirty and covered in unusual brown spots and occasional white stripes, which all seemed to wave in the same general direction.
Small spikes grew on the ceilings and poked out of the floors like grass, uncomfortably stabbing into his bottom. Occasionally, single droplets of water would leak from the ceiling, disturbing the unique silence of the setting.

"Drip, drip, drip."

Pierre let out a horrifyed scream.

It wasn't because he didn't recognize the place but rather because he couldn't recognize himself.

"My hands! My hands are gone!"

And gone they were. In place of his gentle palms and long, thin fingers, he found rough, cylindrical patches of brown clay. They were hard and uneven, more reminiscent of an elephant's foot rather than an actual hand.

"What is going on? Is this a dream? No, it must be a nightmare! Yes, if I can just poke my eyes out, this will all be over, right? Isn't that how these things usually end? Or do I have to jump off a cliff? Or perhaps..."

Pierre's thoughts were cut short by a scratchy voice that seemed to boom through the room:

"Oh, hey! You're finally awake! You were trying to cross the border, right?"

Noises of rock grating against rock slowly approached. Pierre dared not to look, but he also couldn't afford to blink. Time seemed to slow down as he stared into the darkness, where the noises grew louder and louder.

Suddenly, a hulking figure emerged from the shadows. It looked almost like a statue. Well, a very crude and bulky one, at least. One that attempted to mimic the human form without paying any attention to detail, symmetry, or even just general beauty, for that matter.

The creature consisted of a large belly, which tried to balance a round, neckless head on top of itself. The head, the most abhorrent part of the entire construct, was made up of a rocky maw that could probably crush a human's skull like a coconut if it were ever used for such a purpose, and two white dots, where the eyes should have been.

The eyes appeared to stare at Pierre, soulless and faintly glowing in a cold, gentle light. To round off this grotesque image, the monstrosity was being held up by impossibly short legs.
The legs themselves seemed to have no clear joints but rather were two thick, cylindrical, and flat lumps of clay, reminiscent of the monster's arms. No, they were more similar to...

"They are like mine!" Pierre thought.

He swallowed and slowly opened his mouth. He had thousands of questions, and that entity was perhaps the only thing that could save him from this hellscape he found himself in:

"What is going on? Can you speak? Where am I? Who are you? Who am I?" he wanted to say.

Instead, his voice echoed through the halls, proudly proclaiming words that were not of his own creation, but somehow, he still uttered them as if it had allways been his intention to do so:

"We remember when you dug us from the riverbank, but we forgive you. The water was cold, and the people had need of us."

"What was that?"

Pierre tried to repeat himself, but no matter how hard he tried, the words turned into gibberish, and the gibberish was then somehow lost in translation.

The man of rock just stood there, motionless, expressionless, but patient.

Eventually, Pierre gave up trying to talk to this brick. It was painfully clear to him that his questions were failing to reach their intended audience.

Suddenly, the man of rock slowly opened his massive maw. At first, it was just a little twitch, then the twitch became a nudge, and eventually, its jaw began to slowly creak open.

It was unclear to him how much time had passed. Drops of water kept joyfully dancing from the ceiling and splashing onto the floor much faster than the jaw moved. At some point, Pierre even thought he could see a thin layer of dust settling on the creature's forehead.

"Speak slow-ly," the rock echoed.

"He spoke!" Pierre was overjoyed. "Speak slowly? What is that supposed to mean? Does he mean calm down? Or does he mean literally? I don't see how that would help, but it might be worth a try."

Pierre tried to imitate the speed at which the rock had adressed him:

"We... re-member..."

"No, that was not it."

"Slow-er," the rock urged him on.

Pierre tried again. He imagined himself speaking like a jittering cassette tape, and this time, he would succeed. As he struggled to speak, more and more water dripped from the ceiling, slowly accumulating on the floor, forming a very tiny puddle. 

"Who are you?" he finally asked.

The rock's maw slowly moved upward, as if the creature was attempting to smile.

"Why, my name is Abbot. And what is your name, my friend?"