'The memory of stone' by Birgit K. Gaiser

Zitko Iliev became aware the moment the nice young woman with the facemask and the engraving pen carved his name into his body. He hadn’t known the tool was called an engraving pen at first, but as he lay in his box and the others joined him, he heard her use the word.

Ivelina Ilieva joined him in his box, followed by Jakov Mrdjan, Danijela Pavelec, then others, until the box was full. They were moved to a place called a bridge, a span of wood and rock over water. 

Next, a man with gloves carefully arranged them all on a sticky substance the name of which Zitko didn’t catch, then filled the spaces between them with more sticky substance. It felt weird at first, unpleasantly moist and sticky, but then hardened, keeping them all in place.

They were covered in cloth in the colours of what Zitko took to be the place they were in, though nobody bothered explaining. People came and went, asking questions such as was the troll really gone, and had there really been forty victims just in the last year, why hadn’t anyone done anything about it, and what would the government do to prevent anything like this happening again.

On a bright, sunny day, the cloth was removed. There was music, much talking. People came to look at them, first with reverence, walking carefully around where they were embedded in the bridge’s surface, then more casually. Some returned again and again, weeping, laying flowers, but eventually, even they stopped coming.

Engravings that were once meticulously cleaned accumulated dust and grime, which hardened, until the forty stones looked just like all the other stones, and Zitko and the others had slipped back into oblivion.