AI The rain hadn’t stopped. It wasn’t a normal rain, not the sort that slicked pavements and smelled of ozone. This rain felt…thick, viscous, like liquid night. It clung to her skin, raising gooseflesh despite the layers of denim and a threadbare wool coat she’d grabbed from Silas’ bar. Aurora pulled the collar higher, the scent of stale beer and sawdust briefly a comforting anchor in the unsettling quiet.
She’d been walking for what felt like hours, the Richmond Park swallowing itself around her in a deepening gloom . The ancient oak standing stones, usually stark against the bruised twilight, were blurred , indistinct, as if she were looking through frosted glass. They marked the edge of something, she knew, something not quite right . The Grove.
The Heartstone Pendant, cool against her chest beneath the coat, pulsed with a faint, insistent warmth . It wasn’t a dramatic flare, just a subtle thrumming, a rhythmic beat against her ribs. It had been giving her a headache since she’d stepped through the last veil of mist, a dull, persistent ache behind her eyes. She kept it clutched tight, a tangible link to the feeling that she shouldn’t be here, that she’d stumbled into a place best left forgotten.
She’d come seeking answers, a desperate, flickering hope clinging to the edges of her grief. Her ex, Evan, had left her with a darkness that seeped into everything, a poison she couldn’t quite wash away . The benefactor – a woman she’d met only in a dream, a whisper of amethyst and regret – had told her about the Grove, about a way to…to understand. To face the shadows he’d cast. The instructions were vague, unsettlingly so, involving a pendant and a place where time bled.
Now, standing in this rain-soaked clearing, she understood the vagueness. It wasn’t a place of answers; it was a place of echoes .
The air tasted of iron and something else, something floral and sickly sweet, like decaying roses. The wildflowers, normally a riot of color, were muted, drained of their vibrancy, clinging to the moss-covered stones like mournful ghosts. There was no bird song, no rustle of leaves – just the relentless drum of the rain and the insistent pulse of the Heartstone.
She took a tentative step forward, the ground soft beneath her boots, strangely yielding. A flicker at the edge of her vision – a movement too quick to register, like a shadow detaching itself from a deeper darkness. She stopped, holding her breath, scanning the periphery of the light. Nothing.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded thin and brittle, swallowed by the rain. The sound of her own voice felt alien, an intrusion.
The pulsing of the pendant intensified, a sharper, more insistent rhythm. Then she heard it. A sound – a sigh, almost, carried on the rain. Not a human sigh. Deeper, older, laden with an unbearable sadness.
She glanced around, rotating slowly , her hand instinctively tightening around the pendant. The standing stones seemed to lean inward, creating a claustrophobic circle. The trees, ancient and gnarled, twisted into grotesque shapes in the dim light, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching out.
Another flicker . This time, she saw it – a brief distortion in the air, a shimmering heat haze above the moss. When she focused, it resolved into the vague impression of a figure, tall and indistinct, partially obscured by the rain and the shifting light. It wasn’t solid, not quite. More like a refraction of reality, a glimpse into a fractured reflection.
She told herself it was exhaustion, the damp, the unsettling atmosphere. But the cold certainty that she was not alone settled in her stomach , heavy and unwelcome.
Then the scent intensified, the decaying roses, now overlaid with a metallic tang, a coppery sweetness that made her stomach churn . The pulse of the Heartstone became a frantic throb , radiating warmth through her coat and into her chest. It felt less like a guide and more like an alarm.
A twig snapped behind her. Not a natural snap, not the casual crack of a branch underfoot. This was deliberate, precise. She didn't turn. She couldn't.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice whispered, so close it felt like a breath against her ear . It wasn't a voice spoken aloud. It seemed to vibrate within her skull, a cold, resonant tone that bypassed her ears entirely.
Panic, sharp and cold, seized her. She finally turned, slowly , cautiously . The clearing remained unchanged, the rain still falling, the standing stones still leaning. But the air felt colder, heavier, pregnant with something unseen.
The figure was closer now, still indistinct, but the impression of height was clearer. It wasn't human. The limbs were too long, the silhouette too angular. It seemed to shift and waver, as if struggling to maintain a form .
She noticed something else. Tiny, iridescent scales shimmering in the rain, catching the faint, inner glow of the Heartstone.
"Tell me your name," she managed, her voice a strained whisper .
The response wasn't a word, but a feeling – a profound sorrow, a sense of infinite loneliness. “Names are… fleeting . Like memories.”
She took a step backward, her hand instinctively reaching for the small, silver carving of a raven she kept hidden beneath her sleeve – a trinket from her grandmother. A futile gesture, she knew, but a necessary one.
“Who are you?”
The figure tilted its head, a slow, deliberate movement that seemed to defy the laws of physics . “I am the echo of what was lost. The keeper of forgotten things.”
Another flicker , closer this time. She could almost feel a cold, damp touch on her hand. The Heartstone pulsed violently, nearly burning through her glove. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sensation, trying to force her mind to remain grounded.
“What do you want?”
“Only to remember,” the voice whispered, a thread of ice in the rain . “To remember the cost.”
Suddenly, she saw it. Reflected in the slick surface of a standing stone – not her own face, but a face that was undeniably hers, but twisted, corrupted. A younger version of herself, filled with a brittle, desperate joy, a joy that had been systematically crushed by Evan. She saw herself laughing, carefree, oblivious to the darkness that was gathering around her.
Then, a hand reached out from the shadows, a slender, cold hand that brushed against her cheek.
She screamed, a choked, primal sound lost in the rain. The Heartstone pulsed one last time, a blinding flash of crimson light, and then…nothing.
Only the rain. And the standing stones. And the unsettling, pervasive feeling that she had stepped into a place where the past refused to stay buried.