AI Aurora’s Specialized Sirrus hissed over the damp asphalt of Sawyers Hill, the rhythmic click of the chain the only sound in the suffocating dark of Richmond Park. To her left, the lightless sprawl of the meadow swallowed the glow of her handlebar lamp. The city’s amber hum felt a thousand miles away, muffled by the ancient oaks and the heavy, humid fog rolling off the Thames. She adjusted the strap of the delivery bag. The scent of ginger and soy sauce from the Golden Empress clung to her, a mundane anchor in the encroaching gloom .
Underneath her thermal shirt, the Heartstone Pendant pricked her skin. It sat against her sternum, usually a dull weight , but now it radiated a focused, rhythmic heat. A heartbeat of crimson light bled through the fabric of her collar, pulsing in time with her own quickening pulse .
"Too far for stir-fry, Rory. Way too far."
Her breath hitched, spinning into a pale cloud that lingered too long in the stagnant air. She braked at the edge of a woodland path she didn't remember on the map. The bike’s LED flickered, a staccato strobe that turned the twisting branches into grasping fingers, then died completely . Darkness rushed in, thick and heavy as oil. She fumbled for the light, clicking the switch with a thumb that refused to stop shaking.
"Great. Fantastic timing, Yu-Fei. Just brilliant."
The silence of the park wasn't empty; it was a pressurized thing, pushing against her eardrums. She dismounted, her boots crunching on grit that sounded like breaking bone . As she pushed the bike forward, the Heartstone flared. The heat intensified, a sharp burn that forced her to reach into her shirt and pull the silver chain out. The deep crimson gem glowed with an internal, angry light. It pointed toward the dense cluster of oaks ahead.
The standing stones loomed out of the fog. They weren't carved granite, but ancient oak trunks, petrified and gnarled, arranged in a perfect , unnatural circle. The boundary shimmered . Aurora stepped through, and the world tilted.
The temperature plummeted. The humid London night vanished, replaced by an air that tasted of ozone and ancient mulch. Wildflowers, vibrant and luminous, carpeted the clearing even though no sun reached this place. They were wrong—petals the color of bruised lungs, stems that twined together like veins.
"Is someone here? I have the order for 'The Traveler'."
Her voice lacked its usual Cardiff steel. The words didn't echo ; they simply fell flat, absorbed by the moss. Aurora checked her watch . The second hand swept backward, then spun in a frantic, blurred circle. At the edge of the clearing, the shadows deep between the standing stones rippled. It wasn't the wind—not a single leaf stirred on the petrified trees.
A sound drifted from the periphery. A wet, rhythmic sliding, like a heavy length of raw meat dragged over velvet .
"Not funny, Evan. If this is you, I’m calling the police."
The name felt like a hollow shield . Evan was back in Cardiff, or London, or wherever he prowled, but he wasn't here. Nothing human was here. The Heartstone grew uncomfortably hot, the silver chain singing against her neck. She dropped the bike. The metal frame hit the moss with a dull thud that sent a vibration through the soles of her boots.
Something clicked in the darkness behind the largest stone. It was a sharp, chitinous sound, the noise a crab might make, or a giant set of shears.
"I'm leaving the food by the stone. You can have it."
She reached for the delivery bag, her fingers fumbling with the buckle. She didn't look up, but she felt the gaze. It was a physical pressure, a weight settling on her shoulders that made her spine want to curl. A tall shadow detached itself from the oaks. It didn't move like a person; it unfolded, its limbs lengthening with the sound of snapping green wood.
Aurora backed away, her hands empty, the insulated bag forgotten on the glowing flowers.
"Stay back. I mean it."
The thing in the shadows mimicked the shape of her words, but not the sound. It produced a series of clicks and whistles that harmonized into a distorted, melodic version of her own voice. *Stay back. I mean it.*
She turned to run toward the gap in the stones, but the path had vanished. Where she had entered, there was only a wall of thorns, the briars thick as a man’s wrist and tipped with ivory spikes. The clearing had shrunk. The standing stones seemed closer now, leaning inward as if to listen .
"Where is the gate? I just came through here!"
She spun in a circle, her boots treading on the bruised wildflowers. They bled a thick, translucent sap that smelled of honey and copper. The sliding sound returned, faster now. It circled the perimeter of the Grove, staying just beyond the reach of the Heartstone’s crimson glow.
A pale hand, far too long and possessesing too many knuckles, gripped the edge of a standing stone ten feet away. The skin was the color of a drowned moon, translucent and stretched tight over shifting bone.
"I don't have anything else for you."
Aurora gripped the Heartstone, her knuckles white. The gem throbbed , a violent red light that cut through the gloom , illuminating the thing's face for a fraction of a second. It had no eyes—only deep, weeping hollows—and a mouth that stitched itself shut with silver thread every time it closed.
The creature didn't move, but the air around it began to vibrate. The smell of the Golden Empress’s ginger chicken was gone , replaced by the scent of a long-opened tomb.
"I’m leaving. Now."
She didn't believe herself. She backed toward the center of the clearing, her heels catching on the petrified roots. The creature at the stone let go. It began to prowl the edge of the light, its movements jerky, like a film missing every third frame. It was taller than the trees, yet it moved without rustling a single leaf.
Another clicking sound erupted from behind her. Then another from the left.
"There’s more of you."
The Heartstone burned a searing heat into her palm. She looked down at the pendant. The crimson depths weren't just glowing ; they were swirling , a miniature storm of blood-colored energy. It was trying to tell her something, a warning that the boundary wasn't just a door—it was a lure.
The first creature stepped into the light. It wore a tattered reflection of her own Golden Empress jacket, the fabric fused to its grey, translucent skin. It tilted its head, the motion accompanied by the sound of grinding stone.
"That's mine. Give that back."
The creature’s mouth tore open, the silver threads snapping one by one. It didn't scream. It spoke with the voice of her father, deep and melodic, echoing from a Cardiff courtroom twenty years ago.
"Aurora, come home. It's getting dark, Rory."
The dissonance of the voice coming from that hollow, eyeless face made her knees buckle. She scrambled backward, her hand hitting the petrified wood of a standing stone. It wasn't cold. It was fever-hot, and it pulsed with the same rhythm as the pendant.
"You aren't him. You aren't anything."
The thing leaned forward, its long fingers grazing the edge of the Heartstone's light. Where the red glow touched the creature's skin, the grey flesh hissed and turned to black ash, but it didn't recoil. It seemed fascinated by the pain .
More shapes emerged from the thorns. They were all different—some squat and multi-limbed, others like ribbons of smoke given solid form—but they all moved toward her with a singular, hungry intent. The flowers beneath their feet didn't bend; they withered, turning to gray dust instantly.
"I have the pendant! Stay away!"
She held the Heartstone out like a weapon. The light flared, a blinding burst of scarlet that pushed the shadows back for a heartbeat. In that flash, she saw the reality of the Grove. The trees weren't petrified wood; they were pillars of fused bone. The standing stones were tombstones, larger than any churchyard.
The creature in her jacket reached out. Its fingers were inches from her throat, the nails like black glass.
"Why are you late, Laila?"
The use of her middle name, the one only her mother used, froze the blood in her veins. The creature’s jaw unhinged further, releasing a cloud of white moths that smelled of dust and old paper. Aurora pressed her back against the bone-stone, looking for any gap in the thorns, any way out of the pocket between worlds.
The Heartstone went cold. The red light died down to a faint, dying ember.
The darkness in the Grove rushed back in, closer than before. Aurora could hear the creatures breathing now—a wet, whistling sound that synchronized with her own panicked gasps. The one in her jacket leaned down, its eyeless face inches from hers, and whispered in a voice that was a perfect , terrifying mirror of her own.
"We've been waiting for the delivery."