Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ067CRXYSV0S2J5HSY45SB5

The standing stones rose from the earth like broken teeth. Aurora counted them as she passed—seven, eight, nine—each one twisted oak bark frozen into impossible angles, grain spiralling in directions that made her eyes sting if she followed it too long. The pendant against her chest pulsed once, twice, a heartbeat of warmth that had grown stronger with every step into Richmond Park. She'd followed that pull from the pavement, through the gates, past the sleeping deer herds that hadn't so much as twitched at her approach. Now she stood at the threshold of Isolde's grove, and every instinct she'd honed surviving Evan screamed that she'd made a terrible mistake. The wildflowers should not have been blooming. November had stripped the park bare, skeletons of ferns and browned bracken crunching beneath her boots on the walk here. But the clearing ahead overflowed with colour—cornflowers and foxgloves and flowers she couldn't name, their petals luminous silver in the moonlight. The air tasted different here. Sweeter. Heavier. Like the moment before a storm, all ozone and anticipation. She'd come because the pendant wouldn't stop burning. Three days now. Three days of that crimson gem growing warmer against her skin, of waking at 3 AM with the chain clenched in her fist and the feeling that something was pulling her south-west across the city. Silas had noticed her distraction at the bar. Even Yu-Fei had pulled her aside after a shift, asked if she was sleeping enough, if she needed fewer deliveries for a while. She'd told them she was fine. The lie tasted like those silver petals looked—too perfect, too sweet. Moonlight pooled in the clearing's centre, and time felt thick around her, syrup-slow. An hour here could be minutes out there. Or days. The thought made her wrist ache, that old crescent scar throbbing with phantom pain. She stepped between two standing stones. The world behind her went quiet. Not silent—quiet. The distant hum of London traffic, the grind of the night bus on Kingston Road, the drone of planes crawling toward Heathrow. All of it swallowed in a single heartbeat. What remained was worse. Her own breathing, too loud. The crunch of her boots on grass that had no business being green. And beneath it all, like tinnitus at the edge of hearing— Singing. No. Not singing. Something almost like singing, almost like voices, almost like words in a language she almost understood. The almost was worse than clarity would have been. The pendant flared hot against her collarbone. She pressed her palm flat over it, the gem's warmth seeping through her jacket, her shirt, her skin. The pulse had rhythm now, matching something—her heartbeat or that not-singing, she couldn't tell which came first. You came for a reason, she reminded herself. You followed the pull. You wanted answers. The same rationale that had driven her into Evan's arms. The same logic that had kept her there for two years. Want and reason tangled together until she couldn't separate them. She walked deeper into the grove. The wildflowers leaned as she passed. Not toward her—away. Bending like reeds in a wind she couldn't feel, petals trembling, stems straining from her path. The pendant burned hotter. She let her hand fall from it, watched the crimson glow paint her shirt blood-red. Something moved at the edge of her vision. She turned. Nothing. Just more standing stones, more impossible flowers, more moonlight that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The trees at the clearing's edge weren't trees anymore—they were suggestions of trees, charcoal smudges against a sky that held too many stars for London. The not-singing grew louder. Almost words. Almost a voice she almost recognized. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She grabbed for it, desperate for connection to the world outside this pocket of wrongness. The screen lit her face blue-white. No signal. Of course no signal. But a notification had come through. A text from Eva, timestamped three minutes ago, though that couldn't be right— where are you?? your boss called looking for you. said you never showed for your shift. rory its been two days?? Two days. Her stomach dropped. She'd left the flat at ten PM. Walked forty minutes to the park. That was— that was tonight. That was just tonight. The not-singing resolved into something closer to words. "Almost." She spun. The voice had come from everywhere. From the stones. From the flowers. From the too-many stars. "Almost found." The pendant blazed. She gasped, stumbled backward, and her heel caught on something that hadn't been there a moment before. She fell hard, palms slapping against grass that was warm and soft in a way grass shouldn't be, in a way that reminded her of skin. She scrambled up, wiping her hands on her jeans. The standing stones had moved. Not much. Not enough to be certain, except she was certain. The gap she'd walked through had narrowed. The stones on either side leaned inward now, oak-bark grain spiralling toward her like fingers closing. She ran. The grove stretched before her, longer than it had been, the far end receding with each stride. Her boots pounded warm grass. Her breath tore from her lungs. The wildflowers didn't bend away this time—they reached for her, petals brushing her ankles, stems curling like fingers around her calves. She kicked free, kept running, kept— The clearing ended. Not at trees. Not at stones. At a sheer drop into nothing, into a darkness so complete it seemed to swallow the moonlight that touched it. She skidded to a stop, arms pinwheeling, pebbles tumbling over the edge and making no sound as they fell. The not-singing was behind her now. All around her. Inside her. "Almost home." A hand closed around her wrist. She screamed, whirled, and found nothing. No one. Just the standing stones in a perfect circle around her, closer than before, close enough that she could reach out and touch two at once. The grip on her wrist remained. Cold. So cold it burned. She looked down. Nothing held her. But her crescent scar had opened. A thin line of blood traced the old wound's curve, dark as the pendant's glow, and where it dripped onto the grass the wildflowers bloomed brighter. She stood alone in the grove. Completely alone. So why could she feel breath on the back of her neck?