Run: 2026-07-09-01KX40HBX66XNQQ3JENTQX8QQ5

The gap between the oaks had not been there on the map. Aurora checked again, pinching the screen until Richmond Park dissolved into green blocks and grey paths. The blue dot marking her position floated beyond the footpath, almost on top of the river, though she had left the Thames behind twenty minutes ago. Her phone read 11:47 p.m. The message had told her to come at midnight. RICHMOND PARK. FIND THE NINE OAKS. BRING THE HEARTSTONE. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO GAVE IT TO YOU. No number. No profile picture. The message had appeared beneath a blank notification, without passing through any app she recognised. She had taken screenshots, sent them to Eva, and promised she would stay near the road. That promise now sat somewhere behind her, along with the road, the lamps and every sensible choice she had made since leaving Cardiff. A row of ancient oaks formed a broken circle ahead. Their trunks stood thick and pale beneath the moon, bark folded into long faces. Nine of them. None bore leaves despite the warm night. Their branches meshed overhead like the bones of clasped hands. Between two trunks, moonlight touched a narrow path. Aurora slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. “Find the nine oaks. Done.” Her voice died at the boundary. Not faded. Died. No echo came back from the trees. No rustle answered from the bracken. Even London’s distant pressure—the aircraft, tyres, engines and lives grinding beyond the park—had vanished. She rubbed the small crescent scar on her left wrist with her thumb. “Terrible idea. Confirmed.” The Heartstone rested beneath her shirt. Since she had entered the park, the deep crimson gem had carried a faint warmth. Now heat spread from it through the fabric, not enough to burn, but close to skin temperature. Like someone else’s palm pressed against her breastbone. Aurora took out the pendant and held it by its silver chain. A dull red glow moved inside the stone. Not flashed. Not flickered. Moved. Something dark turned beneath the crimson surface, slow as oil in water. “No.” The glow settled. She should have left. She knew that. The thought arrived clean and sharp, stripped of excuses. She could walk back to the path, ring Eva, report the message and spend the rest of the night somewhere with locked doors and bad coffee. Instead, she stepped between the oaks. Pressure passed over her face. Her ears popped. Sound returned all at once. Crickets screamed in the long grass. Wings beat overhead. Water dripped somewhere close, each drop striking with the hollow note of a tap in an empty house. Wildflowers covered the clearing beyond the trees, white and yellow and violet, packed so thickly that no soil showed between them. Aurora stopped. It was June, yet foxgloves rose beside snowdrops. Bluebells crowded around summer roses. Crocuses pushed through knots of heather. Every flower faced her. A breeze combed the clearing. The flowers did not move. Her phone vibrated. The sudden buzz punched a breath from her chest. Eva’s name filled the screen. Aurora answered at once. “Eva?” Static hissed into her ear. “Eva, can you hear me?” A breath came through. Thin. Close. Then Aurora heard herself speak. “Find the nine oaks. Done.” She lowered the phone. The call timer continued counting: 00:06. 00:07. 00:08. Her own voice came again, muffled by static. “Terrible idea. Confirmed.” Those were the words she had spoken outside the boundary. Aurora ended the call. The screen returned to the map. 11:47 p.m. The time had not changed. She opened the message thread with Eva. Her screenshots remained there, followed by Eva’s reply. Share your live location. If you stop replying, I’m sending half the Met into Richmond. Aurora typed: I found the grove. Phone’s acting up. I’m leaving. The message hung with a grey clock beside it. Behind her, grass bent beneath a footstep. Aurora turned. The gap between the oaks stood empty. The path beyond it had disappeared into black woodland, though the moon still shone high above the clearing. Another step sounded to her left. Crushed stalks. A brush of cloth. She swung the phone torch across the flowers. White petals flared under the beam. Nothing stood among them. “Who sent the message?” The dripping stopped. Aurora waited, shoulders set, phone raised. From somewhere beyond the light came a soft click. Another answered behind her. Then another, farther off. Tongues against teeth. Click. Click. Click. They passed around the grove in an uneven circle. Aurora pulled the Heartstone free. Its glow had strengthened, painting her fingers red. Heat climbed the chain and gathered beneath her grip. “Congratulations. You’ve got my attention.” The clicking ceased. A child laughed among the trees. The sound lasted less than a second, clipped short in the middle of a breath. Aurora backed towards the oak boundary. Flowers brushed her boots but made no sound. She watched the darkness between the trunks, counting them. One. Two. Three. The fourth looked closer than before. She shifted the torch to the fifth oak. Its trunk filled the beam, bark silver-grey and deeply grooved. A shape clung to the far side. She caught the curve of a shoulder, narrow and wrapped in black. “Step out.” The shape drew back behind the trunk. Aurora moved sideways, keeping the light fixed on it. The oak should have revealed whoever hid there. It revealed more bark. The trunk had widened. She stopped. A lock of straight black hair slipped into view from the opposite side. Aurora’s hand tightened around the pendant. “Enough.” The hair vanished. Something whispered from the grass at her feet. “Rory.” She jumped back. The flowers remained upright, faces lifted towards her. “Rory.” Eva’s voice this time. Clear enough to carry the shape of her accent. It came from beneath the flowers. Aurora crouched, phone light aimed between the stalks. Petals cast thin, frantic shadows across one another. No speaker. No buried phone. No disturbed earth. “Eva?” A pause. Then, from farther across the clearing: “Aurora.” Her father’s voice. The word drove into her ribs. Brendan Carter had a courtroom voice, measured and hard at the edges, but this held the softer note he used when he found her awake after midnight as a child. Aurora stood. “No.” “Aurora.” The voice moved to her right. “Aurora, love.” “Don’t call me that.” The crickets stopped screaming. Silence pressed close again, thick enough that she heard the hinge of her jaw as she clenched it. Her phone vibrated in her hand. Incoming call: Dad. Aurora stared at the name. The ringtone did not play. Instead, a slow knocking came from the phone’s speaker. Three knocks. A pause. Three more. She declined the call. It returned before her thumb left the screen. Incoming call: Dad. Knock. Knock. Knock. “Not happening.” She held the power button. The shutdown slider appeared. Before she could touch it, the screen went black. A reflection stared back at her. Moon-pale face. Black hair against her cheeks. Bright eyes narrowed with concentration. And a second face above her left shoulder. Aurora spun and thrust out the pendant. Empty flowers stretched to the oaks. The Heartstone throbbed against her palm. One pulse, then another, each matched by a contraction of red light. She moved towards the nearest gap in the ring. The oaks shifted when she looked away. She caught it through the edge of her vision: a trunk gliding across the ground without disturbing the flowers. When she faced it, the tree stood rooted and still. Aurora picked a gap and fixed her eyes on it. Ten paces. She walked. Nine. The bark of the flanking oaks bulged into knots that resembled closed eyes. Eight. A wet breath touched the back of her neck. She did not turn. Seven. Something matched her steps, heel for heel, close enough that she felt the faint tremor of each footfall through the ground. Six. Her phone lit in her hand. The camera had opened. On-screen, the clearing appeared washed in grey. Aurora’s shoulder occupied one corner. Behind her walked a woman in a dark jacket. Same height. Same shoulder-length hair. Same face. The woman’s gaze remained fixed on the phone, bright eyes too wide beneath the colourless moon. Aurora stopped. The footsteps behind her stopped. On the screen, the other Aurora kept walking. She closed the distance one silent step at a time. Aurora hurled the phone aside. It landed among the flowers without a sound, screen still glowing. The camera view tilted, showing stalks, sky and a slice of the grove. She reached the gap between the oaks. The air had turned cold there. Her breath smoked before her lips. The Heartstone’s heat bit into her fist, its silver chain wrapped around her fingers. A low murmur rose from the clearing. Many voices spoke beneath one another, each repeating a different fragment. “Find the nine oaks.” “Can you hear me?” “Terrible idea.” “Rory.” “Aurora, love.” The fragments overlapped until the grove sounded full of people whispering in the dark. Aurora stepped between the trees. The pressure struck her face again, but did not release. It held her in the narrow space, dense as deep water. She pushed forwards. The oaks creaked. Their trunks leaned together. Aurora shoved one shoulder into the gap. Bark scraped her jacket. The opening narrowed another inch, pressing against her arms. Behind her, the voices fell silent. A hand closed around the silver chain at the back of her neck. Aurora drove her elbow behind her. It struck a body. The grip loosened. She twisted, chain sawing against her skin, and caught a wrist with her free hand. Warm flesh. Slim bones. A small crescent-shaped scar beneath her thumb. Aurora turned her head. Her own face rested inches from hers between the closing oaks. The other woman smiled without showing her teeth. “You came alone.” Aurora rammed the burning Heartstone into the hand gripping her chain.