Run: 2026-07-09-01KX41K55T2HKAXN5X3PP207Y1

The taxi left Aurora beside a locked gate on the edge of Richmond Park. Its red tail-lights shrank along the road, smeared by mist, then slipped behind a bend. The engine noise went with them. London should have filled the gap—tyres on wet tarmac, aircraft grinding towards Heathrow, a siren chasing itself across the borough—but the night swallowed each sound before it reached her. Rory checked the message again. UNKNOWN NUMBER MIDNIGHT. ENTER BY LADDERSTILE GATE. FOLLOW THE WHITE FLOWERS. BRING THE HEARTSTONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO GAVE IT TO YOU. No greeting. No name. No response to any of her questions. The time at the top of the screen read 23:47. She pulled her coat closed and looked through the iron bars. A gravel path ran between high banks of bracken, pale under the moon. Beyond it stood a wall of trees. “This is how women end up in podcasts.” Her voice fell flat at her feet. The Heartstone rested beneath her jumper. It had warmed during the taxi ride, a soft beat against her breastbone that had grown stronger as they crossed into Richmond. Now it felt almost alive. Heat travelled through the silver chain and gathered in the hollow of her throat. She took it out. The thumbnail-sized crimson stone held a faint light in its centre. Not a reflection. The glow tightened and loosened in time with the warmth. Pulse. Pause. Pulse. She slipped through the narrow pedestrian opening beside the gate. The smell changed at once. Wet earth replaced diesel and brick dust. Leaves lay slick across the path, but no wind moved the branches above her. The park map on her phone showed a broad green space cut by neat paths. The message had included no coordinates, only the instruction about white flowers. She found the first one ten paces in. It grew from a crack at the edge of the gravel. Five white petals surrounded a yellow centre, fresh and open despite the cold. Another bloomed farther ahead. Then another. They formed a trail. “Subtle.” The pendant pulsed against her palm. Rory switched on her phone torch and followed. The gate disappeared behind the bracken within a minute. Trees crowded closer, their trunks silver where the beam touched them and black elsewhere. The flowers continued off the gravel and onto a narrow track pressed through waist-high ferns. She stopped. The sensible choice waited behind her: gate, road, warm taxi, locked flat above Silas’ bar. She could send the unknown number a detailed suggestion involving anatomy and kitchen utensils. She could hand the pendant to anyone better equipped to deal with objects that behaved like trapped organs. The Heartstone gave a hard throb. A flash of heat bit her palm. “Fine. But if you burn me, you’re going in the Thames.” Something tapped wood to her left. Three knocks. Evenly spaced. Rory aimed the torch between the trunks. Its beam found moss, roots and a holly bush with leaves like polished teeth. Nothing moved. She waited. Three knocks answered from her right. Not an animal scratching bark. Knuckles on a door. Her hand closed around the pendant. “Hello?” No reply came. The ferns beside the track bent in a line, one after another, as if someone walked through them parallel to her. Their fronds bowed, sprang upright, then bowed farther ahead. Rory stepped back. The movement stopped. A drop of water landed on her cheek. She wiped it away and looked up. No rain crossed the torch beam. The canopy showed strips of clear sky between bare branches. From somewhere behind her came the crunch of a foot on gravel. She swung round. The track lay empty. Her light reached twenty metres before darkness absorbed it. White flowers gleamed along the ground, each blossom turned towards her. Not towards the moon. Towards her. Her phone vibrated. The sudden buzz jolted her grip. A new message waited on the screen. UNKNOWN NUMBER YOU’RE LATE. Rory glanced at the time. 00:19. “No.” She had entered the park less than ten minutes ago. She opened the taxi app. The receipt recorded her drop-off at 23:46. Her phone clock remained at 00:19. The seconds did not move. 19:00. 19:00. 19:00. The signal bars vanished. The battery icon showed eighty-two per cent, then eleven, then sixty-four. She held down the side button, but the screen refused to shut off. Another message appeared. UNKNOWN NUMBER DON’T LEAVE THE FLOWERS. A twig snapped behind her. Rory moved onto the centre of the track and kept walking. The white flowers thickened, pushing through dead leaves in clusters. Their scent gathered around her, sweet at first, then cloying, like fruit left in a sealed room. The path narrowed until ferns brushed both sleeves. A shape kept pace beyond them. She saw a pale strip at shoulder height, gone when she turned her head. A face, perhaps. A sleeve. Moonlight trapped between trunks. Rory lifted her torch. The ferns shivered, though the air remained still. “Who sent the message?” The question travelled into the woods. A few seconds passed. “Who sent the message?” Her own voice returned from ahead. Not an echo. It copied the cadence, the Cardiff edges she had never lost, even the small catch in her throat. Rory froze. The pendant’s pulse quickened. “Come out.” Silence. She turned the torch off. Darkness dropped across her face like cloth. Moonlight filtered through the branches, enough to draw the track in ash-grey lines. At the edge of sight, something white stood among the trees. She looked straight at it. A birch trunk. She looked away. The shape stepped closer. Rory snapped the torch on. Empty ferns. Tangled roots. A scatter of white flowers. Her breathing sounded too large for the place. She walked on, faster now, measuring each breath through her nose. The flowers led downhill, where the ground softened beneath her boots. She passed a fallen oak and marked the split in its trunk. Thirty steps later, another fallen oak blocked one side of the track. The same split ran through its trunk. Rory crouched beside it. A patch of orange fungus spread across the bark in the shape of a crooked hand. She touched the edge. Damp. Real. She took out a coin, scored a line through the fungus and stood. “Path loops. Good to know.” Behind her, wood creaked. The fallen oak no longer lay beside the track. It stood upright among the other trees. The orange fungus clung six feet above the ground. Her fresh score cut across it. Rory stared until her eyes watered. Something breathed against the back of her neck. She ducked and spun, torch raised like a weapon. No one stood there. Her beam swept the track. The flowers formed a bright, unbroken ribbon into the dark. One blossom near her boot closed its petals. The next closed. Then the next. The motion raced away from her, flower after flower folding shut as though something passed over them. Within seconds the whole trail ahead had vanished into leaves and shadow. Behind her, the flowers remained open. Her phone buzzed again. UNKNOWN NUMBER WRONG WAY. Rory typed with both thumbs. WHO ARE YOU? The reply arrived before she pressed send. YOU KNOW ME. “No, I don’t.” From the trees came a whisper. “No, I don’t.” Her voice again, but younger. Thin. Childlike. Rory backed away from it. Her boot crushed a flower, releasing a burst of sweetness. The woods opened without warning. One step took her through the ferns. The next carried her into a clearing flooded with moonlight. Ancient oaks ringed the space. They stood too evenly for a natural grove, their trunks thick as pillars, roots sunk deep into raised banks of earth. No cut stone marked the boundary. The trees themselves had become standing stones, grey bark ridged and hardened, each one bearing shapes that might have been knots or faces. Wildflowers covered the ground. Bluebells, poppies, snowdrops and foxgloves bloomed together despite the season. Their colours looked drained beneath the moon, yet none sagged with frost. At the centre of the clearing lay a circle of bare soil. Rory stepped between two boundary oaks. The Heartstone flared. Crimson light spilled between her fingers. Heat surged through the chain, sharp enough to force a gasp from her. The pendant pulled towards the centre of the grove, not swinging but straining, its chain stretched at an angle as if caught by an unseen magnet. She wrapped it in her fist. “Is this where you wanted me?” The trees gave back no echo. Her phone showed 23:47. The same time the taxi had left her. A small sound came from the far side of the clearing. A bell. Bright, delicate, familiar. Rory knew that bell. It hung above the door of the Golden Empress and chimed whenever a customer entered. She had heard it a hundred times during a shift, often followed by Yu-Fei calling from the kitchen or a delivery driver swearing at the rain. The bell rang again. Across the grove, between two oaks, warm yellow light appeared behind a rectangle of glass. A door stood where no door had been. Gold lettering curved across it. GOLDEN EMPRESS The letters faced the wrong way, as if Rory viewed them from inside the restaurant. A shadow crossed behind the glass. “Yu-Fei?” A hand rose on the other side. Its palm pressed against the pane. Five fingers, long and blurred by condensation. Rory stayed within the flowers. “Open the door, then.” The hand slid down the glass and disappeared. A lock clicked. The door opened a few inches. Warm air rolled out, carrying ginger, frying oil and hot metal. Beyond the gap, darkness filled the restaurant. No counters. No chairs. No kitchen lights. The bell trembled without ringing. Her phone vibrated. UNKNOWN NUMBER DON’T SPEAK TO IT. Rory looked at the screen, then at the open door. “You brought me here.” A voice came from behind the door. “You brought me here.” It matched her present voice this time. The door opened another inch. Rory moved along the inside of the oak boundary, keeping the bare circle between herself and the false restaurant. The flowers brushed her boots. Each one turned as she passed, stems twisting to follow the Heartstone. On the near side of the grove, something had been tied around one of the oaks. A strip of black cloth. She approached it without taking her eyes from the door. The cloth formed a knot around a low branch. A silver thread ran through the weave, catching the pendant’s red glow. Beneath it, someone had carved a crescent into the bark. The mark matched the scar on her left wrist. Rory pulled back her sleeve. The old crescent shone pale against her skin. “No.” The carving in the oak deepened with a soft tearing sound. Fresh wood curled out from its centre. A line extended from the crescent, then another. Letters formed beneath it, gouged by no visible blade. LAILA The name sat raw and wet in the bark. Rory’s mouth dried. No one here called her that. No one in London. The name belonged to an old joke, a childhood game, a version of herself she had packed away before Cardiff University, before Evan, before the flat over Silas’ bar. The Golden Empress door slammed shut. Every flower in the grove folded at once. Darkness smothered the clearing. The Heartstone remained lit in her fist, washing her knuckles red. A foot pressed into the soil behind her. Rory did not turn. Another step followed, close enough for the ground to shift beneath both boots. Breath touched her hair. Slow. Warm. Her phone screen lit. The camera app had opened on its own. The display showed Rory from behind, standing before the carved oak. A tall figure stood at her shoulder. Its face rested beside hers. Where features should have been, it wore Rory’s bright blue eyes and nothing else. The figure on the screen lifted one hand. In the grove, a cold finger settled against the crescent scar on her wrist. From beside her ear came her own voice. “Give me back my heart.”