Run: 2026-07-09-01KX41NX2C1HFHB4P6C91AD7HK

Aurora crossed between the standing stones at 11:47 p.m. The stones rose from the grass in a broken ring, ancient oak trunks twisted into pillars, their roots sunk deep beneath Richmond Park. Moonlight silvered the bark. The gaps between them looked narrow enough to close with a shoulder, yet the moment Aurora stepped through, the park vanished. No distant traffic. No sodium glow from the city. No wind combing the trees. Only the clearing. Wildflowers covered the ground in dense, colourless drifts. White bells, blue stars, red petals like tiny tongues. They bloomed in the darkness with their faces turned towards her, each flower holding a bead of dew that shone too brightly beneath the thin moon. Aurora stopped. The last sound from the park—a fox barking somewhere beyond the road—cut off behind her. She touched the pendant beneath her jumper. The silver chain had tangled in her hair on the walk over, and she had pulled it free twice. Now the Heartstone rested against her sternum, warm as a living thing. Its deep crimson centre gave off a faint inner glow through the fabric. “Useful,” she muttered. “You could have done that before I came in.” Her voice travelled across the grove. It returned from somewhere behind her. Useful. Aurora turned. The standing stones marked the boundary, but there was no gap where she had entered. The oak pillars curved together in a seamless wall. Their branches knitted overhead, black against the sky. Her hand slid into the pocket of her coat and closed around her phone. The screen showed 11:47 p.m. No signal. The battery had dropped from sixty-three per cent to twenty-one. She tapped the screen again. 11:47. The time had not moved. “Right,” she whispered. “That’s not ideal.” A moth drifted across her vision. It hovered beside her face, pale wings beating without sound, then vanished into the dark. Aurora waited for it to reappear. Nothing moved. She shifted her weight. The flowers bent beneath her boots and sprang upright after she stepped away. Not flattened. Not disturbed. They simply returned to their former positions, every stem straight and unbroken. The Grove looked no different from the photographs Eva had shown her, though photographs had failed to capture its size. From the boundary, the clearing had seemed no wider than a tennis court. Now the trees stood far beyond the flowers, their trunks thin and pale, their upper branches lost in a darkness that pressed down like a ceiling. Somewhere inside that dark, water dripped. One drop. Then another. Aurora pulled out her phone and opened the photograph Eva had sent. The image showed a low stone arch half-hidden among the trees. Beyond it, a silver-blue shimmer distorted the grass. The place she had come to find. Eva’s message sat beneath the photograph. Come alone. Don’t bring anyone from the bar. Don’t tell Silas. If the pendant warms, you’re close. Aurora had asked why. Eva had not answered. That had been four hours ago. Aurora looked at the Heartstone through her jumper. Its warmth pressed against her skin. The pendant had begun pulsing before she reached the stones, slow and steady, like a second heartbeat. Each pulse travelled through her ribs. She followed it towards the trees. The flowers parted before her boots. Their stems bent away in a widening path, though no wind stirred the clearing. Aurora kept her arms close to her sides and avoided looking at the things flickering in her peripheral vision. A shadow moved between two trees on her left. She caught it with the corner of her eye: a narrow figure standing too still, its head turned towards her. Aurora stopped. The flowers swayed. She looked directly at the trees. Nothing stood there. The trunks gleamed pale beneath the moon. Between them, the darkness held no shape, no face, no movement. “Eva?” she called. The clearing swallowed her voice. For a moment she heard no answer. Then something rustled behind her, close enough to brush the back of her coat. Aurora spun around. The path stretched behind her through the flowers. No one stood on it. Her breath clouded in front of her. The night had become colder. She could feel the chill through her gloves, creeping from her fingertips into her wrists. Her left wrist throbbed beneath its sleeve, the old crescent scar prickling as if a thread had caught beneath the skin. She took out her phone. 11:47. The battery read twenty-one per cent. Aurora opened the camera and lifted it towards the trees. The screen turned the grove grey and grainy. For a few seconds, the view showed nothing except branches and flower heads. Then a pale hand passed across the far edge of the frame. Aurora lowered the phone. Her heart knocked once, hard. She raised it again. The screen showed the same trees. No hand. Her thumb hovered over the call button. She had no signal, but the emergency icon appeared at the top of the screen, a tiny triangle that blinked once and disappeared. “Come on,” she murmured. “Work.” The phone emitted a burst of static. From the trees ahead, a woman whispered her name. “Aurora.” Aurora held the phone tighter. The voice sounded like Eva. Soft Welsh vowels. The slight upward lift at the end of Aurora’s name. The voice Eva used when she had discovered some ridiculous bargain in a charity shop and expected Rory to admire it. Aurora took one step forward. “Aurora.” The voice came from behind her this time. She turned slowly. The flowers remained still. The entrance stood somewhere beyond them, hidden by the curve of the clearing. No figure waited among the stems. Aurora forced air into her lungs. “You wanted me to come alone,” she called. “You can stop hiding.” A laugh answered from the trees. It began as Eva’s laugh, then stretched into a wet, breathless sound that belonged to no human throat. Aurora moved towards the arch. The pendant grew warmer. The trees tightened around the path. Their roots rose from the soil like knuckles. Low branches reached across the way, silver leaves brushing her shoulders as she passed. One twig snagged in her hair. Aurora stopped and freed it. The twig had no leaves. Its bark felt damp and soft beneath her fingers. When she pulled her hand away, three dark marks crossed her glove. She wiped them against her coat and kept walking. The dripping water grew louder. It came from somewhere ahead, though the sound seemed to travel in circles around her. Drop. Pause. Drop. Pause. A second set of footsteps joined hers. Aurora heard the crunch of flowers behind her. She did not turn. The steps matched her pace. Her right boot pressed down. A second boot pressed down behind it. She stopped. The other step stopped too. Aurora counted to five. Nothing moved. The pendant pulsed against her chest, warm, warm, warm. She looked over her shoulder. The path lay empty. One of the flowers near the edge had been crushed. Its stem bent into the soil, its petals smeared dark with moisture. Aurora stared at it until the shape blurred. Then the flower slowly lifted itself upright. She faced forward again. The arch appeared between the trees. It stood at the end of the path, built from rough grey stone. Ivy covered its sides, though the leaves had no veins and reflected the moon like polished metal. Beyond the arch, the air shivered. The silver-blue distortion in Eva’s photograph twisted across the opening, folding the trees into long, impossible angles. Aurora reached for the pendant. The Heartstone burned against her palm. A sound came from inside the arch. Not a voice. Not footsteps. Something dragged itself across stone, slow and deliberate, stopping each time Aurora moved. She stood ten paces away. The phone in her hand vibrated. A message appeared on the screen. EVA: DON’T COME THROUGH. Aurora stared at it. The message vanished. The screen returned to the photograph. In the image, Eva stood beside the arch with one hand raised towards the camera. Her face had been blurred by movement, but the shape of her body was unmistakable. Aurora zoomed in. The photograph changed. Eva no longer stood beside the arch. A figure occupied the space behind her. It was tall enough to reach the top of the stones, narrow as a dead tree. Its face looked down over Eva’s shoulder, pale and smooth. No eyes showed in the image, only two shallow hollows beneath a brow that angled too far forward. Aurora dropped the phone. It landed among the flowers without making a sound. The figure inside the arch moved. The silver-blue shimmer folded aside. For one breath, Aurora saw a room beyond it: a low ceiling, walls covered in roots, a table set with three empty cups. Then the distortion closed. The arch showed only darkness. Aurora backed away. A twig cracked behind her. She turned her head, not her body. The narrow figure stood between the trees. It had not appeared at the edge of her vision this time. It stood in full view, ten paces behind her, where the path disappeared into the flowers. Its limbs hung at the wrong angles. Its head tilted towards the arch, not towards Aurora. Pale skin stretched over its face without a mouth, without eyes, without any feature except the faint impression of something pressed beneath it from within. Aurora’s fingers found the pendant’s chain. The figure lifted one hand. A pulse travelled through the Heartstone. The figure’s head snapped towards her. The smooth face split open from chin to brow. No scream came from it. The sound rose from the flowers instead, hundreds of thin stems bending at once as the clearing whispered her name. “Aurora.” Her phone lit up on the ground. Another message appeared. EVA: IT KNOWS YOU’RE HERE. Aurora grabbed the phone and ran towards the arch.