Run: 2026-07-25-01KYD63B4MM3PG9T7T6074SHQJ

The air in Richmond Park turned wrong three steps past the oak stones. Aurora Carter stopped. Her trainers sank into ground that gave too much. The path behind her lost its edges. In front, the trees opened onto the clearing and the clearing should not exist at this hour, at this season, with this light. Wildflowers. A field of them. Knee-high and open in full bloom under a moon that bled thin light through cloud. It was just after midnight. Frost still silvered the grass on White Lodge. Flowers did not bloom in February. Rory pulled her jacket tighter. The silver chain at her throat slipped cold against skin. The Heartstone pendant hung heavy, thumbnail-sized and dark. It did not pulse. It sat dead. She had not wanted to come here. Eva's text still lit up her phone screen in her pocket. *He was here. He left something for you. In the grove. Go after close, don't let anyone see you. Please.* Eva never said please. Eva never typed without three emojis minimum. The message had no emojis. The delivery bag on Rory's back was empty, the shift at Golden Empress finished at ten, and she had told herself she would walk here to check and leave. Five minutes. In and out. The grove breathed. The air smelled of turned earth and honey and something underneath, like copper left in rainwater. Rory stepped past the first standing stone and time hiccupped. The traffic hum from the A-roads cut off. No planes overhead. No distant dogs. The wind through the oaks made no rustle. She lifted the pendant without thinking, thumb over crimson. "You there?" Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. It dropped into the flowers and vanished. "Eva? If this is some prank, it's shit. It's really shit." Nothing answered. The wildflowers swayed though no wind touched her cheeks. Rory moved forward because standing still felt worse. Her shoulder-length black hair caught on branches she did not remember passing. Her boots, cheap canvas things soaked through from the earlier rain, made no sound on soil that looked dry and cracked and then wet again with each step. In the centre of the clearing a shape broke the flower line. A flat stone, lichen-crusted, low as a table. Something rested on it. Not something. A jacket. Eva's jacket. The yellow one with the patched elbow she wore on deliveries. Rory's breath snagged. Her hand found the small crescent scar on her left wrist and dug a nail in. The jacket was folded. Too neat. Sleeves tucked under, collar smoothed. No one folded in the woods. No one left yellow fabric clean in mud that did not mark it. "Eva?" She closed the distance fast, too fast, and knelt. The flowers brushed her knees and left pollen on black denim, pollen that glowed faint for half a second before fading. She reached for the jacket. The pendant burned. Not warm. Hot. A spike of heat that shot straight through the silver chain into her sternum. The Heartstone flared deep crimson under her shirt, light visible through fabric, pulsing now, frantic. Rory jerked back. Her palm slapped over it. The stone table was empty. Then not empty. The jacket was there again. Still folded. But wet now, dripping, water darkening the stone beneath it. A drip. Close. Too close. Rory looked up. The standing stones ringed the grove. She counted four on entry. Now five. The fifth stood where no oak had stood, taller, its bark split. Something about the split looked wrong. Too straight. Too narrow. Like lips pressed together. She stood. Her legs shook. "Who's there? I'm leaving. I've got a phone. I've got—" The flowers behind her rustled. She spun. Nothing. Only flowers. Only moonlight that came from no particular angle. The rustle came again, on her left. Then right. A circle. Something moved through the blooms at crouch height, bending stems though Rory saw no body, no back, no hands. A path of parted flowers closed slow after it passed. The pendant pulsed faster. Heat crawled up her throat. The jacket on the stone unfolded itself. Rory watched it happen and her brain refused the image. One sleeve jerked, then the other, fabric snapping with no wind to drive it. It stood up on empty air. The collar lifted as if someone shrugged into it from behind. It had no head. No hands. The yellow shape turned. Rory stepped back. Her heel hit root. She did not fall. The jacket took a step toward her. Mud did not mark its hem. Flowers bent away from it. "Don't. Stop." Her voice cracked. Bright blue eyes wide and fixed and her mouth dry. The jacket tilted. The empty neck hole regarded her. Behind it, the fifth standing stone split wider. Bark creaked. The split opened a hand's width, dark inside, damp, and a white shape pressed forward from that dark. Not enough to emerge. Enough to watch. Rory's fingers locked around the pendant and the stone seared her palm. She hissed and held on. "Eva didn't leave this. Did she?" The jacket took another step. Close enough that Rory smelled Eva's shampoo off it, cheap apple, and under that, turned earth. The grove inhaled. Every flower turned. Not toward the moon. Toward Rory. Hundreds of pale heads swivelling on soft stalks, petals open and facing her, listening. The rustling in the flowers stopped circumnavigating. It stopped directly behind her. Something exhaled against the back of her neck. The breath was cold. It smelled of honey. Rory did not turn. Her shoulders rose to her ears and every muscle locked. The pendant beat against her ribs like a second heart, desperate. The yellow jacket raised empty sleeves. A voice came from the flowers. Small. Almost familiar. It used Eva's cadence but not Eva's words, like a mouth learning a language around teeth too sharp. "You came."