Run: 2026-09-23-01M36NN7C1Y3YTVZQQQD65XD6G

The gate stood open, though Aurora remembered pulling it shut behind her. She stopped beneath the iron arch and looked back along the path. Richmond Park’s lamps had dwindled to a weak amber line between the trees. Beyond them, the road lay empty. No cars passed. No voices carried from the houses. Her phone showed 11:47. The map’s blue dot shivered in place. “Fine,” she murmured. “You can be useless out here.” She slipped the phone into her coat pocket and touched the pendant beneath her jumper. The crimson stone rested against her skin, small and warm. It had started pulsing on her walk from the bus stop, a faint thud that matched no rhythm she could find in her own body. She had followed it through the park, past the deer paddocks and the dark shapes of trees, until it led her to a clearing she had never seen before. Now the pulse had stopped. She could have turned back. The thought arrived with the same calm weight as a fact: she could go home, climb the stairs to the flat above Silas’ bar, and put the pendant in a drawer. In the morning she could pretend she had not followed a warmth through a park at night. Instead, she ducked beneath the gate. The ancient oaks stood in a rough circle ahead, their trunks thick enough to hide a car. Between them, the clearing held a spill of pale flowers. They covered the grass from edge to edge, open to the night as if the dark belonged to them. Their petals caught the moonlight, though the moon sat behind cloud. Aurora checked the screen again. The map had replaced Richmond Park with a blank grey patch. Her blue dot sat just outside it. She took a picture of the stones. The flash lit the clearing white. For half a second, the flowers seemed flattened against the ground, every stalk bent away from the centre. Then the darkness returned. Aurora lowered the phone. The flowers stood upright. A sound came from beyond the stones: three taps, spaced like knuckles on wood. She held still. Nothing answered. A branch could have struck a trunk. A bird could have disturbed itself in the leaves. She listened for a second sound that would make sense of the first. The park gave her only the scratch of wind high in the oaks. The pendant warmed under her jumper. “Is this what you wanted?” she asked it. Her voice crossed the clearing and came back thin. She took one step inside the circle. The flowers brushed her boots. Their stems bowed without breaking, and when she lifted her foot, they rose again. Not bent. Not crushed. She leaned down and touched a petal. It felt cool and damp, though the air had dried her lips. At the centre of the clearing, a narrow track ran through the flowers. Its dirt looked dark and packed, as if many feet had pressed it down. She followed it to a low stone half hidden by grass. Someone had cut a shallow groove across the top. Aurora crouched. The groove held a bead of water. She touched it with one finger. The tapping sounded again. Three knocks. Closer now. She stood too fast and knocked her shoulder against a branch. The pendant struck her sternum. Its heat flared. A red gleam showed through the knit of her jumper. The knocks came from the stone. Aurora stared at the groove. The bead of water trembled, then slid towards her hand. “No.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. She backed away from the stone. Her heel sank into the flowers. A whisper stirred the oaks. She turned towards the tree line. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, a breath threaded through leaves. She caught no words. Then a small laugh rose from behind the nearest trunk. Aurora gripped the pendant through the fabric. The silver chain bit into her fingers. “Who’s there?” The clearing gave no reply. Her own question seemed to hang above the flowers, waiting for someone else to take it. She crossed to the nearest oak and shone her phone’s torch around its trunk. The beam found ridged bark, moss, a torn strip of pale cloth snagged on a low branch. Beyond the tree, the park stretched in black layers. No person. She walked around the trunk. The pale cloth twisted in the wind. It was only a strip of birch bark, caught between two roots. She looked down to check, and the torch beam picked out a line of small footprints in the mud. Bare feet. Narrow heels. The marks crossed the path behind her and stopped at the edge of the flowers. Aurora’s breath caught. She crouched for a closer look, keeping the light on the ground. The prints held no water. Their edges stayed sharp in the mud. She counted them. Six. Seven. Eight. The last print pointed into the clearing. The next should have appeared in the flowers, but the pale petals showed no mark. A low thump sounded behind her. Aurora rose and swung the torch towards the stones. A shape stood among them, taller than the others, narrow as a person. It had not been there when she crossed the circle. The light reached it and slid over a surface as smooth and black as wet bark. Her hand found the phone’s camera button. The shape remained still. She took a picture. The flash burst. The stones stood empty. She looked at the photo. White flowers. Oak trunks. The low stone. At the far edge of the image, a pale blur hung between two trees, too narrow to be a branch. The phone buzzed in her hand. The screen showed 11:47. She pressed the side button. The display went black. “Come on.” She tapped the glass. Her reflection surfaced, grey and tight-eyed. Behind her reflected shoulder, something pale moved across the clearing. Aurora spun round. The flowers shifted in a broad, silent wave. Not wind. Every head bent from the stones towards her boots, then lifted in sequence. The movement crossed the clearing and stopped at the oak behind her. She stepped away from it. A whisper slid down the trunk, close to her ear. “Laila.” Aurora froze. No one used that name here. No one in London called her Laila. The sound had come from the bark beside her cheek. She backed away until her shoulder hit the next tree. “Who told you that?” The pendant pulsed once, hot enough to sting. She pulled it from beneath her jumper. The crimson stone glowed through her fingers. Its light caught the silver chain, the small crescent scar on her wrist, the flowers at her feet. At the edge of the clearing, the bare footprints had changed. A fresh print pressed into the mud. Then another. They formed one at a time, heading towards her. Aurora kept the torch trained on the ground. The prints advanced at a walking pace, their toes pointing straight at her. She moved sideways, matching them, never letting the beam wander. Her phone shook against her palm. The tracks passed the low stone. The bead of water sat in the groove. It had turned red. Aurora’s pulse hammered beneath the pendant’s steady heat. She backed towards the standing stones. The nearest oak shadow stretched across the flowers, though the light behind her had not changed. The prints stopped. She stopped too. A sound came from behind the stones. A slow scrape, as if something dragged a heavy object over dirt. It circled the clearing. Aurora tracked it with the torch, but the beam found only flower heads and trunks. The scrape moved to her left, then behind her, then close enough that she felt the sound in the soles of her boots. She reached the gap between two stones. The path back to the park should have run straight ahead. Instead, she faced another row of oaks, their trunks close together. The pale flowers filled the ground between them. No gate. No distant lamps. Her phone lit in her hand. The map returned. The blue dot blinked at the centre of the clearing. A new message appeared on the screen. No sender name. No number. DON’T TURN AROUND. Aurora’s fingers locked around the phone. The scrape stopped behind her. She watched her reflection in the dark glass. The clearing lay in miniature across the screen, distorted by the curve of her grip. A shape stood behind her, just beyond the glow of the pendant, its head tilted towards her shoulder. Aurora did not turn. The pendant throbbed against her palm. In the reflection, the shape lifted one hand and laid it on the stone at her back.