The darkness around her is not empty — it breathes. She parts her lips and whispers the word again, softer this time, letting it curl through the cold air like smoke. For a heartbeat, nothing happens. Then a faint shimmer ripples across the floor, as though the shadow itself shivered. Far ahead, two pinpricks of amber light blink open — eyes, slow and curious, set low to the ground. A small shape steps forward, just enough to catch the edge of a distant glow: a fox, no larger than a cat, with fur the colour of autumn embers. It tilts its head at her. Behind it, the darkness stretches on without end, and somewhere deeper still she can hear a soft, rhythmic dripping — water, or something else entirely.