The fox came back on a Thursday. Ellie was rinsing the coffee pot when music began to play—soft, sparse, uninvited. She hadn’t queued anything. Spotify was still open from the night before. The screen read:
“Track 24 – Mixed Favourites”
No artist photo. No album art. Just a title she didn’t recognise. The song drifted in slowly, the kind that didn’t ask for attention—until the lyrics did:
“I’ll find you where the silence grows / In places even light won’t go...”
The mug slipped a little in her hand.
She stared at the screen, suddenly still. Not the song itself—but something in its tone, the phrasing. It stirred something too familiar. Something she didn’t name. She told herself it was a glitch. A random pull from an old playlist. Maybe something she’d saved years ago and forgotten. That was the reasonable explanation.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
But it didn’t feel like that.
A soft thud broke her thoughts. She turned toward the window. It stood there—motionless, just inside the hedge line.
A fox. But not the usual kind. This one was black. Fully black. Glossy coat. Still as obsidian.
It watched her without fear. Not red-brown like the ones that scurried near the bins. Not furtive. Not hungry. This one was… aware.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment. Then the fox blinked—and slipped back into the brush like a thought she’d almost forgotten. Ellie stood with her hand still hovering over the screen.
The song had ended. No record. No artist. The next track had already started: upbeat, synthetic, forgettable. She hit pause. The silence that followed was loud in a way that made her feel exposed.
She told herself again it was nothing. Just a strange pull from the algorithm.
Just a fox, passing through. But something about the moment—the timing, the weight of it—had settled under her skin. And in the stillness, without permission, one quiet thought surfaced:
he would’ve liked that song.