The crunch of footsteps could be heard

The crunch of footsteps could be heard atop the snow behind her sight. The London streets were empty, with not a single soul lingering about. Eerie chills ran up her spine as she took in just how haunted it seemed to be. The benches were all thickly covered in snow, as if no one has sat on them for days, and the fog was so thick she could not make out anything beyond the buildings across the river no matter how hard she tried. The lights were all illuminated, but the streets were so abandoned it was almost as if the lights were turned on for someone else. The thought struck her that perhaps, by some bizarre twist of fate, she might have ended up in a parallel dimension of London, which was inhabited not by humans, but by beings unseen.

The crunch of footsteps stopped behind her, making her aware of a presence aside from herself. She grew rigid - she got so accustomed to the repetitive noise and so lost in her own thoughts that it didn’t dawn upon her until this moment that she was not entirely alone.

"What is your purpose here?" A ghostly voice whispered, immobilizing her almost completely.

"I-I’ve come to deliver a potion to Mrs. Parker on Aldersgate Street, respectfully," She choked out, clutching her possession to her chest. She dared not turn around.

"Iris Martin, a young, naive girl you are," The voice murmured amusedly. Not letting Iris recover from the initial shock that this being knew her name, the voice continued on, "Mrs. Parker will no longer need this potion of yours. While your potion is indeed effective, you have come too late. Mrs. Parker is no longer in the realm of the human world and therefore has no need for such concoctions any longer," The voice chuckled. "Now I see how you ended up here. You traveled with Mrs. Parker in mind, and ended up in her place of dwelling. However you may head back, dear puppet, for in your realm, Mrs. Parker is dead.