Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMPCY8KQXPAEDHYDEFG4GXX

The pounding of Aurora's heart sounded embarrassingly loud in the still of the night. She gazed uneasily into the darkness, squinting at the barely discernible path before her. The overgrown tendrils of thorny vines snagged at the hem of her coat as she pushed forward, leaves crunching underfoot in the cold autumn air. This was foolish. What had possessed her to come out here alone, in the dark, to this grove she learned of from the old ones at the Pub? A grove where the veil between worlds was thin, where one could catch a glimpse of the fair folk, if the stories held any truth? She was half tempted to turn around and damn the consequences. But then she felt it. A faint warmth emanating from the amulet beneath her shirt. She'd noticed it pulsing faintly when she was around Silas. How his eyes seemed to glitter like shards of lightning when he looked at her. And then that conversation they had shared when she told him of her possession - possession by the same thing that had compelled her here. If she left now, she would never know the truth. Know if there was something more to him, and her, and this place. With a deep breath, Aurora steeled herself and pressed forward, heedless of the eerie silence around her. The ancient oaks loomed like sentinels on either side of the overgrown footpath, their massive trunks twisting into the gnarled standing stones that marked the boundary of where the world became strange. Dew-crusted spiderwebs brushed at her face as she ducked through them, the knotted roots of the trees threatening to trip her with each step. She stumbled out of the path and into the grotto. Moonlight broke through the treeline, dappling the mossy ground in pools of silver. Wildflowers bloomed even here, defying the season's turn, breaking up the thick cobwebs that fluttered like gauzy lace in the breeze. Jade vines snaked through the underbrush, scandent and heavy with strange pods that produced an almost melodic tinkling as they bumped against one another. It was beautiful in the way a bad dream is beautiful, with an unhealthy vibrant quality. The air felt too still, pressed down by the fetid heavy scent of honey-scented nightbloom, and the stink of decay. Birdsong that should have been sweet descended into shrieks and raucous cackling. Something fluttered and hissed in the darkness of the bushes. When she whipped her head around, it was gone. A gnarled hand of oak pushed through the floor. The roots wound artfully into branching patterns that her eyes kept trying to follow, rounding forward, spiraling inward into a yawning hole that disappeared into darkness. Not the deep darkness of a burrow, but the shifting, ephemeral darkness of fabric moved by wind. A coutil bedsheet curtains, fluttering and billowing into... somewhere. Another place. A gash in the world. Aurora's skin prickled. She could feel the magic prickling sharply along her arms. Prickles that turned to stabs as she approached the feeder. The darkness within it seemed to WATCH her, the darkness of an open toothless maw, waiting to swallow. A faint gust flurried around her, scenting of honey and bitterness. The rustle of leaves... or fabric? "It's not just us it lets in, is it?" she whispered to the dark. Cold slicked the back of her neck, and she could almost hear the whisper of a voice, the scrape of nails on a chalkboard- A twig snapped. Aurora whirled, her foot plunging jerkily forward. Her stomach lurched even as her palms sweat cold. Somewhere something was stepping through the bushes, snapping the thorny vines and branches with a careless clumsiness that suggested purpose. Her eyes strained at shadows, each one shifting and reforming as her attention darted to it. Something else moved in the corner of her vision. A flee shell. The tendrils of a sporeborne. Her own black curse of a second shadow. Heavy footsteps crunched heavier. Leaves rubbed stiffly. It was coming closer. She didn't know what to do, where to look. Her hands squeezed her necklace to her chest, feeling the warmth and the warmth and WARMTH at her throat. Her breath sharpened, sharp and ragged in her chest. Rkap Apoll! She jolted with the memory of the incantation from six years ago. But that had been for protection against Wyrd. Not against- CRUNCH. The branch broke. IT came out of the bushes. She didn't know what it was anymore. Her hands curled into her sleeves and she wanted to back away, but she couldn't move. THING. She corrected herself. A THING stumbled out from the bushes. Not human, not really Fae, but some horror in between. Its eyes glowed pink as they landed on her. She almost vomited at the bottomless silkiness, the horrible honey-sweetness of them. It spoke. It had no mouth, but in her mind she heard it say: You shhhouldng. You ssshould-- Her back arched as she bolted upright and its eyes pierced the void behind her. Ice swept her veins. These eyes were everywhere. They had been there all along, watching, waiting, reaching out with cold fingers to close around her heart. Experience seemed to unfurl like a yawning chasm before her. She saw more than just the grove. She saw the many groves, the roots of the Yggdrasil curling through Realms unseen. Connected in the fundamenta of the world. The thing was there. And the thing before the thing. However many things stood between and however many more things still watched, still breathed, still smelled. What she was running from was not behind, but ahead. The known was gone and the unknown opened. An ancient endlessness, an empty infinity of teeth, and the sounds were getting closer. Humming, suckling, a wet rasp of scraping against smooth surfaces. She was going insane, parts of her mind snapping away like twigs. Plastic rustled and shattered, and the lights in the earth flicked on and off. She saw in flashes of a thousand glowing eyes, a thousand under-realms of circumstance. And each eye was hungry. Ravenous. All her senses were terrified now. Phantasmal and indistinct, but she saw the shape of its mouth and tongue, and she knew what it wanted - a tithe of her essence. Her soul. How long did she watch the roots unravel before her? How long would she shudder out of her skin if she couldn't turn and reach the tree-line, dive back into her sanity and the guidance of the Old KKarlas? Or find some sort of guide in this hell while everything and nothing fragmented into just everything?