Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQFWVQYQ21AAHYA98A9NGK

Aurora's breath misted in the cold night air as she pushed through the last line of trees into Richmond Park. The delivery van's engine ticked behind her, cooling metal contracting with soft pops that seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness. She shouldn't be here—not at half past midnight, not alone, not when every instinct screamed at her to turn around and drive back to the familiar glow of London's streetlights. But the pendant at her throat had been burning against her skin for hours now, its crimson depths pulsing with that strange warmth that meant only one thing: a Hel portal was near. The ancient oaks loomed ahead, their massive trunks forming a rough circle that hurt to look at directly. Even in the darkness, Aurora could feel their weight, their wrongness. These weren't the carefully maintained trees of Richmond Park that tourists photographed during daylight hours. These were older, darker things that predated the neat walking paths and manicured lawns by centuries. She fumbled for her torch, the small beam cutting a weak path through the shadows between the standing stones. The pendant's warmth intensified as she approached, but something else made her steps falter. The silence was too complete. No rustling of small animals in the underbrush, no distant hum of traffic from the A3, no night birds calling. Even her own footfalls seemed muffled, as if the air itself had thickened around her. Aurora crossed the threshold between the stones and immediately regretted it. The world shifted, like stepping from a photograph into a painting where the artist had gotten the proportions slightly wrong. The grove beyond the oaks was impossibly large, stretching away into darkness that her torch couldn't penetrate. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in defiance of the October chill, their colors too vivid, too saturated. They swayed without wind. Time moved differently here—she'd heard the stories, read the warnings Eva had left scattered through her research. An hour inside could be minutes outside, or it could be days. But the pendant's pull was stronger now, urgent in a way that made her teeth ache. She took another step into the grove, then another. Behind her, the gap between the standing stones flickered like a heat mirage. The van was still visible, a reassuring slice of the normal world, but it seemed to be receding even though she hadn't moved that far. A sound made her freeze—soft, rhythmic, like breathing. But deeper than human lungs could manage, and coming from everywhere at once. The flowers at her feet trembled, their petals catching starlight that shouldn't exist under the heavy canopy of leaves overhead. Aurora's grip tightened on the torch. "Hello?" Her voice cracked slightly, and she winced at how young she sounded. How afraid. The breathing continued, unchanged. But now she caught something else underneath it: a wet, sliding sound, as if something large was dragging itself across the forest floor just beyond the edge of her vision. She swept the beam in a wide arc, illuminating nothing but more of those too-bright flowers and the massive trunks of trees that definitely hadn't been there moments before. The grove was changing around her, expanding, rearranging itself while she wasn't looking directly at it. The pendant burned hotter against her throat. Close. Whatever she'd come here to find—or whatever had drawn her here—was very close now. Aurora forced herself to keep walking, following the invisible pull deeper into the grove. Her torch beam wavered as her hand trembled, creating dancing shadows that seemed to move independently of their sources. More than once, she caught glimpses of movement in her peripheral vision—tall shapes that melted away the moment she turned her head. The breathing sound grew louder, more labored. It reminded her of her grandfather in his final days, lungs filling with fluid, each breath a struggle. But this was amplified, echoing off trees that stretched impossibly high into a sky she could no longer see. Something brushed against her left shoulder. Aurora spun, heart hammering, but found only empty air and the gentle sway of flowers that reached barely to her waist. The touch had been light, almost caressing, but unmistakably deliberate. Like fingers trailing across fabric. "I know you're there." She tried to inject authority into her voice, the way she'd learned to do with difficult customers at the Golden Empress. "Show yourself." The breathing stopped. The silence that followed was worse than the sound had been. Aurora could hear her own pulse pounding in her ears, the rustle of her jacket as she turned in a slow circle, the soft crush of flower petals under her boots. But the grove itself had gone completely still, as if holding its breath. Then, from somewhere behind her, came the sound of footsteps. Slow, deliberate, matching her own rhythm with mocking precision. When she moved, they moved. When she stopped, they stopped. Aurora's free hand went to the pendant, its heat now almost painful against her palm. The crimson stone was glowing brighter, its inner light visible even through her fingers. Whatever was in this place, it was connected to the portals, to the wrongness that had been seeping into her world for months. She started to turn toward the footsteps, but they shifted, circling her. Always staying just outside the torch's reach, just beyond the boundary of what she could see. The sound was wrong—too light for something as large as the breathing suggested, but too heavy for human feet. More sounds joined the footsteps. A rustling that might have been wings, if wings could be the size of bedsheets. A low humming that vibrated in her chest cavity. Whispers in a language that made her molars ache just to hear. The grove was waking up around her, and Aurora realized with crystalline clarity that she had made a terrible mistake. Whatever lived in this place had been waiting for her, drawing her in with the pendant's false promise of answers. She was not the hunter here. She was the prey. The footsteps stopped directly behind her, close enough that she should have felt breath on her neck, should have sensed body heat. But there was only the cold night air and the certainty that something vast and patient was studying her with ancient, hungry eyes. Aurora took a careful step toward where she remembered the standing stones being, but the grove had shifted again. The familiar gap between the oaks was gone, replaced by more flowers, more trees, more darkness that her torch couldn't penetrate. The wet sliding sound returned, closer now, accompanied by something that might have been laughter if laughter could sound like breaking glass.