Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQG32427SMA8VAQRX2VZCY

The grit of the trail crunched beneath Aurora Carter’s boots, a rhythmic friction that seemed deafening against the expansive silence of Richmond Park. It was past two in the morning, the time when London usually settled into a low, thrumming hum, but out here, beyond the manicured gardens and the deer-filled hollows, the city felt like a distant memory. Rory adjusted the collar of her jacket, shielding her neck from a biting wind that smelled of wet bracken and decaying leaves. She shouldn't have come alone. That was the first thought, logical and detached, the voice of her father, the barrister, echoing in her head. Evidence suggested this was a bad idea. But the text she’d received—cryptic, urgent, and unsigned—had implied knowledge of the pendant resting against her sternum. She paused, her breath pluming in the dark air. Her hand went to the Heartstone beneath her shirt. The silver chain felt cold against her skin, but the stone itself was tepid, pulsing with a faint, steady rhythm that synced uncomfortably with her own heartbeat. It wasn't the frantic heat it usually projected near a portal to Hel, but it wasn't dormant either. It was waiting. Rory pushed a strand of straight black hair out of her eyes. Her bright blue iris caught the moonlight, scanning the tree line. She was looking for the markers. The codex of her life had become complicated since she left Cardiff, but she knew what to look for: the ancient oak standing stones. They appeared out of the gloom like sentinels, gnarled and twisted into shapes that suggested agony frozen in wood. This was it. The boundary. She stepped between them. The transition was usually subtle, a pop in the ears like an elevation change, followed by the lush, heavy scent of perpetual spring. This time, the sensation was violent. It felt as though she had walked through a sheet of ice water. The air on the other side didn't smell of wildflowers and sun-warmed grass. It smelled distinctively of ozone and copper. Rory stopped, her boots sinking into ground that felt too soft, almost spongy. "Hello?" she called out. Her voice didn't echo. It simply fell dead two feet in front of her face, absorbed by the unnatural density of the atmosphere. The Fae Grove was supposed to be a pocket of eternal light and bloom. But tonight, the sky above lacked stars. It was a bruised purple, featureless and suffocatingly low. The wildflowers were there, yes—foxgloves and anemones carpeting the clearing—but they weren’t vibrant. In the strange, bruising light, they looked grey, their heads bowed as if in submission. Rory’s coolness, the analytical detachment that served her well when delivering takeaways to intricate council estates or dodging questions about her past, began to fray. She checked her watch. The second hand was vibrating in place, ticking back and forth between the twelve and the one, unable to advance. *Time moves differently,* she reminded herself. *An hour inside can be minutes outside.* Or, eternity. She shook her left wrist, a nervous habit, her thumb tracing the small crescent scar there. The old injury from childhood felt sensitive, the skin tight. She forced herself to walk forward, deeper into the clearing. She needed to verify if the contact was here. "I’m here," she said, louder this time. "You asked for the girl with the Heartstone." A rustle to her left. Rory spun, dropping into a defensive crouch. Her eyes narrowed, scanning the periphery where the ancient oaks bled into a impenetrable wall of shadow. Nothing moved. The trees were still. Too still. Even in a closed pocket of reality, there should be some movement—leaves settling, insects buzzing. But the Grove was absolutely static. It was like standing inside a photograph. Then, the pendant flared. It wasn't the warm, comforting pulse of a magical artifact. It was a sharp, searing spike of heat against her chest. Rory gasped, clawing at her shirt to pull the stone away from her skin. The crimson gem was glowing, casting a blood-red light onto the grey flowers at her feet. The light revealed that the flowers weren't just bowed; they were trampled. A path of crushed stems led away from her, deeper into the grove, toward a cluster of trees she didn't recognize. Rory hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to turn around, to run back between the oak markers and find the safety of the normal, mundane park. But she was Aurora Carter. She didn't run. She had run from Evan, all the way from Cardiff to London, and she had promised herself she was done running from fear. She followed the trail. The silence grew heavier with every step, pressing against her eardrums. It wasn't just an absence of sound; it was an active suppression. When her boot snapped a dry twig, the crack didn't sound like wood breaking—it sounded wet, like cartilage. Rory froze. The sound hadn't come from under her foot. It had come from behind her. She turned slowly, keeping her movement fluid. Ten yards back, where she had just been standing, the tall grass was slowly rising back up, as if a heavy weight had just lifted off it. Something had been standing there, right where she had paused. "Is someone there?" Her voice was steady, though her heart hammered against her ribs. No answer. But the air shifted. The copper smell intensified, mixing with the rot of the trampled flowers. Rory backed away, her eyes fixed on the empty space. She reached into her pocket, gripping her keys—a pathetic weapon against the uncanny, but the jagged metal bit into her palm, grounding her. She took another step back and collided with something hard. Ideally, it would have been a tree. Trees had bark. Trees had texture. This was smooth, cold, and yielding, like marble wrapped in velvet. Rory whirled around, lashing out with the keys. Air. She hit nothing but air. She stumbled, regaining her balance, and looked at what she had bumped into. It was an oak tree, but the bark had been smoothed away at shoulder height, polished to a mirror finish. In the dim, purple light, she saw her own reflection. But the reflection wasn't moving. The Rory in the wood stood still, staring back with wide, terrified eyes, while the real Rory was breathing hard, chest heaving. The reflection’s hair was matted, and there was a dark smear across her cheek that the real Rory didn't have. Rory stared, paralyzed by the violation of physics. The reflection blinked. The real Rory did not. A wave of nausea rolled over her. This wasn't the Fae Grove. Or rather, it was, but it was sick. Something had infected the pocket, twisting the whimsy of the Fae into something predatory. The reflection smiled—a slow, rigid curling of lips that revealed too many teeth. Rory scrambled back, her boots slipping on the damp vegetation. "Okay," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Okay, leaving now." She turned to run toward the entrance, toward the standing stones that marked the way back to Richmond, back to the grime of London and the safety of Silas' bar. The stones were gone. In their place stood a wall of brambles, thorns the size of fingers interwoven so tightly they blocked out the world beyond. They hadn't grown there; they had appeared. Panic, cold and sharp, tried to seize her throat. Rory forced it down. *Think,* she commanded herself. *Out of the box. Only a box has four walls. This is a sphere. A pocket.* She looked at the pendant. The crimson light was strobing now, a frantic SOS. It wasn't warning her of a portal opening; it was reacting to the proximity of something hostile. A sound drifted through the clearing. It was a low, guttural mimicry of a human voice. *“Rory…”* It wasn't her name. It was the shape of her name, molded from the sound of wind in dry leaves and the crack of bone. It came from everywhere and nowhere. She spun in a circle. The shadows between the trees seemed to be stretching, elongating, reaching toward her like oil spilling across water. The grey wildflowers were turning their heads, not toward the sun, but toward her. "Show yourself," she demanded, though the command lacked authority. The response was a laugh. It sounded like stones grinding together underwater. To her right, the space between two ancient elms blurred. The air rippled, heat haze in the cold night. A figure stepped out. It was tall, painfully thin, with limbs that had too many joints. It wore clothes that looked like tatters of Rory’s own delivery uniform—the Golden Empress logo faded and torn. But it had no face. Just a smooth, pale surface where features should be, reflecting the purple sky. It took a step toward her. Its movement was jerky, a stop-motion animation missing frames. Rory backed up until her heels hit the wall of thorns. One pierced her jeans, scratching her calf, but she didn't feel the pain. She was entirely focused on the thing wearing her work clothes. It raised a hand. The fingers were long, tapering into points that looked like obsidian. *“Laila…”* it hissed. Her middle name. The name only her parents and official documents knew. The pendant burned so hot now she could smell singed fabric. The heat clarified her mind. This thing fed on fear, on confusion. It was using the Grove’s time dilation and psionic properties to trap her in a loop of her own anxiety. Rory unclenched her fists. She took a deep breath, inhaling the ozone and rot. She looked at the faceless thing. "You're not real," she said, her voice dropping into the flat, unimpressed tone she used on drunk patrons at the bar. "You're a resonance echo. A bad vibe in a magical echo chamber." The thing halted. Its head tilted, a bird-like, inquisitive motion. "And I have a delivery to make," she lied, grasping for normalcy. "So get out of my way." She gripped the Heartstone with her left hand, ignoring the burn. She channeled every ounce of her stubborn resolve, the refusal to be a victim that had gotten her out of Cardiff, into the stone. *Open,* she thought. *Not to Hel. To home.* The creature lunged. It moved with impossible speed, covering the distance in a blink. Rory saw the obsidian fingers reaching for her throat, saw the smooth blankness of its face fill her vision. She didn't scream. she thrust the burning crimson pendant forward, meeting the creature's grasp with the searing light of the artifact. The collision made no sound. There was only a blinding flash of red, the sensation of falling, and the smell of ozone abruptly replaced by the stench of diesel fumes and damp dog. Rory hit the ground hard, the gravel of the Richmond Park trail digging into her palms. She gasped, lungs seizing on the cold, clean London air. She scrambled up, spinning around. The ancient oak standing stones were there, silent and still. The space between them was empty. No purple sky. No grey flowers. Just the darkness of the park. She looked at her wrist. Her watch was ticking normally. 2:14 AM. Only three minutes had passed since she entered. Rory touched her chest. The pendant was cold again, inert against her skin. She stood there for a long time, shivering, staring at the gap between the trees. The darkness inside the Grove looked darker than the night around it. And deep within that shadow, just for a second, she thought she saw a smooth, pale face, watching her from the other side. Rory turned her back on the trees and walked toward her bike, her pace brisk, her hands trembling only slightly. She didn't look back.