Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQH29WJHEEF4TDMA1SVGMV

The air in Richmond Park was thin and cold, sharp with the promise of autumn frost. Rory pulled the collar of her jacket tighter, her breath pluming in the moonlight. She’d left the main path a hundred yards back, pushing through ferns that felt unnervingly like grasping hands in the dark. The instructions had been cryptic, just a time and a place scribbled on a note slipped under her door: *The ancient oaks. Midnight. Come alone.* Now, parting the last screen of rust-colored bracken, she saw them. The Grove. It opened before her, a perfect circle of meadow insulated from the rest of the world by a ring of colossal, gnarled oak trees. They weren’t just trees; they were monuments, their branches like crooked arms raised to a sky choked with an impossible number of stars. Here, away from the city's perpetual orange haze, the galaxy was a vivid smear. Moonlight, thick and syrupy, drenched the clearing, bleaching the color from a carpet of wildflowers that shouldn't have been blooming this late in the year. Something was wrong. It was a feeling that settled deep in her gut, a low-frequency hum of dread. The silence, for one. The park should have been alive with the nocturnal rustlings of foxes and badgers, the distant drone of a late-night flight into Heathrow. But here, in this circle of oaks, there was nothing. A profound, bottomless quiet that felt like the moment after a scream. She took a hesitant step onto the damp grass, her boots sinking slightly. Her purpose hardened her resolve. She was here to meet the person who had given her the Heartstone, the strange, crimson pendant that now rested against her sternum, cold as a pebble from a winter stream. It was supposed to warm near Hel portals. Here, it was inert, its faint inner light just a dull ember. No demons, then. That was something. She walked toward the center of the clearing, her eyes scanning the monolithic stones that stood between the oaks, their surfaces covered in a filigree of moss that looked black in the moonlight. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers—honeysuckle and foxglove and something else, something cloyingly sweet and unfamiliar. It was too much, an oppressive sweetness that coated the back of her throat. A twig snapped in the woods to her left. Rory froze, every muscle tensing. Her gaze shot toward the source of the sound, a dense shadow pooled at the base of the largest oak. She waited, listening with a stillness she’d learned from years of navigating London’s less savory alleyways on her delivery scooter. The silence pressed back, absolute. A deer, maybe. Or a fox, careless in the quiet. She let out a slow, controlled breath, annoyed at her own jumpiness. Her ex, Evan, had loved to make her jump, to see her flinch. She’d sworn she was done with being afraid. She forced herself to move again, her gaze sweeping the perimeter. Nothing. Just the silent trees, the pale flowers, the ancient stones. She continued to the center of the grove, a spot where the grass was flatter, as if trodden down by centuries of… what? She didn't want to think about it. Pulling out her phone, she checked the time. 12:03. She was late, or they were. She resisted the urge to shine the phone’s torch into the surrounding darkness. It felt like a violation. Like announcing her presence to something that was trying its best to pretend it couldn’t see her. She shoved the phone back in her pocket, her fingers brushing the cool metal of her keys. The small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist gleamed faintly. She traced its familiar curve with her thumb, a nervous habit from childhood. Ground yourself, Carter. You’re in a bloody park, not a crypt. That’s when she heard the whisper. It was faint, a sibilant hiss woven into a gust of wind that stirred the tops of the oaks. But the air around her remained perfectly still. No breeze touched her face, no blades of grass shivered. The sound had been close. Intimate. Like someone leaning over her shoulder and breathing a single, venomous word she couldn't quite understand. Her blood went cold. “Hello?” Her voice was a dry rasp, swallowed instantly by the oppressive silence. “Is someone there?” Only the ringing in her ears answered. She slowly turned a full circle, her hand hovering near the small canister of pepper spray on her belt. She saw nothing. The grove was empty. The moonlight painted everything in stark relief, leaving no space for tricks of the eye. And yet, she couldn't shake the feeling. A prickling on her scalp, a weight in the air behind her. The distinct, unshakable certainty of being watched. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, from one hulking oak to the next. The bark of the trees seemed to twist into leering faces, the knots like vacant eyes. Her rational mind fought back, supplying explanations. Wind. An owl. Her own damn nerves getting the better of her. She’d been on edge ever since the pendant appeared, ever since she’d seen things that didn't belong in her world of rent payments and take-out orders. Then she saw it. Not a face in the bark, but movement. A flicker, at the very edge of her vision. To her right. A piece of the darkness detached itself from the base of a standing stone and slid into the deeper shadow of an oak. It was swift, unnaturally so. Not the bounding gait of a fox or the clumsy shuffle of a badger. It was a flowing, liquid motion. Rory’s breath hitched. She stared at the spot, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She willed it to be a trick of the light, a product of a sleep-deprived imagination. But she knew what she had seen. She began to back away, her steps slow and deliberate, her eyes locked on the space where the shadow had disappeared. One step. Then another. The wet grass soaked through the canvas of her boots. The sweet scent of the flowers seemed to thicken, a suffocating perfume. She glanced down for a split second to check her footing and a gasp tore from her throat. The flowers. A clutch of white anemones, no more than ten feet from her, had turned. All of them. Their pale, cup-shaped heads were no longer tilted towards the moon. They were swiveled on their delicate stems, facing her directly. Watching her. Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through her. This wasn't natural. This wasn't her imagination. The quiet wasn't empty; it was patient. The stillness wasn't peaceful; it was waiting. She turned to run. The sound that stopped her wasn't a whisper or a snapped twig. It was a soft, wet tearing. The sound of old cloth ripping, or roots being pulled slowly from damp earth. It came from behind her, from the direction she had come, cutting off her only path of escape. She was trapped. The ring of oaks no longer felt like a sanctuary, but a cage. An arena. The Heartstone was a lump of ice against her skin, offering no warmth, no warning, only a dead, chilling weight. Rory stood frozen in the center of the impossible clearing, caught between the shadow that flowed and the sound that tore. The starlight seemed to dim, as if a celestial hand were drawing a veil across the sky. The air grew colder, heavy with a sudden, grave-like dampness. She could feel the gaze of the thing in the woods, a tangible pressure against her back. She could feel the silent, attentive regard of the turning flowers. She was the only thing in this grove that was truly alive, and it felt like a trespass. Then came the breathing. It wasn't the sound of lungs, but of something else. A rhythmic, clicking exhalation, followed by a long, wet inhalation. It was everywhere at once. It resonated from the ancient stones, echoed from the gnarled bark of the oaks, seemed to rise from the very soil beneath her feet. It was the sound of the Grove itself drawing a slow, hungry breath. And it was getting closer.