Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQMYMXF32QP1AQ650VF37Z

The last bus had wheezed away an hour ago, leaving Aurora Carter alone with the rustle of late-autumn leaves and the vast, indifferent dark of Richmond Park. A sodium-orange glow bled from the city’s edge, but here, under the canopy of ancient oaks, it was swallowed by a deeper, older blackness. The night air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and decay. Her breath plumed in front of her face, a transient ghost in the chill. She was here for a reason. The silver chain around her neck felt heavy, the Heartstone Pendant nestled at her sternum radiating a steady, insistent warmth. For weeks, it had been a dormant weight, a pretty crimson curiosity from a benefactor she’d never met. Then, two nights ago, it had woken up. A faint thrum against her skin, a soft inner glow that pulsed in time with something she couldn't see or hear. It had pulled her across London, the warmth growing from a gentle suggestion to a demanding heat that made the skin beneath it prickle. It led her here, to this specific, desolate corner of the park. Her boots made soft, sucking sounds in the muddy turf. According to Eva’s cryptic texts, the entrance wasn’t obvious. *Look for the old sentinels,* she’d written. *The ones that don't belong.* And then she saw them. Set back from the path, almost consumed by shadow, stood a ring of monolithic stones. They were not the jagged, weathered granite of Stonehenge replicas; they were oak, petrified to the hardness of iron, their surfaces smooth and black as obsidian. They hummed with a silence that felt louder than the ambient noise of the park. As Rory approached, the pendant’s warmth intensified, a hot coin pressed against her breastbone. This was the place. The Fae Grove. She hesitated at the gap between two of the largest stones, a threshold into absolute darkness. Her logical mind, the part that had gotten her through three years of Pre-Law, screamed that this was insane. She was a delivery driver, a girl who’d fled Cardiff for the anonymous safety of a flat above a bar, not some character in a forgotten folktale. But the heat of the pendant was a compelling argument, a physical truth she couldn’t ignore. It promised answers about the things that had started creeping into the corners of her life. Taking a steadying breath, Rory stepped through. The change was immediate and profound. The distant hum of London vanished. Not faded, but sliced away, as if a door had been shut behind her. The air grew still and thick, carreging a scent that was dizzyingly complex—the heady perfume of night-blooming jasmine, the metallic tang of fresh blood, and the sweet, cloying rot of overripe fruit, all tangled together. Inside the circle of stones, a clearing opened up, bathed in an eerie, pearlescent moonlight that seemed to emanate from the ground itself. Wildflowers, impossible for the season, bloomed in spectral blues and silvers, their petals unnervingly perfect, like spun glass. The wrongness of it settled deep in her bones. This wasn't a peaceful, hidden sanctuary. It was a stage, meticulously set, waiting for an actor. The pendant was now a small, contained fire against her skin. It was leading her deeper into the clearing. She walked slowly, her senses stretched to a painful tautness. Every shift of shadow, every sway of a petal, felt deliberate. Her eyes scanned the perimeter, tracing the unblinking watchfulness of the standing stones. A sound. A single, sharp crack, like a dry twig snapping under a heavy boot. Rory froze, her head canted. She held her breath, listening until her lungs burned. The ground here was a carpet of soft moss and yielding petals. There were no twigs. She scanned the treeline, the deep voids between the stones. Nothing. Just the silent, blooming flowers and the expectant hush. An animal, she told herself, her cool-headed training kicking in. A fox. A deer. It was a park, after all. But the explanation felt thin, a paper shield against a rising tide of dread. The silence that followed the snap was heavier than before, as if the grove itself was holding its breath with her. She pressed on, her focus narrowed to the pendant's heat. It pulsed, a tiny crimson heart beating against her own. The source was close now, somewhere near the center of the clearing where a gnarled, ancient oak clawed at the sky. Its branches were bare and twisted, contorted into shapes like arthritic fingers. As she drew closer, the air grew frigid, a pocket of deep winter that raised goosebumps on her arms. The heat was almost painful, a focused point of burning right over her sternum. This was it. The Hel portal, or whatever Eva had called it. She knelt, her fingers brushing the damp moss at the base of the great oak. There was nothing there. No shimmering tear in the air, no glowing runes. Just dirt, twisted roots, and the silent, silver flowers. The feeling of being watched intensified. It was no longer a vague premonition but a physical pressure on the back of her neck, a prickling certainty that eyes were on her. She rose slowly, turning in a full circle, her gaze sweeping the ring of silent stones. Nothing. Just shadows playing tricks. Light and dark. Then came the second sound. It was not a snap. It was a soft, wet, guttural noise. An inhalation, long and ragged, as if drawn through fluid. And it was close. So close she felt the vibration of it in the soles of her boots. Her hand went to her pocket, fumbling for her phone, for its mundane, reassuring light. Her fingers closed around cold, dead plastic. She pulled it out. The screen was black. It had been fully charged when she left the flat. The grove's strange relationship with time, she thought, a frantic edge to the logic. An hour in here could be days outside. Her battery could have just…drained. But she didn’t believe it. Panic, cold and sharp, began to fray the edges of her composure. The search for the portal was forgotten, replaced by the primal urge to get out. She took a step back from the oak tree, her eyes darting between the impenetrable shadowspooled at the base of each standing stone. The wet breathing came again, this time from her left. It was moving. She spun towards the sound, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. And she saw it. For a split second. Not a trick of the moonlight. Something tall—far too tall—and impossibly thin detached itself from the shadow of an oak stone. It didn't step out. It *unfolded,* its limbs extending at unnatural angles, like a spider’s leg uncurling. She saw no face, no features, just a silhouette that defied geometry. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, melting back into the darkness. But she had seen it. It was real. A strangled sound escaped her throat. She stumbled backward, tripping on a root, catching herself before she fell. Her cool-headedness shattered. This was Evan’s-smile-in-the-darkness real. This was the-car-tires-screeching-on-wet-pavement real. The wet, labored breathing was behind her now. She didn't scream. The sound was trapped in her throat, a knot of pure terror. She just ran. She pumped her arms, her legs churning through the spectral flowers, crushing their fragile, glass-like petals under her boots. The oppressive silence of the grove broke, filled by her own ragged gasps and the frantic pounding of her feet. Behind her, a new sound began. A soft, dragging shuffle. The sound of something heavy being pulled across the mossy ground. It was keeping pace with her. And over it, a low chuckle echoed through the clearing. It was a liquid, gurgling sound, a mockery of mirth that scraped along her nerves. The gap in the stones, the threshold to her world, was just ahead. Twenty feet. Ten. She threw herself forward, a sob tearing from her chest as she burst through the opening. The world rushed back in a cacophony of familiar noise. The distant wail of a siren, the low hum of the city, the rustle of real, dying leaves in a cold, mundane wind. She fell to her knees on the muddy path, gasping, her body trembling uncontrollably. After a long moment, she forced herself to look back. The clearing was gone. There was only a dense, dark stand of trees between two large, ordinary-looking rocks. No impossible flowers. No pearlescent light. Nothing. Her hand went to her chest, to the Heartstone. The pendant was no longer warm. It was ice-cold against her skin, a chip of frozen night that seemed to leech the heat from her body. As her fingers brushed against it, a sharp, stinging pain flared on her left wrist. She looked down. The faint, crescent-shaped scar from her childhood was glowing with a faint, angry red light, burning as if the wound were fresh. She wasn't safe. She had not escaped. She had only been released.