Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQPE7D6WEVDGYNNW4C4NRD

The air in Richmond Park was different after dark. It was heavier, thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, a smell so primal it felt like a memory from a life she’d never lived. Aurora Carter pulled her jacket tighter, the thin fabric doing little to ward off the encroaching chill. She was close now; she could feel it in the subtle thrum beneath her skin, a vibration that had nothing to do with the cold. It was the same feeling that had woken her from a dead sleep, the Heartstone pendant on her nightstand pulsing with a soft, urgent crimson light. An hour inside can be minutes or days outside, the warning echoed in her mind. A risk she had to take. Her phone’s flashlight cut a nervous path through the bracken, the beam trembling slightly in her grip. The park’s official paths were long behind her. Here, the terrain was untamed, a tangled mess of ancient roots and thorny bushes that snagged at her jeans. She’d followed the pendant’s pull, a silent, invisible thread leading her deeper into the wilderness than any sane person would venture alone at this hour. The stone, now resting against her sternum, was a steady, warm presence. It wasn’t just glowing; it was alive, a tiny captured heart beating in time with some distant, unheard drum. The trees began to change. The oaks and horse chestnuts of the common park gave way to older, stranger things. Their bark was gnarled like the faces of sleeping giants, and their branches interlaced so thickly overhead that they blotted out the moon, plunging her into a near-total darkness that her flashlight seemed to fear. The beam felt weak, insubstantial, as if the darkness were actively swallowing it. Then she saw them. Standing stones. Not the neat, orderly arrangement of a tourist site, but massive, rough-hewn pillars of ancient oak, petrified into something harder than stone. They were covered in a thin, velvety moss that seemed to drink the light, and they formed a loose, jagged circle around a clearing. This was it. The Grove. Rory stepped between two of the colossal oaks, and the world shifted. The air, already heavy, became thick and syrupy, sweet with the cloying scent of night-blooming flowers that had no business blossoming in the heart of an English winter. Wildflowers, impossibly vibrant, carpeted the ground in a tapestry of blues and purples and whites. They glowed with their own faint luminescence, casting long, dancing shadows that made the clearing feel both magical and menacing. The temperature dipped, and her breath plumed in front of her face, a small, terrified ghost. The pendant’s warmth intensified, a clear signal. She was in the right place. The reason she’d come, the faint hope of finding a way to understand the strange new reality she’d been thrust into, felt flimsy and foolish now. The silence was the first thing that felt truly wrong. It wasn't an absence of sound, but a presence. It was a pressure against her eardrums, a weight that demanded stillness. Even the hum of the city, the distant roar of the A3, was gone. This place was cut off, an island in the night. She took a hesitant step forward, her boot sinking silently into the soft, mossy earth. The glowing flowers seemed to watch her. That was a ridiculous thought, she knew, but it persisted. The way their petals were turned, the way their light pulsed in a slow, collective rhythm—it felt like an observation. A sound broke the silence. A dry, rustling scrape. Rory froze, her flashlight beam whipping toward the source. Nothing. Just a fern frond, shifting in a breeze she couldn’t feel. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. She told herself it was just the wind, but there was no wind. The air was as still as a held breath. She moved deeper into the clearing, her movements slow and deliberate. The reason for her visit was a specific point she’d seen in a vision, a place where the veil was thin, a place she might be able to… what? Listen? She wasn’t sure. The plan had been vague, born of desperation. Now, it felt like suicide. Another sound. This time it was softer. A soft, wet tearing sound, like fabric being slowly ripped apart. It came from behind her. She spun around, the beam of her light cutting frantic arcs through the glowing flora. Again, nothing. But the air behind her felt disturbed, colder. The scent of the flowers was stronger there, cloying, almost sickeningly sweet, with an underlying tang of something metallic, like old blood. Panic began to prickle at the edges of her composure. Her cool-headed logic was a flimsy shield against the rising tide of primal fear. This place wasn't just a pocket dimension; it was a place of predation. She was the intruder. She was the prey. She forced herself to keep moving, her eyes scanning the periphery of her vision, the place where the shadows were deepest and most alive. The flowers. Their light was pulsing faster now, their rhythm growing erratic. The blues and purples flickered, and for a moment, she thought she saw a shape in the space between two blossoms—a tall, slender silhouette that was gone as soon as she tried to focus on it. She squeezed the pendant in her fist, its crimson heat a small anchor in the rising sea of terror. “Hello?” she whispered, the word sounding thin and pathetic, swallowed by the oppressive silence. The answer was not a voice. It was a movement. A ripple that passed through the entire clearing. Every flower, every blade of glowing grass, every moss-covered stone, seemed to shudder in unison. The tearing sound came again, closer this time, from multiple directions at once. It was the sound of something passing through the undergrowth, something that didn’t disturb the branches or leaves, but moved through the space between them. Rory’s breath hitched. She backed away, her foot catching on an unseen root. She stumbled, falling hard onto her backside. The flashlight flew from her hand, skittering across the glowing ground and coming to rest a few feet away, its beam pointed directly up into the interlaced branches. It illuminated the canopy, turning the gnarled wood into a cage of skeletal fingers. And she saw them. Hanging from the branches, draped like tattered shrouds, were shapes. They were almost invisible, made of the same stuff as the deepest shadows, but they had form. Long, limber bodies with too many joints. They clung to the wood, their heads tilted at unnatural angles, and though they had no faces she could discern, she knew they were looking at her. Watching her fall. The tearing sound was all around her now, a chorus of soft, wet rips. It was the sound of them moving, their bodies dragging through the fabric of this place. One of them detached itself from a branch above her. It didn’t fall; it flowed downward, a spill of liquid darkness that elongated and solidified as it touched the ground. It was tall and spindly, its limbs ending in points that looked wickedly sharp. It took a shuffling step toward her, its movement silent now, the tearing sound having ceased with its arrival. The Heartstone pendant was burning against her skin, its glow so bright it shone through her clenched fingers. It wasn't just a beacon anymore; it was a scream. A flare. *Here I am.* The creature stopped a few feet away. It cocked its head, a gesture of unnerving, inquisitive menace. Another shape detached itself from the trees. Then another. They emerged from the shadows at the edge of the clearing, their forms coalescing out of the darkness itself. They were not rushing her. They were simply… gathering. Forming a loose, patient circle around her. The hunt was over. The waiting had begun. Rory scrambled backward on her hands and feet, her gaze fixed on the first creature. It raised one of its pointed limbs, not to strike, but as if in greeting, or perhaps in warning. The air grew colder still, and the sweet scent of the flowers was overwhelmed by the dry, dusty smell of a forgotten tomb. She was not alone. She had never been alone. She had walked into a nest, and the spiders were just now deciding how best to weave their web.