Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQPGM7ER0ES7D83YA53S1T

The Fae Grove pressed in, a suffocating closeness in the moonless night. Rory shivered, though the air wasn't cold. It was, rather, still. Too still. Not a whisper of wind stirred the ancient oaks that marked the boundary, their gnarled branches reaching like skeletal fingers against the bruise-purple sky. She clutched the silver chain of the Heartstone Pendant, its deep crimson gem a cold weight against her palm. It had pulsed earlier, a distinct warmth against her skin, a steady thrum that drew her here, deeper into Richmond Park than she’d ever dared venture after dark. Her boots sank slightly into the damp earth, the crunch of fallen leaves surprisingly loud in the unnatural quiet. Even the usual city hum, a constant backdrop to her London life, had vanished. Here, in this pocket between worlds, only the sound of her own breathing filled the void. And something else. A rustle, not of leaves, but of silk, or dry parchment, brushed against her ear. Rory spun, her heart hammering against her ribs. Nothing. Just the impenetrable darkness beneath the tree line. She told herself it was her imagination, frayed nerves after a long day of delivering satay and sweet and sour. But the pendant remained stubbornly cool. It hadn't lit up again. Not yet. She pulled out her phone, the screen a brief, jarring beacon in the gloom. No signal. Of course. She pocketed it, the smooth glass a small comfort. She was alone. Or, she should be. The Grove was meant to be untouched, a sanctuary where wildflowers bloomed year-round, bathed in an ethereal light. Tonight, it was a black maw, swallowing any definition. Rory strained her eyes, trying to pierce the gloom. She remembered coming here as a child, on holiday from Cardiff, her parents laughing as she chased butterflies through sun-dappled clearings. Now, the trees seemed taller, more menacing, their trunks dissolving into the inky blackness above. She took a cautious step forward, then another, guided by an instinct she couldn't name. A strange, sweet scent, like honeysuckle and decay, wafted on the air. It made her stomach clench. Her scar, a small crescent on her left wrist from a childhood fall, tingled faintly. Just nerves, she thought, trying to rationalize the irrational. Then she heard it again. A faint scraping, as if something sharp was being dragged across stone. It echoed in the silence, rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. *Shhhk-shk… shhhk-shk…* It seemed to come from deeper within the grove, towards the unseen clearing she sought. Rory forced herself to move, her breath catching in her throat. She had told Eva she was going home after her shift. Eva would worry if she knew where Rory really was. But the pendant had called her. Had pulsed and warmed and insisted she come, so here she was, standing in a place that now felt less like a grove and more like a tomb. The scraping stopped. The silence that followed was even worse. Rory froze, every muscle in her body tensed. She held her breath, listening. The only sound was the frantic thump of her own heart. She felt a prickle of sweat trace a path down her spine. Someone was here. Something was here. A faint light, like the glow of dying embers, flickered through the trees ahead. It was a pale, sickly orange, barely illuminating the gnarled trunks and skeletal branches. Rory’s gut screamed at her to turn back, to run, but her feet were already carrying her towards it. The light seemed to pulse with the same rhythm as her heart, an oppressive, suffocating throb. As she drew closer, the light solidified. It wasn’t an ember, but a cluster of them, low to the ground. And then she saw what was making the scraping sound. Bones. A scattering of them, bleached white against the dark earth, forming a rough circle around the glowing something. Not animal bones. These were too large, too definite in their structure. A forearm, a rib cage, a partial skull. And in the center of the ring, nestled amongst them, was a pulsating, fleshy orb. It was the source of the orange light, and the unpleasant, sweet scent now intensified, cloying and thick. It looked… alive. And wrong. Rory gagged, clapping a hand over her mouth. Her blood ran cold. The orb pulsed, a slow, viscous throb, and a thin, high-pitched whine emanated from it, barely audible but vibrating in the very air around her. It was the scraping sound she had heard, she realised. Not dragging, but a horrifying, living sound. A sound of something that was not meant to exist. She backed away slowly, her eyes fixed on the grotesque display. The orb seemed to swell, its light growing brighter, and the shadows around the bones deepened, taking on an impossible depth. The trees themselves seemed to lean in, their branches twisting into leering faces. A twig snapped behind her. Rory whirled around, a choked cry escaping her lips. Nothing. Just the oppressive darkness, denser now than before. She spun back to the orb, fear paralyzing her. The light was still there, but now, a flicker of movement within the dancing shadows at the edge of the bone circle. A shape, indistinct and wavering, seemed to coalesce. Taller than a human. Thinner, too. It was a distortion in the air, a place where the light bent wrong. It had no features she could discern, just an overwhelming sense of wrongness that permeated the air, sucking the oxygen from her lungs. The pendant, still clutched in her hand, suddenly flared. Not the gentle warmth it had given earlier, but a searing heat that burned against her palm. It pulsed with a desperate, frantic rhythm, the crimson gem glowing with an inner light that fought against the sickly orange of the orb. This was it. This was what the pendant had been warning her against. The form at the edge of the circle shifted, and an arm, impossibly long and spindly, extended from its mass. It wasn't an arm, not really. It was a collection of shadows, of deeper darkness, that reached out towards the bones. One by one, the bleached relics began to tremble. Rory couldn't breathe. She wanted to scream, but her throat was locked. She wanted to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot. Her mind reeled, trying to make sense of the monstrous vision before her. This wasn't Fae. This was something else. Something older. Something darker. The bones began to rise, clattering faintly. Not just the ones in the circle. More of them, half-buried in the leaf litter, pushing up from the earth further in the grove, stretching towards the shadowy entity. A macabre ballet of the dead. The Heartstone grew hotter, searing her flesh. It demanded her attention, not allowing her to fall into the paralyzed stupor of pure terror. Its intense warmth was a grounding force, a reminder of what she had to do. She had to get out. With a superhuman effort, Rory tore her gaze from the rising bones and forced herself to focus on the world around her, on the direction she had come from. She took a stumbling step backward. Another. Her feet found purchase, and she turned, heart hammering, and ran. She ran instinctively, blindly, not daring to look back. The sweet, putrid scent of the orb stung her nostrils, and the high-pitched whine of the scraping sound intensified, now accompanied by a faint, clicking cacophony of bones rising from the ground behind her. The trees were a blur, their branches clawing at her face and hair. She stumbled, fell to her knees, scraping her hands on the rough earth. The pendant, still searing hot, dug into her palm. She pushed herself up, gasping, and continued to run. She didn't know if she was running towards the edge of the grove or deeper into its impossible depths. She just ran, propelled by a primal fear, the distinct feeling of being hunted. A new sound reached her ears, a faint, rhythmic *thump-thump-thump*. It was distant, but unmistakably human. Her heart jolted with a flicker of hope. Something familiar, something safe. She veered towards the sound, pushing through thorny bushes that snagged at her clothes, leaving small cuts on her exposed skin. The air grew progressively lighter, less oppressive. The sickly orange glow began to fade. Finally, she burst through a thicket of overgrown shrubs and stumbled onto a paved path. The sound of distant traffic was a symphony to her ears. Beyond the old stone wall of the park, she could see the faint glow of streetlights. Rory didn't stop. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs ached, until the cool, damp breath of the Fae Grove was far behind her, replaced by the familiar London night. She didn't look back. Even when she reached the main road, even when she hailed a black cab, she kept her eyes fixed forward, the lingering scent of honeysuckle and decay a phantom on her tongue. The pendant, now merely warm, rested against her chest, a silent witness to the horrors she had just escaped. She tried to tell herself it was just a bad dream, a figment of her overactive imagination. But the faint, lingering shk-shk-shk of bones rising from the earth would haunt her sleep for a long, long time.