Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQTCK3DXXPV2BY68S76SZE

The air in Richmond Park was different at night. It was heavier, thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, a smell that clung to the back of the throat. Aurora Carter pulled her jacket tighter, the worn denim a flimsy shield against the encroaching chill. She had walked this path a dozen times, but never under a sliver of moon like this, one that cast the ancient oaks in skeletal relief and turned the bracken into a sea of silver-black spikes. Every crunch of her boots on the gravel path sounded like a gunshot in the profound quiet. She was here because of the pendant. It had been a gift, left on her doorstep in a small, unmarked box two months ago. A deep crimson stone, roughly the size of her thumbnail, on a simple silver chain. For weeks, it did nothing. Then, three days ago, it had pulsed with a faint, inner warmth. The warmth had grown, a steady, rhythmic thrumming against her skin, growing stronger whenever she was near this specific part of the park. Cool-headed logic, the remnant of her abandoned Pre-Law degree, told her it was a trick of body heat, a psychosomatic reaction to a weird piece of jewelry. The other part of her, the part that had fled Cardiff and an ex named Evan, knew better. Some things weren't logical. Some things were just wrong. She found the marker she was looking for: a pair of ancient, gnarled oaks that grew like entwined lovers. Beyond them, the world seemed to… thin. She slipped between the trunks, and the normal world fell away. The Fae Grove. Isolde’s grove. Whatever you wanted to call it. It was a pocket of impossibility, a clearing that shouldn’t exist. The air here was still and warm, a stark contrast to the park’s autumnal bite. Wildflowers bloomed in a riot of colour—violets so deep they were almost black, bell-shaped blossoms that glowed with a soft, luminescent blue, and poppies the colour of fresh blood, their centres black as pitch. They carpeted the ground in a silent, vibrant tapestry, unbothered by the season or the moon. At the edge of the clearing stood the standing stones, great monoliths of weathered oak that marked the boundary, their bark like the wrinkled faces of silent, ancient judges. Rory’s thumb instinctively went to the small crescent scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she’d never broken. The pendant against her sternum was noticeably warmer now, a pleasant heat, like a hand cupped over her heart. So this was the source. A place of power. She’d expected to feel… something. Awe, perhaps. A sense of peace. Instead, a profound unease settled over her, as cold and heavy as a shroud. It was the silence. It wasn’t an empty silence, but a full one. A pressed-down, held-breath silence. There were no crickets, no rustle of nocturnal animals in the undergrowth, no hoot of an owl from the high branches of the surrounding trees. It was a vacuum. The only sound was the faint, frantic thumping of her own blood in her ears. She took a step deeper into the clearing, her boots sinking softly into the mossy earth between the flowers. The sweet, cloying scent of the blossoms was overwhelming, like walking into a room where a dozen bottles of perfume had been smashed. It was beautiful, it was intoxicating, and it was sickening. A twig snapped. Rory froze, every muscle tensing. Her head whipped toward the sound, toward the dense wall of bracken and thorns that bordered the grove beyond the standing stones. A fox, she told herself. A badger. The park was full of wildlife. It was the most logical explanation. She held her breath, listening. Nothing. The silence rushed back in to fill the space, thicker than before. She forced herself to relax her shoulders, to unclench her jaw. You’re being paranoid, Carter. This place is just… old. It feels different because it *is* different. She took another step, her eyes scanning the standing stones. In the strange, ambient light of the flowers, the grain of the wood seemed to shift and swirl. For a moment, one of the stones looked like a screaming face, its mouth a dark knot of wood, its eyes two splintered holes. She blinked, and it was just a tree again. A trick of the light. The pendant grew hotter. The pleasant warmth was becoming uncomfortable, a distinct, focused heat that seared through her t-shirt. She rested her fingers against it. The crimson stone was glowing now, not just with a faint inner light, but with a throb of angry red light that painted the inside of her jacket in fleeting pulses. Another sound. This wasn’t a snap. It was a slow, deliberate *scrape*. Like a heavy branch being dragged across stone. It came from her left, from the direction of the standing stones. It was rhythmic. Scrape… pause… scrape… pause. It was the sound of something patient. Something searching. Rory’s rational mind was screaming for explanations. Wind in the trees. Settling wood. But there was no wind. And the sound was too… intentional. Her gaze darted to the edge of the grove. Between two of the towering oak monoliths, she saw it. A flicker of movement. A shape darker than the surrounding shadows. It was tall and unnaturally thin, and it moved with a stuttering, jointless motion that made her stomach clench. She stared, forcing her focus, but when she looked directly at it, it was gone. Nothing but the impenetrable blackness between the stones. But she knew what she had seen. It hadn’t been an animal. The air grew colder, the warmth of the grove leeching away. The sweet scent of the flowers soured, curdling into the smell of rot and wet soil. The glowing blossoms seemed to dim, their light receding, leaving the clearing in a deeper shadow. The only illumination now was the moon above and the frantic, crimson glow of the Heartstone against her chest. A whisper slithered through the air, sibilant and devoid of any human tongue. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, from the flowers at her feet and the stones at her back. It was a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement, a sound that promised desiccation and decay. *Get out.* The thought was not a suggestion. It was a command, screamed by the most primitive, lizard part of her brain. The cool-headed intellect that had served her so well in London was gone, submerged beneath a tidal wave of pure, animal terror. She didn’t hesitate. She spun on her heel and ran for the gap between the twin oaks, the way she had come in. The ground seemed to shift beneath her. The soft, mossy earth now felt like grasping fingers, clinging to her ankles, trying to pull her down. The cheerful, luminescent flowers now seemed like teeth, snapping at her shins. The scraping sound was closer now, behind her, accompanied by the dry, rustling whisper. It was the sound of pursuit. She risked a glance over her shoulder. The shape was there, at the centre of the clearing where she had just been standing. It was a silhouette of impossible angles, a thing of spindly limbs and a head that was too long, too narrow. It had no face she could discern, only a deeper patch of shadow that seemed to absorb the moonlight. It raised one of its long arms, and the whispering grew louder, a hungry, chittering sound that scraped at the inside of her skull. Rory screamed, a raw, ragged sound torn from her throat. She threw herself forward, bursting through the twin oaks and stumbling back onto the gravel path of Richmond Park. The cold night air hit her like a physical blow, shocking her system. She landed hard, her palms scraping against sharp stones. She scrambled to her feet, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked back. The twin oaks stood there, ordinary and benign. There was no grove. No impossible wildflowers. No standing stones. Just the dark, impenetrable woods of the park. She fumbled for her phone, her hands shaking so badly she could barely grip it. The screen lit up, casting a pale blue light on her terrified face. No signal. But the time… the time was wrong. She had checked her watch before entering the grove. It had been 11:15 PM. Now, her phone read 1:47 AM. Nearly two and a half hours. Gone. It had felt like minutes. She backed away from the trees, one step at a time, never taking her eyes off the spot where the grove should have been. The pendant against her skin was no longer hot. It was ice cold, a sliver of frozen metal that burned with a deep, penetrating chill. The crimson glow was gone, the stone now dark and dormant. But as she finally turned and fled into the night, she knew with a horrifying certainty that this was not over. She had gone into the grove to find the source of the pendant’s power. She had found it. And it had seen her. The cold on her chest was not just a memory; it was a brand. A marker. And she knew, with every fibre of her being, that it could find her anywhere now.