Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQV0V7XRANV2134D09HMAS

Aurora Carter kept her hands buried in her coat pockets as she slipped through the thinning trees. Her footsteps barely disturbed the scattered leaf mold carpeting the ground, each crunch sounding too loud. It was past midnight, and Richmond Park should have been silent, closed to all but foxes and the rare, gliding shadow of an owl on the hunt. Yet somewhere, far off but not far enough, a branch snapped—a crisp, splintering sound, more deliberate than wind or wandering deer. She hesitated at the boundary of the grove, frozen by something other than the damp air prickling her cheeks. Ahead, ancient oaks rose in a loose, impossible circle. Their trunks had been worn smooth and pale by years of wind and secret rituals—Aurora had stood here in daylight, once, letting her fingers skim the strange glyphs burned into the bark. Now, under the waning moon, the oaks seemed taller, their canopies tangled so thickly overhead that not even starlight broke through. Her heart beat too fast. To calm herself, Aurora rolled the Heartstone Pendant between her thumb and forefinger, feeling its reassuring weight, its low, persistent heat. If the stories Eva muttered over coffee had any truth, the Heartstone would warn her of danger. But tonight it was just warm—it didn’t pulse, didn’t glow. She pressed her palm over it, felt its gentle thrum echoing the quick flutter of her own pulse. She couldn’t turn back. She’d promised Eva she would come—just a look, she’d said, just see if anything answered from the Grove. Eva had sounded so sure that Aurora would be able to tell if the Fae were watching. Aurora didn’t know what she expected to find. She only knew she’d dreamed of the standing stones in fevered, slippery fragments all last week, woken each time bone-cold and tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. Aurora flicked on her phone torch, sending a wavering funnel of light ahead. The grass in the clearing had grown long, trapping pale blooms in their shadows; wildflowers, even in February, clustered thickly between the oaks. Not normal. Not right. She remembered Eva’s whisper: time moves differently inside the Grove. A day here, two heartbeats out there. She ducked beneath an overhanging branch and stepped inside the stone circle. The threshold prickled across her skin, goosefleshing her arms. It felt like walking through an invisible membrane, into a hush pressed flat and close. Aurora let her phone dangle from her wrist, its light trembling over moss and vivid daffodils. Nothing moved. No bird calls, no rustle from hidden animals, nothing but the hush and the friendly, infant warmth of the Heartstone against her heart. The silence stretched. She took another step, feeling watched—though by what, she couldn’t say. Far off, there was the faintest echo of music. Three notes, delicate as glass bells, drifting from somewhere deeper in the Grove. Aurora held her breath. The melody—if it was a melody—never repeated, just rang out and faded away, as though whatever played it was uncertain whether to linger or flee. She told herself, firmly, that it was just the city bleeding in through the fences. Some other idiot wandering the park after dark, humming to themselves. She almost believed it. Aurora made herself walk clockwise along the inside of the standing stones, tracing her fingers over the chalk-white glyphs. They felt hot, humming, as if the wood beneath her palm drew breath. Her eyes strained, searching between the black trunks for movement, an outline, anything— Something fluttered, quick and light, at the edge of her vision; she jerked her head, torch beam swinging to the undergrowth. There was nothing but tangled roots knuckling out of earth and bluebells nodding heavy with dew. Her breath steamed in the cold. A shape flickered in the trees—a thin arm, or the shadow of one, vanishing behind a trunk. The wrongness swelled, blooming low in her belly, rising. “Hello?” she called, the word too small, her voice tight. No answer, not even an echo. Aurora cursed under her breath. Her legs wanted to run, but she forced herself along the perimeter. This was what Eva asked her to do: make contact, look, sense. Simple as walking the dog, except the dog was every horror story Aurora’s mother had ever hissed at her for telling in the dark. A laugh, quiet as breath, uncurled from somewhere close behind. Aurora whirled, phone shaking in her grip. Nothing. Only the hush, and the strange feeling that the trees had pivoted slightly in their places, closing in a fraction. The air thickened, sweet and damp. Aurora’s fingers tightened on her pendant. She squatted in the grass, clutching the silver chain. The Heartstone pulsed warm and slow—not alarm, not quite—but now the space between the trees flexed unnaturally. The wildflowers at her knees seemed to bend toward her, nodding even though there was no wind. She caught another flicker—this time, unmistakably, a face peering out from the split in an oak. Too pale, too long; eyes large and glinting, hungry as foxfire. As soon as her lamp swept over the split, it vanished. Aurora licked her lips, throat dry. “I’m only here to look,” she whispered to the trees, absurd, but necessary. Silence. The grass pressed against her boots, cool and springy. She was crouching now, heartbeat wild, both palms flat on the ground. The earth was alive, humming, as if something moved beneath the shallow roots. She straightened up, ready to back toward the boundary. But the oaks had shifted further. No, not the oaks—the stones. The gaps she’d entered through had narrowed, closed in a step at a time. For a mad moment Aurora thought she saw the glyphs sliding, reshaping themselves the way letters curl on old maps. The Heartstone burned suddenly hot at her neck. Not heat—pressure. Aurora plucked it from her shirt. In the phone’s circle of light, the crimson gem glowed faintly from within, a steady alive pulse. She heard her own breath, ragged, loud. Between two trunks, the shadows bunched together. For an instant, a whole painted scene: a girl, white-gowned and willow-thin, stood barefoot in the flowers. Her mouth moved, words forming. Aurora tried to hear but the buzzing in her ears rose, drowning the voice. The girl’s eyes never left hers—too bright, impossible, reflections of wrong stars. The figure receded. The petals where she’d stood lay pressed down, wet as if in mourning. Aurora’s skin crawled. She circled backward, eyes locked on the place where the girl had vanished. Her foot caught a root and she staggered, wind-milling, landing hard on one knee. The music started again, urgent this time, off from any key she’d ever heard—notes blurring, climbing. The wind shifted—she swore it carried laughter, but gutter-deep this time, nothing like the previous breathy hint. Aurora bolted for the boundary, moving as quietly as she could, heart hammering a warning against her ribs. She reached for the nearest standing stone—felt the glyphs scalding hot under her palm—and squeezed the chain of the Heartstone for luck. Behind her, something followed. She heard grass bend, brittle stems snapped by careful, studying feet. She did not look back—the terror curdled too thick and old, the sort of fear that belonged to old childhood nightmares. At last she broke the invisible bubble; the air flattened, warmed suddenly, and all of Richmond’s distant city lights blinked between the branches. The sounds of traffic and distant sirens filtered through. Aurora stumbled free, lungs heaving. She didn’t stop until her back was to a lamppost, her hands knotted tight around the cooling Heartstone. Inside her chest, her heart kept on pounding a warning. Behind her, the Grove rested—patient, silent, its secrets unspilled. The wildflowers gleamed in the shadows. Somewhere, far off, a girl’s laughter played like a broken music box, fading as the world righted itself and left Aurora once again, utterly, alone.