Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQX6ES8CVCGECHWSP7R5HJ

The London air, thick with the promise of rain, clung to Rory’s jacket as she slipped through the final gap in the ancient oaks. Richmond Park was a different world after dark, the familiar paths turned to alien ribbons of black, but this place—the Grove—was something else entirely. It was a pocket of stillness in a city that never slept. The air here tasted of damp earth and sweet, impossible blooms. Wildflowers, a riot of colour that had no business existing in the autumn chill, carpeted the clearing in a soft, luminescent haze. She hadn’t come here for the scenery. The Heartstone pendant, resting against her sternum, had been warm for hours. Not a gentle, comforting heat, but a persistent, thrumming warmth that spread through her chest like a low-grade fever. It was the same heat she’d felt a week ago, standing on the South Bank, a sensation so intense it had made her dizzy. Then, the stone had pulsed, a faint crimson light bleeding through her shirt for a split second before fading. Something was happening. Something that had its roots in the strange and the otherworldly, and the only place she’d ever felt the pendant truly react was here. Rory pulled the silver chain from under her jumper. The thumbnail-sized crimson gem glowed with a faint inner light, a captured ember in the moonless dark. The heat against her fingertips was undeniable. She scanned the clearing, her cool-headed intelligence warring with a primal instinct that screamed this was a bad idea. The ancient standing stones that marked the Grove’s boundary loomed like silent, moss-covered sentinels. They had always felt protective, like a barrier. Tonight, they felt like cage bars. A twig snapped. Her head whipped toward the sound, her body tensing. Just a fox, she told herself. Richmond Park was full of them. But the sound hadn’t been sharp and quick. It had been slow, deliberate. A clean break. She held her breath, listening. The silence that followed was heavier than before, a vacuum that swallowed the distant hum of the city. Even the flowers seemed to hold their breath, their colours dimming. “Hello?” she called out, her voice steadier than she felt. It was a stupid thing to do, she knew. Announcing your presence to an unknown presence was the first rule of *don’t get murdered*. But her curiosity, the trait that had both saved and landed her in trouble her entire life, was a powerful force. No answer. Only the wind, sighing through the oaks with a sound that was too much like a human whisper. Rory took a step back, her heel brushing against a cluster of bluebells. They drooped instantly, their vibrant colour leaching out until they were grey and brittle. She stared, her mind refusing to process the image. A patch of wildflowers, not three feet away, did the same, the life draining from them in a silent, creeping wave. It wasn’t frost. It was a void, a spreading stain of absolute nothing. The pendant grew hotter, almost uncomfortably so. Its crimson glow brightened, casting a bloody light on her hands. The feeling of being watched was no longer a vague unease. It was a physical pressure, a weight on the back of her neck, like cold fingers. It was the same feeling she used to get with Evan, that sense of a predator’s gaze lingering just out of sight, waiting for her to make a mistake. Her muscles coiled, ready to run. This was different from the mundane threat of an abusive ex. This was old. This was hungry. She forced herself to turn slowly, scanning the deep shadows between the oaks. The Grove wasn’t large, but the darkness here had a texture, a depth that seemed to drink the faint light from the flowers. It was in one of those pools of blackness that she saw it. A movement. A shape that was taller and thinner than any man, unfolding itself from behind a trunk. It was just a silhouette, a tear in the fabric of the night, but it was wrong. The proportions were all wrong. Rory blinked, and it was gone. Maybe it was never there. A trick of the eye, a phantom born of fear and the Grove’s strange atmosphere. But the flowers at the base of that tree were now grey and dead. She didn’t wait for another glimpse. Survival instinct, honed by a year of looking over her shoulder, took over. She turned and bolted for the gap in the standing stones she’d come through. The ground seemed to shift under her feet, the soft carpet of flowers feeling spongy and treacherous, as if trying to hold her in place. The air grew thick, cold enough to burn her lungs. The pendant against her skin was now a brand. The sound came again, closer this time. It wasn’t a twig snapping. It was a soft, scraping noise, like stone being dragged across brittle leaves. It was behind her, and it was keeping pace with her, unhurried. It didn’t need to hurry. It knew where she was going. She risked a glance over her shoulder. The shadow was there, no longer at the edge of the clearing but gliding between the stones, a smear of absolute darkness against the muted colours of the dying flowers. It had no features she could discern, only a shape that hurt her eyes to look at, a geometry that didn’t belong to her world. Then came the voice. It wasn’t a shout or a growl. It was a sibilant whisper that seemed to come from right beside her ear, though the thing was still twenty feet away. “Aurora.” The use of her full name, spoken in a voice like grinding dust, sent a spike of pure ice through her heart. Not Rory. Not Carter. Aurora. It felt like a violation, a claim being staked on her very soul. She cried out, a raw, startled sound, and put on a burst of speed. The world blurred. The standing stones seemed to stretch and warp, the distance to the exit elongating impossibly. A second in here might be a minute out there, or an hour. She had no way of knowing. She just knew she had to get out. The scraping sound was right behind her now, so close she could feel the vibration in the soles of her trainers. A coldness radiated from it, a chill that promised an end not just to life, but to warmth, to memory, to existence itself. She saw the gap, the dark, normal-looking trees of Richmond Park just beyond it. She launched herself through, stumbling and falling onto the damp, leaf-strewn ground of the real world. She landed hard, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. For a moment, she just lay there, gasping, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She scrambled to her knees and looked back. The Grove was gone. There was only a dense, impenetrable thicket of ancient oaks, with no sign of a clearing or a carpet of impossible flowers. The standing stones were just trees. The air was normal, chilly and smelling of damp earth and rotting leaves. The city sounds returned—the distant wail of a siren, the hum of traffic on the A3. It was as if it had never been. Shaking, Rory pushed herself to her feet and leaned against a rough-barked tree. She fumbled for the pendant. It was cold now. The inner glow was gone, leaving it a dull, lifeless red. The warmth had vanished completely, leaving only the clammy chill of the night air on her skin. She was safe. But as she stood there, trembling in the ordinary darkness of the park, she knew that wasn’t true. Something had seen her. Something had spoken her name. And it was still out there, waiting.