Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR0TP894127N68AR3B4SXT

The air in Richmond Park was different after dark. It wasn't just the absence of joggers and screaming children; the very quality of the silence changed, thickening into something heavy and watchful. Aurora Carter pulled her jacket tighter, the worn denim doing little to ward off a chill that felt less like temperature and more like presence. The beam of her phone’s flashlight cut a nervous, wavering path through the ancient oaks, their branches skeletal against a bruised, moonless sky. She was here for a reason. A stupid, impulsive reason, but a reason nonetheless. The pendant. It had started as a faint, rhythmic warmth against her skin an hour ago, a slow, insistent pulse that had drawn her from the stuffy flat above Silas’s bar and out into the sleeping city. Now, the heat was a steady thrum, a tiny, frantic heartbeat against her sternum. It was leading her somewhere. Somewhere she didn't want to go. Her thumb brushed against the small crescent scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she’d never broken. The pendant was a gift from an unknown benefactor, a thing of deep crimson stone that glowed with its own faint light. It had saved her life more than once, but tonight it felt less like a shield and more like a lure. She passed the first of the standing stones. It was an oak, or what had once been an oak, now petrified and carved with swirling, indecipherable glyphs that seemed to drink the light from her flashlight. The codex had mentioned them. Boundary markers. A barrier. She stepped past it, and the air shifted. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves was suddenly overpowered by something else, something cloyingly sweet and utterly alien. Wildflowers. Wildflowers blooming in the dead of night, in the heart of autumn. Her light swept over a carpet of them, impossibly vibrant blues and purples and whites, their petals spread open to a sky that held no sun. This was the Grove. Isolde’s Grove. The name echoed in her mind, a fragment of lore she’d half-forgotten. The wrongness of it settled in her gut like a stone. Time moved differently here, the text had said. An hour could be a minute. Or a day. The thought sent a fresh spike of adrenaline through her. She checked her phone. 11:47 PM. No signal. Of course, there was no signal. She was standing in a pocket between worlds, a place that shouldn't exist, chasing a magical artifact that was currently burning a hole in her shirt. What had she been thinking? The answer was simple: Eva. Her friend was in trouble, deep trouble, and this pendant, this Heartstone, was the only clue she had. A low sound drifted through the trees. It wasn't the wind, though the branches above her were still. It was a soft, melodic hum, like a thousand tuning forks vibrating at once. It was beautiful, and it was terrifying. Rory switched off her flashlight. The sudden plunge into absolute darkness was a physical blow, and for a moment, all she could hear was the frantic hammering of her own heart. Then, her eyes began to adjust. The Grove wasn't truly dark. The wildflowers emitted a soft, phosphorescent glow, bathing the clearing in a pale, ethereal light. And the pendant on her chest was glowing brighter, its crimson light a stark beacon in the spectral gloom. The humming grew louder, seeming to come from all directions at once. It vibrated through the soles of her boots, up her legs, into her bones. She took a step back, her foot snapping a dry twig. The sound was a gunshot crack in the symphony of hums. And then, silence. The humming stopped so abruptly that the emptiness it left behind was a roar. The flowers seemed to dim, their collective light receding until only the pendant’s angry red glow remained. She was not alone. The certainty of it was absolute, a primal instinct screaming at her to run. But where? The boundary stones were nowhere in sight. The trees had shifted, or perhaps she had. They formed a tight, impenetrable wall around the clearing, their bark like wrinkled, leathery skin. A shadow detached itself from the base of one of the ancient oaks. It wasn't a shadow; it was a thing made of shadow, a patch of deeper darkness that coalesced and rose, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape. It had no features, no face, but Rory could feel its attention on her, a cold, probing weight that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. She stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat. Her mind, usually so quick, so full of plans and angles, was a blank slate of pure, undiluted fear. The shadow-thing glided forward, its movement silent, fluid, utterly unnatural. It didn't walk so much as pour across the ground, the grasses and flowers bending away from it as if repelled by its touch. The pendant grew hotter, almost painfully so, its light flaring. The shadow hesitated, wavering like smoke in a breeze. It didn't like the light. It was a small, desperate hope, but it was all she had. Rory fumbled with the chain, her fingers clumsy with cold and terror. The silver links bit into her skin as she yanked the pendant free. It swung from her hand, a tiny, defiant star of crimson light. The shadow recoiled, its form flickering and distorting. A low hiss filled the air, the sound of sand pouring onto hot metal. Emboldened, Rory took a step forward, holding the pendant out like a talisman. "Get back," she whispered, her voice a thin, reedy thing she barely recognized. The shadow stilled. Then, from the darkness behind it, another shape began to form. And another. They rose from the bases of the trees, from the shadows between the flowers, a silent, gathering audience of hungry voids. The first shadow began to advance again, slower this time, testing the reach of the pendant's light. The hissing sound grew louder, a chorus of malevolent whispers that seemed to slither directly into her ears. *Not yours… little thief… give it back…* Rory stumbled backward, her heel catching on a root. She fell hard, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. The pendant flew from her grasp, landing in the glowing flowers a few feet away. Its light winked out. The darkness that rushed in was absolute, suffocating. The whispers became a deafening shriek, and she felt cold, insubstantial hands close around her ankles, her wrists, pulling her down into the writhing, silent dark. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a cold, silent breath escaped. The last thing she felt was the phantom warmth of the Heartstone, a distant, fading pulse in a place where all warmth had died.