Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR46P7WDH7C6NVQTM63MNV

The transition was never jarring, not the way movies portrayed it with a flash of light or a clap of thunder. It was a slide, a subtle dislocation of the senses, like stepping on a stone that wasn’t there and stumbling through a gap in the world’s logic. One moment, Rory was trudging through the damp, leaf-littered mulch of Richmond Park, the distant hum of the A3 a low thrum in her ears; the next, the traffic noise vanished, cut off as if by a knife, and the air dropped ten degrees. Rory stopped, pulling her denim jacket tighter around her chest. She checked her watch. The second hand ticked forward, steady and mechanical, but the quality of the light had shifted. The moon, previously a smudge behind London’s light pollution, now hung silver and stark, illuminating the clearing with a clarity that felt unnatural. It was too bright, casting shadows that were too black, too sharply defined. She was here. The Fae Grove. She hadn’t wanted to come back. The last time she’d stepped between these ancient oak standing stones, she’d lost three hours and gained a lingering paranoia that lasted weeks. But the pendant against her skin had been burning a hole in her clavicle for two days straight. The Heartstone, a deep crimson gem the size of a thumbnail on a silver chain, was usually dormant, a heavy, cool weight. Since yesterday evening, it had been pulsing with a rhythmic, feverish warmth. It was a warning, she knew that much. It reacted to Hel portals, to rifts in the fabric of reality, and whatever was happening here was big enough to set it off from miles away. "Alright," she whispered, her voice sounding small and swallowed instantly by the clearing. "Just a quick look. Confirm the source, then get out." The silence here was heavy. It wasn’t the peaceful quiet of a library or the empty silence of a void; it was a watching silence. It pressed against her eardrums like deep water. Around her, the wildflowers—riotous, impossible blooms that shouldn't exist in late autumn—swayed gently despite the lack of wind. Violets, primroses, and strange, luminescent orchids glowed with a faint, sickly pallor. She took a step deeper into the Grove. The grass beneath her boots was damp, soft as velvet, and made no sound. *Snap.* The noise was sharp, distinct. A dry branch breaking under heavy weight. Rory froze, her breath hitching in her throat. She pivoted slowly toward the sound, scanning the treeline. The ancient oaks that marked the boundary of the clearing looked twisted tonight, their branches reaching down like arthritic fingers. "Hello?" she called out, keeping her voice steady. She had dealt with aggressive drunks at the bar and shady characters on delivery routes; she knew how to sound unafraid even when her heart was hammering against her ribs. "Is someone there?" No answer. Just the rustle of leaves, a sound like dry skin dragging over stone. She rubbed her left thumb over the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist—a nervous habit she couldn’t break. The pendant flared hotter, a spike of sudden, alarming heat that made her gasp. She looked down. Through the fabric of her shirt, the gem was emitting a faint inner glow, a bloody red light that seeped through the cotton. It wasn't just a portal. It was right on top of her. The wrongness of the place crystallized in that moment. It wasn't just the isolation or the cold. It was the geometry. She looked at the standing stones. She had entered between the two northern oaks. She turned to look back the way she came. The stones were there, but the gap looked narrower than she remembered. The shadows stretched from the base of the trees, elongating even as the moon remained fixed in the sky. They weren't just shadows; they were moving, undulating like ink in water. Rory backed up a step. Then another. A low sound began to rise from the center of the grove. It started deep in the subsonic register, a vibration she felt in her teeth more than heard with her ears. It sounded like breathing, wet and rasping. She turned to run, heading for the gap in the stones, but her foot caught on something. A root? No, the ground here was flat. She looked down and froze. A hand. Pale, elongated, with too many joints in the fingers, was gripping her ankle. She kicked out violently, a shout tearing from her throat, and the hand dissolved into mist. It hadn't been holding her; it had been *touching* her, as if testing the texture of her boot. She scrambled backward, crab-walking through the flowers, crushing the luminous petals. Their scent hit her then—cloying, sweet, and underneath it, the copper tang of old blood. She scrambled to her feet, spinning in a circle. The trees were closer. She was sure of it. They were creeping inward, inch by inch, closing the perimeter. "Think, Rory. Think," she hissed. Panic was a luxury she couldn't afford. If the Grove was shifting, if the boundary was moving, she needed to find the anchor. The Fae Grove existed in a pocket; it had rules. It needed an exit. She reached into her pocket and fumbled for her phone. No signal. Just a spinning wheel of digital death. The screen light was pitifully weak against the encroaching dark. Then she saw it. At the edge of her vision, just beyond the reach of the moonlight, something stood. It was tall, impossibly thin, its silhouette merging with the bark of the trees. It had no face that she could see, only a smooth, oval surface where features should be. It wasn't moving, but it was *looking* at her. She could feel the weight of its attention, a physical pressure on her skin like the static before a lightning strike. She took a step to the left. The figure didn't move, but the air around it shimmered, distorting the space behind it. She blinked, and it was closer. Five yards nearer. Rory’s breath came in ragged white clouds. "Not real," she muttered, gripping the pendant until the metal edges bit into her palm. "It's a projection. A fear eater." The Heartstone pulsed against her palm, glowing brighter now, illuminating the grass around her feet with a crimson spotlight. The light revealed things she hadn't seen before. Tracks in the soil—not human footprints, but something that looked like a deer’s hooves, rearranged, walking backward. And scattered among the flowers, small, twisted bones, bleached white and clean. The figure took another step. It didn't walk; it glided, the long limbs swaying pendulum-like. The sound of rasping breathing grew louder, filling the clearing, echoing off the stones so it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Rory turned and ran. She didn't care about the rules of the Grove anymore; she just needed distance. She sprinted toward the southern gap, the one that looked like it led back to the path. The wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her eyes. The flowers whipped at her legs like thorns, despite their soft appearance. The gap was just ahead. She could see the darkness of the normal park beyond, the familiar, mundane shadows of the bushes. She threw herself at the opening— —and slammed face-first into solid wood. Rory fell back, stunned, tasting copper. She looked up. An oak tree stood where the gap had been seconds ago. The bark was smooth, unblemished. She spun around. Another tree. Another. The circle was closed. She was trapped in a box of living wood. The rasping stopped. The silence that followed was worse. It was the silence of a throat clearing to speak. Rory pressed her back against the rough bark of the tree that had blocked her exit. She held the pendant up, using its crimson glow as a shield. The light pushed back the shadows, revealing the clearing. The figure was standing ten feet away. Up close, it was wrong. It was wearing clothes that looked like they were cut from the night sky itself, shifting and nebulous. Its skin was the color of moonlight on snow. Where its face should be, there was only a smooth surface, but as Rory watched, the skin bulged and stretched, as if something inside was trying to push its way out. The pendant in her hand grew scorching hot, searing her skin, but she refused to let go. "Get back," Rory snarled, her voice shaking with adrenaline. She looked around for a weapon—a rock, a heavy branch, anything. There was nothing but the crushing weight of the flowers. The figure raised a hand. It had six fingers. The hand elongated, stretching across the distance between them with impossible elasticity, moving with the speed of a striking snake. Rory ducked. The hand missed her face by an inch, slamming into the tree trunk behind her with the force of a sledgehammer. Wood exploded outward, splinters showering her hair. The hand retracted instantly, snapping back to the figure’s body. It was toying with her. Rory pushed off the tree, sprinting to the center of the clearing. She needed to disrupt the geometry. If this was a pocket dimension, it had a center. She dropped to her knees, ignoring the crushing of the flowers, and dug her hands into the earth. "Let me out!" she screamed, driving the hand holding the pendant into the soil. The Heartstone flared, a blinding pulse of red light that turned the night into bloody day. The light shot outwards, hitting the standing stones. The stones groaned, the sound of grinding tectonic plates. The figure shrieked—a sound like metal tearing—and flinched back, shielding its blank face. Rory felt a tug in her gut, the sickening drop of an elevator cable snapping. The ground beneath her liquefied. She wasn't kneeling on grass anymore; she was falling through it. The clearing twisted. The trees spun in a blur of brown and green. The figure lunged for her, its fingers hooking into the sleeve of her denim jacket. Rory twisted, the fabric tearing with a loud rip, and she tumbled backward into the void. She hit hard ground. The impact knocked the wind out of her, sending a spike of pain through her shoulder. She gasped, inhaling the smell of exhaust fumes, damp mulch, and rotting leaves. The hum of the A3 roared in her ears like a symphony. Rory opened her eyes. She was lying on the side of the path in Richmond Park. The moon was just a smudge behind the clouds again. The traffic on the A3 was a steady stream of red taillights in the distance. She lay there for a moment, trembling, clutching the pendant to her chest. It was cooling down, the crimson light fading into a dull, lifeless stone. She sat up slowly, checking herself. Her knees were covered in mud. Her jacket sleeve was ripped from shoulder to cuff. She looked back toward the trees where the entrance to the Grove should be. There was only a dense thicket of brambles and ancient oaks, looking innocent and still in the night air. Rory scrambled to her feet, backing away, her eyes never leaving the treeline. For a second, just a flicker in her peripheral vision, she saw the smooth, oval face of the figure standing between the trunks. It wasn't in the Grove. It was here. It was on the mortal side. Rory turned and ran, faster than she ever had in her life, toward the distant streetlights, leaving the silence of the woods behind her. But even as she hit the pavement, she could feel the phantom sensation of those six-fingered hands brushing against the back of her neck.