Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRAGYV8QZDMX5CAN1DX0EG

The London night air usually tasted of exhaust fumes and cheap coffee, a metallic tang that coated the back of the throat. Here, in Richmond Park, the air was different—thinner, clinging to the skin like damp wool. Rory tightened her jacket, the collar pressing against the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. She checked her watch for the third time in as many minutes. It was 2:14 AM. The digital display flickered, then died completely. “Great,” she muttered, her voice too loud in the sudden vacuum of quiet that had fallen around her. The usual rustle of distant traffic, the hum of the city’s heartbeat, had vanished completely. She had cut through the park to save time, using the shortcut Silas had told her about, but something had shifted when she crossed the perimeter wall. The familiar gravel path had dissolved into something else, soft and undulating under the tread of her boots. Rory paused, gripping the strap of her messenger bag. The shadows stretching out from the ancient oaks were elongated, too perfect in their geometry. She pulled the Heartstone Pendant from beneath her shirt. The silver chain was cool against her palm, but as soon as it hit the dim light of her phone screen, the deep crimson gemstone flushed with a dull, alarming heat. It wasn’t supposed to get warm like this. The codex, the cryptic history she’d managed to piece together from the benefactor’s notes, stated the stone pulsed only near portals of the Hel realm. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She was just a delivery driver, a law school dropout with a nose for trouble, not an arcane cartographer. *“Keep the scent,”* the voice on the other end of the burner phone had said. *“Follow the warmth until you hit the stones.”* Rory forced her breathing to slow, channeling the cold, analytical part of her brain that she used when dodging difficult clients or navigating unmarked deliveries. She looked around. The standing stones were visible through the gloom, a jagged silhouette against the sky that seemed to tilt at an angle that hurt her eyes to focus on. The stones marked the boundary, they said. A boundary she had already crossed. Ahead of her, the path curved. To her left, the wildflowers—codified as blooming year-round in the park records—were vibrant against the gloom. Irises, tulips, even a few roses, all in full, impossible bloom. Their colors were hyper-saturated, bleeding into one another in a visual discordance that made her stomach turn. It looked like a painting of a garden that had gone wrong. She took a step forward. Her boot crunched. The sound was heavy, wet. Like stepping on tomato pulp. She froze. She waited. The forest remained dead silent. Not a bird, not a mouse, not the wind. Just the silence. Rory walked faster now, a brisk stride that felt defensive. The sensation of being watched grew with every step. It wasn't a paranoia born of imagination; it was a physical pressure, a weight pressing down on her shoulder blades, as if a draft was constantly blowing against the back of her neck. She couldn't see anyone, but she could feel the static charge in the air. The trees around her began to thin, the gnarled roots of the ancient oaks lifting off the ground, curving over the path like grasping fingers. She wasn’t walking on a path anymore; she was walking on the earth, exposed, naked. The Heartstone in her hand flared again, a hot spike of crimson light that momentarily blinded her. When her vision cleared, the standing stones were much closer than they had been ten seconds ago. They were massive, rough-hewn blocks of gray granite, weathered by centuries, yet their surfaces shone as if they had been polished yesterday. And she wasn't alone. She heard it then. A wet, rattling sound, like breath wheezing through a straw. It came from her left, from the darkness between two massive oaks. Rory didn't move. She raised her hand, keeping the pendant between herself and the darkness. "Is someone there?" The sound stopped. The absolute, suffocating silence that followed was worse than the breathing. It was an anticipation of judgment. Then came the sound of a twig snapping. Not from the ground, but from high above. She looked up just in time to see a heavy branch sway. It wasn't being blown by wind; the air in the grove was perfectly still. The branch moved on its own, jerking upward with unnatural velocity. Something dropped from the branch. It hit the ground a few feet away from her. It was a shape, human but wrong. It wasn't moving with a coordinated gait. It flopped over and lay still, unmoving. Something about its posture, the way its limbs were splayed, suggested it wasn't resting. It looked like a discarded puppet. Rory’s heart hammered against her ribs. She took a step back, her heel colliding with something soft and yielding. She looked down. A patch of moss had turned a sickly gray, bubbling where her boot had struck it. *Get out. Run.* The logical part of her brain screamed the command. She turned, intending to bolt back the way she had come. But the path was gone. The dark, shifting undergrowth filled the space where the gravel path had been. The trees were too close together now, the branches intertwining to form a canopy that blocked out the moonlight. She spun in a circle, panic flaring in her chest. She was trapped. The Grove was alive, and she was an insect in a jar. A rustle came from the foliage directly in front of her. Branches parted, but no person stepped through. Instead, a shape coalesced from the shadow. It was tall, draped in fabric that looked like rotting leaves and dried mud. It stood motionless, facing her, but its head was tilted at a sharp, impossible angle. Rory held up the Heartstone, shielding her eyes as the crimson light pulsed harder, almost vibrating in her grip. "Show yourself." The figure didn't answer. It raised a hand. The fingers were too long, webbed at the tips. Then came the sound of footsteps. *Click, click, click.* It was coming from everywhere at once. From behind the tree to her left. From beneath the ferns at her feet. From the silence behind her own back. Rory forced herself to look at the figure. It was smiling, but its lips didn't move. The smile stretched wide, too wide, the edges of its mouth tearing the skin. "You shouldn't have come here, Rory." The voice was her own, pitched an octave lower, dripping with a slime that she could hear. It wasn't the voice of a stranger. It was the sound of her own name, twisted. She backed up until her spine pressed against the rough bark of a tree. The pendant felt scorching hot now, burning her palm. Above her, the leaves rustled as something descended from the branches, landing silently on the branch directly in front of her face. It was a face. A pale, featureless face, with no nose and eyes that were nothing but white voids. It peered at her, unblinking. "I didn't come for a meeting," Rory said, her voice trembling slightly, refusing to break. "I came to find the boundary." The faceless thing leaned forward, extending a hand toward the pendant in her grip. "The boundary is not a place you leave, Aurora. It is a mirror." The ruby stone shattered in her hand, exploding into a spray of sparks that didn't fall. Instead, they floated upward, weaving together to form a chain of light that snaked out, grabbing her ankle. The ground beneath her dissolved. The trees blurred into a streak of green and gray. She didn't scream. She didn't have the breath. She simply fell, not down, but inward, into the crushing dark of the stone’s pull.