Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMRAPS2ZF71KS7G6RJADT74

The standing stones rose against the night sky like the ribs of something long dead. Rory wiped sweat from her forehead and checked her phone again. No signal. Of course. She'd known that would happen—had been warned, in fact—but some stubborn part of her had hoped the old man at the restaurant had been exaggerating. He hadn't been. The delivery had been strange from the start. A plain white envelope containing cash—more than she made in a typical week—and a handwritten note with coordinates that led to this hidden corner of Richmond Park. No return address. No name. Just the money and the instruction: Bring the package to these coordinates at midnight. Leave it at the center of the grove. Do not wait for a recipient. The package sat in her delivery bag, wrapped in brown paper, no heavier than a book. She'd felt it shift once during the bike ride over, a subtle movement like something inside had repositioned itself. She'd told herself it was her imagination. The vibration of the bike. The wind. She told herself that a lot tonight. The stones marked a rough circle maybe thirty feet across, and between them—where there should have been the close-cropped grass of a public park—wildflowers grew in dense clusters. White blooms she didn't recognize. They shouldn't have been growing here, shouldn't have been growing anywhere in late November, but they carpeted the ground like snow that had forgotten to fall. Her pendant pulsed once against her sternum. She stopped walking. The Heartstone had been a gift from someone she'd never identified. A small package on her doorstep three months ago, no note, no return address—just the silver chain and its deep crimson stone. She'd almost thrown it away. Something about it had unsettled her, though she couldn't have said what. In the end, she'd kept it. Worn it. And in the months since, she'd learned that when it grew warm, something was wrong with the world around her. Tonight, it was warm. Just the cold, she told herself. Temperature change. Metal conducts heat differently. But the night wasn't cold. That was the strange thing. It was November in London, and she should have been able to see her breath, but the air inside the stone circle was mild. Almost pleasant. The kind of temperature you'd expect on a spring evening, not in the dead of autumn. She moved forward anyway. The package to deliver, the coordinates, the center of the grove. She'd come this far. She might as well finish what she'd started. The wildflowers rustled as she passed, though there was no wind. She kept her eyes forward. The center of the grove was marked by a flat stone, pale and smooth, like a table or an altar. That was where she was supposed to leave the package. Simple enough. In and out. Then back to her flat above Silas's bar, where she could pretend this had been like any other delivery. Her boot caught on something. She stumbled, caught herself, looked down. A root. Just a root. Except there were no trees inside the circle. The ancient oaks stood sentinel only at the perimeter, their branches interlaced overhead like fingers laced together. She looked back at where she'd tripped. The ground was smooth. No root. No raised earth. Nothing she could have caught her foot on. Her heart beat a little faster. She pressed her palm against her chest, felt the pendant's warmth through her jacket and shirt. It pulsed again, stronger this time, and she realized with a sudden lurch of nausea that the pulse had matched her heartbeat. Had synchronized with it. As if the stone was trying to tell her something. Tell her what? That she should be afraid? She already was. The center stone was ten feet away now. Five. She reached it, knelt, slid the package from her bag. The brown paper was dry and smooth under her fingers. She set it on the stone's surface and felt the pendant's pulse quicken. Something moved at the edge of her vision. She turned her head sharply. Nothing. Just the standing stones, the wildflowers, the darkness beyond the circle. The moon hung overhead, three-quarters full, and its light should have been enough to see by. But the shadows between the stones seemed deeper than they should have been. Thicker. Like something had pooled there, something that absorbed light rather than simply blocking it. She stood. Stepped back from the altar stone. Started toward the gap between two of the standing stones, the way she'd entered. A sound stopped her. Footsteps. Soft and deliberate, moving through the wildflowers behind her. She turned. The grove was empty. "Hello?" Her voice sounded wrong. Thin. As if the air had grown thick and her words couldn't push through it properly. "Is someone there?" Silence. Then the footsteps again, but from a different direction now. To her left. She spun toward the sound, and the wildflowers swayed in a line, moving toward her like something large was passing through them, but there was nothing there. Nothing she could see. Her hand found the pendant. Gripped it. The stone burned against her palm, and she realized with growing horror that it wasn't just warm anymore—it was hot. Hot enough to hurt. She started walking faster. The gap between the standing stones was twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten. The wildflowers parted ahead of her. She stopped. Something was rising from the blooms. A shape, indistinct in the darkness, tall and thin and wrong in ways she couldn't articulate. It wasn't standing on the flowers—it was emerging from them, as if the ground itself had decided to take form. Rory backed away. Her heel caught on something again, and this time she didn't stumble—she fell, hard, her palms slapping against the earth. The wildflowers brushed against her hands, and she realized with sick clarity that they weren't brushing against her. They were wrapping around her. Thin stems coiling around her fingers, her wrists, climbing her arms with a slow, deliberate pressure. She pulled. Tore free. Scrambled backward on her hands and feet, her breath coming in sharp gasps now. The pendant seared against her skin, and she yanked the chain over her head, threw the stone to the ground without thinking. It glowed. A deep crimson light pulsed from it, and in that light she saw the thing clearly for the first time. It had no face. No eyes, no mouth, no features at all. Just a smooth, pale head atop a body that was too long, too thin, its arms ending in hands that had too many fingers. It stood motionless at the center of the grove, the package she'd delivered held in one of those impossible hands. Then it turned toward her. She ran. The standing stones flashed past on either side. The wildflowers grabbed at her ankles, her shins, but she tore through them, her breath ragged, her heart slamming against her ribs. She burst free of the circle and kept running, branches whipping at her face and arms, the darkness of Richmond Park swallowing her whole. Behind her, she heard something moving through the trees. Something large. Something that didn't breathe. She didn't stop running until she reached the main road. Until she saw streetlights. Until she heard the distant rumble of a car passing on Kingston Gate. Only then did she slow. Only then did she let herself look back. The park stretched behind her, dark and silent. No movement. No sound. Just the distant silhouette of the ancient oaks, standing close together, as if they were trying to hide something behind them. Her hand went to her throat. The pendant was gone. She'd thrown it into the grove. She told herself it didn't matter. She could replace it. She could forget any of this had happened. But even as she turned and started walking toward the main road, toward home, toward safety, she felt it. A warmth against her sternum. A pulse that matched her heartbeat. She looked down. The pendant hung around her neck. The chain intact. The stone glowing faintly in the darkness. She hadn't put it back on. She was certain of that. She'd thrown it. She'd left it behind. But here it was, resting against her skin, warm and alive with its deep crimson light. And in its glow, she saw what she hadn't noticed before. Etched into the stone's surface, so faint she'd never seen them in all the months she'd worn it, were words in a language she didn't recognize. They pulsed once. Twice. Then faded back into the gem's depths. Rory walked faster. Behind her, in the darkness of Richmond Park, something laughed.