Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMT5D7FBNJB37709S0W8YR1

The standing stones loomed against the starless sky like ancient sentinels, their gnarled bark catching what little moonlight filtered through the canopy above. Rory stood at the boundary of the Grove, her breath forming small clouds in the unseasonably cold air. The Heartstone pendant lay heavy against her chest, its crimson surface pulsing with that familiar warmth—though tonight, the rhythm felt erratic, almost frantic. She shouldn't be here. Not alone, not at this hour when the veil between worlds grew thin. But the dreams had been getting worse, and the pendant's insistent tugging had finally worn down her resistance. Something in the Grove was calling to her, something that made her childhood scar ache with phantom pain. The first step across the threshold sent a shiver through her bones that had nothing to do with the cold. The wildflowers that bloomed impossibly year-round seemed muted in the darkness, their colors leached to pale shadows. Even the air felt different here—thicker, pregnant with possibilities that made her skin crawl. Rory pulled her jacket tighter and ventured deeper into the clearing. The silence was absolute, pressing against her eardrums with an weight that made her want to speak just to break it. But something warned her against making noise, some primitive instinct that whispered of predators in the dark. The pendant's pulse quickened. She paused near the center of the Grove, where the grass grew in perfect circles like fairy rings. The stones around her seemed taller now, or perhaps she had grown smaller. Time moved differently here—Eva had warned her about that. An hour inside could stretch into days outside, or compress into mere minutes. There was no way to tell which way it would flow tonight. A sound drifted through the stillness—soft, like fabric brushing against bark. Rory turned toward it, her bright blue eyes straining against the darkness. Nothing. Just the ancient oaks standing sentinel, their branches reaching toward a sky that seemed somehow too close, as if the heavens themselves were pressing down on this pocket between worlds. The sound came again, closer now. Definitely fabric, or perhaps leather. The slow, deliberate whisper of something moving with purpose through the underbrush. Rory's hand went instinctively to the pendant, its warmth now uncomfortably hot against her palm. "Hello?" The word escaped before she could stop it, hanging in the air like a confession. The silence that followed felt different—expectant, hungry. As if something had been waiting for her to announce herself. Movement flickered at the edge of her vision. She spun toward it, but found only shadows dancing between the tree trunks. Her heart hammered against her ribs with a rhythm that seemed to echo the pendant's frantic pulsing. The Grove around her felt suddenly smaller, the standing stones drawing closer like a noose tightening. Another sound reached her—breathing that wasn't her own. Slow, measured inhalations that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The air itself seemed to be drawing breath, the Grove's lungs expanding and contracting with alien purpose. Rory backed toward what she hoped was still the entrance, but the stones all looked the same now in the darkness. Ancient oak transformed into ancient oak, each one identical to the last. Her childhood accident had taught her to navigate by landmarks, but here those skills failed her. The Grove refused to be mapped by mortal understanding. The breathing grew louder, accompanied by what might have been footsteps if feet could fall without disturbing so much as a blade of grass. Whatever moved through the darkness did so with the confidence of something at home in this space between worlds. Something that belonged here in ways she never could. The pendant burned now, hot enough that she almost tore it from her neck. But its warmth was the only real thing left in this place where reality bent like heated glass. She clutched it tighter, letting its crimson glow seep between her fingers like drops of light blood. That's when she saw them—eyes reflecting that glow, watching her from behind the nearest standing stone. Not human eyes. They held too much knowledge, too much patience. They belonged to something that had been waiting far longer than any mortal creature could wait, something that measured time in centuries rather than heartbeats. The eyes blinked—a slow, deliberate gesture that somehow conveyed amusement. More eyes opened around the Grove's perimeter. Dozens of them, all fixed on her with that same terrible patience. They formed a circle around her, hemming her in like the stones themselves. Some floated at human height, others clustered near the ground or hung impossibly in the air above. All of them watched with the steady intensity of hunters who had already decided on their prey. Rory's mouth went dry. The pendant's heat spread up her neck, down her arms, until her whole body thrummed with its alien warmth. The wrongness she'd felt from the moment she entered crystallized into certainty—she was not alone. She had never been alone here. The Grove itself was watching, breathing, waiting. The eyes began to move, circling her with predatory grace. Not rushing, not attacking—simply closing the distance with inevitable purpose. Whatever they belonged to remained hidden in the shadows between the stones, but she could feel their presence like ice water in her veins. Her scar throbbed in time with the pendant's pulse, as if responding to some signal she couldn't hear. The childhood accident that had left its mark seemed suddenly significant, as if that long-ago wound had been marking her for this moment. The circle of eyes tightened. The breathing grew louder, multiplying until it sounded like a congregation of lungs working in unison. The Grove pulsed around her like a living heart, its ancient rhythm matching the frantic beat of her own. Rory closed her eyes and gripped the pendant so tightly its chain bit into her palm. When she opened them again, the eyes had moved closer still. Close enough now that she could see they belonged to shapes that weren't quite human, weren't quite animal, weren't quite anything she had words for. The Grove held its breath, waiting for her next move in a game whose rules she didn't understand.