Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0QPSP5PTMCEHJHPJWCT45

The autumn chill in Richmond Park bit through the canvas of her jacket, but Aurora pulled her collar tighter. Her boots crunched on the gravel path, a solitary sound in the pre-dawn silence. "Let me guess," Nyx’s voice drifted from the darkness just ahead of her. It didn’t carry, but it vibrated in Aurora’s chest, smelling of ozone and old dust. "We’re walking in circles because you didn’t check the satellite imagery last night." "I checked the historical archives," Aurora corrected, squinting at the dense treeline ahead. The moonlight was grey and washed out, casting long, skeletal shadows that refused to dissipate even as she moved. "According to Isolde, the barrier is thinest here. Also, you could have morphed ahead and thrown a rock at the first tree we passed." "I get bored walking through shadows," Nyx replied. A sliver of pale violet light flickered into existence, illuminating a hand that formed from the air. The fingers flexed, long and angular, before fading. "Besides, I like seeing how much panic you’re managing to hide. It’s a little cute." Aurora scoffed, ignoring the shadow-walker. Isolde walked several steps ahead, her silver hair cascading down her back like liquid mercury. The seer moved with a gliding rhythm, her boots barely disturbing the damp earth, never leaving a single indent in the soil. "Stop," Isolde said. She didn't raise a hand or turn around. She simply ceased moving, her posture collapsing into a fluid curve. Aurora stepped to the side, hand drifting instinctively toward the delivery bag at her hip, though the job at Yu-Fei’s had been a long time ago in her mind. "We're here?" "We are here," Isolde whispered. Ahead of them, the trees abruptly changed. The oak and beech that dominated the park melted into something else—tall, spindly things with bark like black obsidian and leaves that rustled with the sound of dry paper. The colors of the world shifted from the drab browns of late autumn to a riot of neon purples and sickly teals. Aurora stepped up to the first trunk and ran a gloved hand over its surface. It was impossibly smooth, cold as iron. "What is this?" Nyx materialized beside her, a smudge of shadow taking shape into a humanoid form with shoulders slumped in casual lethargy. "It smells like rotting fruit and a burnt hair salon." "Time dilation," Aurora said, her voice low. The GPS icon on her phone was frozen. A stray signal bar blinked once and died. "Isolde said an hour could pass in here. We need to watch the time." Isolde turned then, her pale lavender eyes locking onto Aurora. The light seemed to capture the moisture in Aurora's eyes, staring right through her. "Time is but a circle drawn in sand," Isolde intoned, her voice echoing with a strange, multi-layered resonance. "What you bring will always return." "Can we stop with the poetry and focus on finding the entrance?" Nyx asked, walking over to a cluster of fern-like plants. As they brushed against him, the black leaves curled and shrieked, retreating from his shadowy form. "I'm getting impatient. I want coffee, and I don't want to drink it from a cup of worms." Aurora scanned the perimeter of the clearing. The ancient oak standing stones were supposed to be on the edge. She walked a circle around the perimeter, looking for the gap where reality thinned. The air here tasted different—sweet and cloying, like nectar. It coated the back of her throat. "There," Aurora pointed. In the center of the clearing, where the shadows were deepest, the earth had given way. A circular depression in the grass was bordered by stones that weren't standing stones. They lay flat, etched with spiraling runes that glowed faintly with a dull, feverish heat. Aurora approached the depression. The sensation of being watched intensified. It wasn't a human watching; it was an accumulation of sensation, like the gaze of a thousand insects. She stepped over the lip of the depression into a shaft of light. The temperature dropped instantly. Frost bloomed on the hem of her jacket. "I hate this," Nyx muttered, his voice shifting as he tried to manifest in the freezing zone. The violet light flickered erratically. "I'm freezing my metaphysical toes off." Isolde stepped into the depression and began to walk in a slow, counter-clockwise circle. She hummed a tune that had no rhythm, a series of notes that sounded like bells underwater. "Isolde?" Aurora called out. "Do you know what we're looking for?" The seer didn't stop spinning. "The truth that walks on four legs," she sang. "Or the lie that flies with wings of bone." "Great. Very specific." Aurora moved deeper into the depression. The ground beneath her feet felt spongy, vibrating like a drumhead every time she took a step. It felt wrong—disconnected from the laws of physics. Down here, gravity didn't feel heavy. It felt like it wanted to slide you sideways. Suddenly, the light changed. The gray moonlight was replaced by a deep, pulsing red that bled out from the dirt. Aurora stopped. The Heartstone pendant around her neck, which had been cold all night, flared hot against her chest. It wasn't pulsing; it was hammering. "What is that?" Nyx asked, appearing next to her but seemingly holding himself back from touching the red earth. "It's a rift," Aurora said, her heart rate spiking. The smell of ozone was now overwhelming, choking. "But it's sealed." "Sealed?" Nyx snorted, his form flickering as he reached out a hand toward the glowing dirt. "Look closely. The seal is broken, just a chip." Aurora blinked. The red light was magnifying. It wasn't coming from the ground; it was coming from *under* the ground. Something was pushing up. The earth cracked with a sound like a gunshot. A plume of black mist erupted from the hole, swirling into the shape of a screaming face before dissipating. Isolde stopped her circling and collapsed to her knees on the spongy ground. She pressed her hand flat against the crack in reality. "The Veil thins," she whispered, her breath puffing out in a cloud of white mist that didn't fall to the ground but hung suspended in the red air. "It drinks, it sleeps, it waits." "She's going to hyperventilate," Aurora said, moving to grab Isolde's shoulder. The skin beneath her glove felt warm, uncomfortably alive, pulsing in time with the glowing fissure. Suddenly, the earth trembled. Not a shake, but a ripple. The flowers that had been blooming in sickly neon colors instantly withered and turned to ash, raining down on them like grey snow. Nyx vanished, dissolving into a cloud of shadow to escape the falling ash. "Aurora," Isolde said. She looked up, her lavender eyes wide, devoid of their usual mask of riddles. "You are the key. The string. The nail." "I don't know what that means," Aurora said, stepping back as the ground split wider. The stone rim of the depression groaned under the pressure. "Grab my hand," Isolde commanded. "Aurora?" Nyx materialized behind her, standing on a patch of solid rock amidst the shifting earth. "Grab her," Aurora repeated, backing away as a root—the size of a tree trunk—snapped upward, tendrils whipping through the air like whips. Isolde’s hand shot out, cold as a corpse but firm as steel. Aurora grabbed it. The moment their skin touched, the fissure in the earth stopped expanding. *Thump.* A sound like a heartbeat vibrated through Aurora’s arm, through Isolde, and up to Nyx’s shadow. "Did you hear that?" Aurora asked, looking at Isolde. Isolde didn't answer. She was staring into the eyes of Aurora, her expression shifting from ethereal detachment to a terrifying clarity. "Do not look back," she whispered. A shadow detached itself from the wall of the crater, sliding across the stone like liquid. It had no eyes, only a long, curved mouth full of needle teeth. It moved toward Isolde's ankles. Nyx lunged forward, lunging as if to tackle the shadow, but his materialization fizzled midway through, scattering like ink in water. "The pendant," Aurora realized, fumbling with the chain. "If it's warm, I need to do something." Isolde gripped Aurora's hand tighter, her fingernails digging into the flesh. "Open it," she hissed. "Open the door or we become the meat." The shadow lunged.