Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQRGSSH06Z55W9D4PMC79Z

The stones felt cold against her palm. Rory tightened her fingers around the nearest standing stone, its surface slick with night dew. The moonlight did not touch the Fae Grove tonight; a low, clinging mist had swallowed the clearing, turning the ring of ancient oaks into spectral sentinels. She’d come because the Heartstone had pulsed against her sternum all evening, a soft, insistent heat that felt like a finger tapping between her ribs. It had guided her through Richmond Park’s sleeping expanse, past the sleeping deer, to this place that existed between tick and tock. But the quiet was wrong. She knew the grove’s silence — a living, breathing hush, full of rustling leaves and distant, musical chimes. This was a dead quiet. The air sat heavy in her lungs. No crickets sang. No night birds called. Even the wildflowers, which bloomed here in perpetual defiance of seasons, seemed to have closed their petals and bowed their heads. She stepped inside the ring of stones. The mist swallowed her footsteps. The Heartstone’s warmth intensified, a dull throb through her jumper. She pulled the pendant out, letting it rest on her palm. The deep crimson gemstone emitted a faint, inner glow, just enough to illuminate the condensation on her skin. It wasn't pulsing now. It was a steady, watchful light. A twig snapped somewhere to her left. Rory froze, her breath catching in her throat. She stared into the milky darkness beyond her tiny circle of light. Nothing moved. She strained her ears against the silence, hearing only the frantic drum of her own heart. Probably a deer. The park was full of them. They wandered here sometimes, dazed by the grove’s timeless air. She took another careful step forward, aiming for the center of the clearing where the grass was smoothest. Her trainers made no sound on the damp earth. The mist parted before her, curling away like smoke only to close again in her wake. She felt watched. It was a physical sensation, a prickling at the nape of her neck, a cold trickle down her spine that had nothing to do with the November chill. Another sound. Not a snap this time. A whisper. A scratchy, dry rustle, like dead leaves dragged over stone. It came from behind her now. She spun around, the Heartstone swinging wildly on its chain. Its light sliced through the mist, revealing only more mist, thick and impenetrable. Empty. “Hello?” Her voice was a dry croak. It fell into the quiet and died without an echo. Stupid. Who did she expect to answer? Isolde was gone. The grove was empty. Except it wasn’t. The rustling came again, closer. A skittering, multi-legged sound from the undergrowth near the base of a standing stone. The stone looked darker than the others, a pitch-black blot against the grey. She blinked, and for a second, she thought she saw the shadow at its base shift and coil. She took a step back. Her heel sank into something soft. Not grass. Something wet and yielding. She jerked her foot free with a soft gasp, stumbling backward. The Heartstone flared brighter, casting a red-tinted light on the ground. A patch of moss had turned black and viscous, dissolving into a foul-smelling sludge. A single, perfect white bellflower lay crushed in the middle of it, its petals smeared with rot. The rustling stopped. The silence pressed in, heavier than before. Then, a low hum began. It vibrated up through the soles of her feet, a subsonic thrum that made her teeth ache. It came from everywhere and nowhere. The standing stones themselves seemed to be groaning. The mist began to churn, not parting now but swirling in slow, deliberate vortices. Something gleamed in the shifting fog. A pair of points of light, low to the ground. They held no warmth, no reflection. They were like chips of pale green ice, watching her. Her breath hitched. She took another step back, then another, putting distance between herself and those eyes. The Heartstone was hot against her palm, almost uncomfortably so. Its glow was no longer faint. It illuminated the panic on her own face, her wide, bright blue eyes, the stark contrast of her black hair against the pallid mist. The eyes did not blink. They tracked her retreat. A shape coalesced around them. Low-slung, quadrupedal. It moved with a stuttering, uneven gait, one limb dragging slightly. As it came closer, stepping into the outer edge of the pendant’s light, Rory saw it was no deer. Its pelt was matted and patchy, stretched taut over jutting ribs. Its head was too large for its body, its muzzle elongated into a snout that twitched as it sniffed the air. Those ice-chip eyes were set deep in sockets of raw, pink flesh. It opened its mouth, and a low, guttural whine escaped, a sound of perpetual hunger and profound wrongness. It was a dog. Or had been one. Now it was a thing of the grove’s corrupted silence. It took a step forward. The dragging limb scraped across the ground. Rory’s mind, usually so quick, locked in a loop of terror. Run. Scream. Fight. None of the options seemed viable. Running in this mist, disoriented… she’d be lost instantly. Screaming felt like it would tear her throat open and achieve nothing. Fight with what? Her empty hands? The creature’s whine climbed in pitch, becoming a thin, eager keen. It lowered its head, shoulders bunching. The Heartstone pulsed once, a sharp, almost painful burst of heat. The light flared so brightly it burned a red afterimage against her vision. The creature flinched back, letting out a yelp of surprise and pain. It shook its massive head, those cold eyes blinking rapidly. It was scared of the light. Rory didn’t think. She raised the pendant high, holding it out before her like a ward. “Stay back!” Her voice sounded stronger, laced with a defiance she didn't feel. The stone’s radiance pushed against the mist, carving a small dome of visibility around her. The creature paced at the edge of the light, its whine returning to a frustrated growl. It darted forward, a testing snap of its jaws, and recoiled as if burned when the crimson glow touched its muzzle. It was holding it at bay. For now. But her arm was already trembling. The pendant was growing heavier, its heat bordering on scalding. How long could she keep it aloft? The creature seemed to sense her weakening. It began to circle, a slow, predatory orbit just outside the circle of light. Its dragging limb left a dark, wet trail in the grass. She had to move. She had to get to the stone circle’s boundary. The creature was between her and the way she’d come in. She had to go the other way, through the heart of the grove, toward… what? She didn’t know what lay in that direction. More mist. More silence. Maybe nothing at all. She took a slow, sideways step. The creature matched her, its head swiveling to keep its eyes fixed on her. Another step. The ground here was firmer, just damp grass. The mist swirled behind the creature, hinting at deeper darkness beyond. A new sound cut through the creature’s growl and her own ragged breathing. A faint, rhythmic tapping. Like a single drop of water falling from a great height onto stone. Tap. Tap. Tap. It came from the direction she was trying to move towards. The creature heard it too. Its ears – one torn, the other a ragged stump – flattened against its skull. A new fear entered its posture, a cowering tension that mixed with its aggression. It didn’t like that sound either. The tapping grew louder, closer. Something was coming through the mist from the grove’s heart. Something that made this malformed watchdog hesitate. Rory stood caught between them, the Heartstone held high, its light beginning to flutter like a dying ember. The cold points of the creature’s eyes glinted with renewed malice as her light wavered. From behind her, the tapping – crisp, deliberate, unhurried – drew nearer. She was not alone. And the second presence felt infinitely worse.