Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTR4XHHKVCH18218955WCFX

Aurora’s boots clicked against the soft earth, the sound swallowed quickly by the dense shadows of the Fae Grove. The wildflowers, impossible in their brightness, gleamed faintly in the moonlight, petals brushing the night’s chill with silken edges. She stopped beneath the ancient oaks, those towering sentinels of time that marked the boundary where earth bled into something older, something not quite human. The perspiration on her palms felt out of place—too clammy for the crisp air. She tugged the Heartstone Pendant from beneath her jacket, the deep crimson gem dimly glowing, its pulse faint but steady against the cold silver chain. She’d followed the pendant’s warmth all the way here, drawn by a hunger she couldn’t name but didn’t question. Somewhere beyond the oaks, time pulsed differently. An hour in here might stretch into days or snap back to minutes out there. She decided, stubborn as ever, that she had to see it for herself. She stepped deeper into the Grove, the scent of damp earth and wild blossoms thickening around her. The night air felt compressed, like the shadows wanted to press in closer, but she kept moving. Her eyes flicked from one ancient tree to another, the bark gnarled like skeletal fingers grasping at the moonlight. A breeze whispered, but it carried no scent of life, no woodsmoke or distant city noise. Just a hollow silence that seemed… wrong. A twig snapped behind her. Aurora stiffened, heart thudding irregularly. She pivoted sharply. Nothing but darkness, pressed dense and quiet. The wildflowers around her rustled, although there was no wind. The pendant’s glow dimmed, then pulsed again, warmer, urgent. “Hello?” Her voice cracked, swallowed by the grove’s heavy stillness. The cold traced along her spine. She forced herself to swallow her unease. She stepped forward. Each stride felt heavier, the soft moss beneath her feet swallowing sound and spirit alike. Another noise — a faint rustle, just beyond her peripheral vision. She whirled, eyes searching the darkness for something, anything. Movement flickered like a shadow cast by a candle’s unsteady flame, gone the moment she blinked. The pendant warmed again, a heartbeat of crimson fire pressed low against her throat. There was a pull, magnetic and frantic, drawing her towards the stand of oaks further in. “Who’s there?” she demanded, voice firmer this time, stripping away any trembling edge. No answer came. Only the pulse of the pendant, the whisper of invisible wings in the cold air. The wildflowers thickened, blanketing the earth like a living carpet. A faint scent of something else—honey and iron—drifted in the air, a perfume darker than the night, slipping beneath her skin like a whispered promise or a lie. Aurora’s breath caught. She caught her wrist, feeling the crescent-shaped scar beneath her sleeve. The world seemed to tilt slightly, the moon hanging suspended between branches, unnaturally still but glowing with a cold, unyielding light. The shadows breathed around her, stretched longer, thinner, as if pooling into forms that her mind refused to name. A sudden breeze fluttered her hair. The scent wasn’t a breeze at all. It was something alive, watching. Waiting. She took another step, the pendant throbbing urgently now, its warmth creeping beneath her skin like embers in a winter’s hearth. The ground shifted beneath her, the moss giving way to rougher earth. Somewhere deep inside, a dark pulse echoed—something calling, or calling her out, or warning her to leave. A sound dragged through the cracking silence. Slow, deliberate footsteps approaching through the wildflowers. No crunch of leaves, no breaking twigs, only footsteps. The sound hovered on the edge of hearing, shifting from left to right, always just out of sight. Aurora spun again. Nothing. Just darkness pressed so close it tasted like cotton in her mouth, dense and dry. A whisper rustled through the trees, fingers trailing along the edge of her mind. “Rory…” The name barely rose above the night. A voice, thin and distant, layered with something ancient and fragile. She gripped the pendant, its pulse now a fierce drumbeat. The shadows thinned, but her skin prickled with the certainty: she was not alone. Something had followed her here, waiting beneath the wildflowers and time-warped oaks. Her pace quickened, each step muffled by the strange calm. The pendant flared one last time, its warmth burning into her collarbone before fading suddenly. The grove fell silent. Aurora stopped, breathing ragged in the oppressive quiet. She scanned the trees; the moon caught the edges of something—or someone—just beyond the standing stones. A figure, too still to speak, wrapped in shadow and mist. Rory’s voice caught in her throat. “What do you want?” The figure did not move, but the air thickened, heavier, as if the Grove itself leaned forward and listened. A soft, breathless laughter drifted from the darkness, a sound as fragile as cracking glass. It folded into the night like smoke, leaving behind a residue of dread. Aurora took a step back. The trees seemed to pulse with hidden eyes, ancient witnesses to a game played over centuries. The wildflowers shimmered—no longer innocent. They whispered secrets with every rustle. A voice pressed low, tangled in the wind, “You don’t belong here.” Aurora swallowed, her gaze locked on the shadows. The grove was no longer a pocket of wildflowers and time warped softly around her. It was a cage tightening, and the thing that had followed her was patient. She reached for the pendant, feeling the scar on her wrist warm beneath the silver chain. “I’m not leaving,” she said, voice slicing the darkness. “Not until I find what I came for.” Silence swallowed her words, but the standing stones trembled faintly. The woods exhaled around her, shadows lengthening, folding her into their ancient embrace.