Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTRH9G9SPXK3HBPATPQ1E1N

The air in Richmond Park smelled wrong that evening. Not the usual damp earth and pine, but something sharp, like ozone after a storm, with an undercurrent of something sweet and rotting. Rory adjusted the strap of her delivery bag, her pulse thrumming in her throat. She’d told herself it was just a shortcut—cutting through the park to avoid the rain-soaked streets—but the way the trees seemed to lean in closer, the way the path twisted like a living thing, told her otherwise. The standing stones loomed ahead, their gnarled oaks casting long, skeletal fingers of shadow. She’d passed them before, always in daylight, always with Eva’s laughter ringing in her ears. Now, the grove swallowed the sound. The pendant at her collar pulsed faintly, a warmth against her skin. *Just the cold*, she told herself. *Or the rain.* She stepped between the stones. The moment she crossed, the world shifted. The wind died. The air thickened. The wildflowers along the path—pale bluebells, golden buttercups—bloomed too brightly, too suddenly, as if someone had turned up the light. Rory’s breath hitched. She’d heard about this place. *Isolde’s grove.* A pocket between worlds. A place where time didn’t move like it should. She should’ve turned back. But the pendant burned hotter, and her fingers twitched toward it, as if drawn by an invisible string. She’d been given it in a back alley behind Golden Empress, pressed into her palm by a woman with silver-streaked black hair and eyes like polished river stones. *“Find what’s yours,”* she’d said, before vanishing into the night. Rory had laughed it off—another of Eva’s wild schemes—but now, standing in the heart of the grove, she realised she’d been waiting for this moment. Waiting for *something* to happen. The first wrongness came in the sound of her own footsteps. They didn’t echo. They *moved*. Like the ground itself was swallowing the noise, then spitting it back at her in some delayed, distorted version. Rory stopped. Listened. Nothing. Just the hum of the pendant, the distant drip of water from a hidden branch. Then—a rustle. Not from the bushes. Not from the wind. From *between* them. Something shifted just beyond her peripheral vision, a flicker of movement too quick to pin down. Rory’s skin prickled. She turned slowly, scanning the darkness. Nothing. The path ahead split. One fork led deeper into the grove, the other curved away, disappearing into the trees. The pendant flared, warm against her chest. She chose the deeper path. *Logic*, she told herself. *I need to get to the other side.* The trees grew taller. The air grew heavier. The flowers along the path now glowed faintly, their petals shimmering like wet silk. Rory’s breath came faster. She told herself it was the exertion, the strange air. But her pulse didn’t slow when she paused to catch it. Then she saw it. A figure. Or the *shape* of one. Tall. Too tall. Standing just beyond the next bend in the path, its silhouette too smooth, too *wrong*, against the gnarled bark of the oaks. It didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Just *was*, like a stain on the world. Rory’s fingers tightened around the pendant. She took a step forward. The figure turned. Not a face. Not quite. A *smile*, stretched too wide, too many teeth, too many *things* in the dark gaps between them. It tilted its head, and the sound that came out wasn’t a voice. It was a *peel*, like wet paper being torn from wood. *“You shouldn’t be here,”* it said, and the words slithered into her skull, warm and thick as honey. Rory stumbled back. “I—I came for the pendant.” The thing tilted its head again. *“The pendant doesn’t belong to you.”* The pendant pulsed, hot now, searing against her skin. Rory clutched it, her nails biting into her palm. “Then what do I do?” The figure stepped forward. The air around it *warped*, like heat rising from pavement. *“You leave.”* Rory’s breath came in short, sharp bursts. She could run. She *should* run. But the pendant burned, and the figure’s voice coiled around her ribs, tight and insistent. “Why?” she asked, her voice raw. The thing didn’t answer. It only *smiled*, and the sound it made was like glass shattering in slow motion. Then the ground gave way beneath her. Not a hole. Not a pit. A *step*. A single, smooth stone, half-buried in the earth, leading downward. The pendant flared brighter, searing her skin. The figure’s voice dropped to a whisper. *“Take it.”* Rory’s hands trembled. She looked down at the pendant, at the way it glowed, at the way her fingers *ached* to reach for it. She looked up at the figure. And then the path behind her *vanished*.