Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX1T9MKQ1XQGMTFC2HTHPS

Rory's trainers crunched against dead leaves as she stepped through the oak boundary stones of the Fae Grove. The November cold bit at her cheeks, but she barely registered it. Her fingers found the Heartstone pendant beneath her jumper, and she felt it—that familiar pulse of warmth against her sternum. It had been growing stronger all week, a rhythm that matched her heartbeat then diverged, quickened, slowed. Finally tonight it had become urgent enough that she couldn't ignore it. The Grove hadn't changed much since her last visit three months ago. Wildflowers still bloomed impossibly in the dark, their petals luminescent in shades of violet and silver. The ancient oaks stood like sentries around the clearing, their bark twisted and gnarled with what looked like hundreds of years compressed into decades. But something felt different. The air tasted metallic. She pulled her phone out to check the time. Half past midnight. The screen cast a pale glow across her face before she switched it off. Battery at twelve percent. Brilliant. The reason she'd come pressed at the edges of her mind, demanding attention. Three days ago, Eva had stopped answering texts. Not unusual—Eva could disappear for weeks sometimes, consumed by whatever creative project had captured her attention. But then Rory found the note slipped under her flat door, written in handwriting that looked like Eva's but felt wrong. Shaky. Afraid. *Rory—if you're reading this, I'm at the Grove. Don't come alone. Don't come unarmed. Don't come after midnight. But if you don't come at all by the 23rd, something bad will happen. I can feel it happening already. —E* The 23rd was tonight. Rory moved deeper into the clearing, her jaw clenched. Eva had been the one to drag her into this world of Fae and portals and impossible things. Eva had known what she was, known about the blood magic that ran through her family line. But this felt different than anything they'd encountered before. Eva didn't scare easily. The wildflowers seemed to lean toward her as she passed, their luminescent petals following her movement like eyes. A rustle came from the undergrowth to her left. Small. An animal, probably. But Rory's shoulders tensed anyway. She reached the centre of the clearing where a ring of particularly ancient oaks formed a natural amphitheatre. This was where they'd come before, where Rory had first felt the full weight of what she was. The air here shimmered slightly, as though the boundary between Earth and something else had worn thin. "Eva?" Her voice sounded swallowed by the space, absorbed into the darkness beyond the wildflowers' glow. Nothing answered. Rory waited, listening. The Grove had its own ambient sounds—the rustle of leaves that moved without wind, the distant trill of birds that shouldn't exist in November, a faint hum that might have been her own pulse or might have been something else entirely. But beneath all of that ran a new sound. A scratching. Like something dragging across bark. She spun toward it. The dark between the oaks remained perfectly still. "I'm not in the mood for games," she called out. The scratching stopped. That was worse somehow. The sudden silence felt heavier than the sound had been. Rory's fingers went back to the Heartstone, and she noticed it was warmer than before. Not just the gentle pulse of normal, but genuinely hot. She pulled it out and held it up. The crimson stone threw out a deeper glow than she'd ever seen from it, casting ruddy shadows across the surrounding trunks. Something moved at the edge of her vision. When she turned to look directly at it, there was nothing there. Just trees. Just darkness. She spun back to face the direction she'd come from—the entrance stones still visible in the distance, maybe fifty metres away. The pendant grew hotter. A sound emerged from the undergrowth ahead, to her right. Not scratching this time. Breathing. Wet and laboured, like something with a chest wound forcing air through damaged lungs. Rory's hand went instinctively to her back pocket, where she'd tucked a knife. Nothing fancy—just a kitchen knife she'd taken from her flat. It seemed stupid now. "Show yourself," she said. The breathing continued. It sounded almost rhythmic now, almost like it was trying to match her own breathing. When Rory breathed in, the thing in the dark breathed in. When she held her breath, it held its breath. She started walking toward the entrance stones. Not running. Never run. Eva had taught her that. Running triggered things. But her pace quickened despite her resolve, her trainers finding faster purchase against the ground. The wildflowers around her seemed to lean in tighter, and the luminescence of their petals had taken on a sickly quality, more green than silver now. The breathing behind her grew more pronounced. Still mimicking her own, but with an undertone of hunger that she felt in her bones. Thirty metres to the entrance. The Heartstone burned against her chest, hot enough now that she could smell her own skin beginning to scorch. She pulled it out fully, the silver chain cutting into the back of her neck as the stone swung free. The glow it cast had spread, illuminating a wider circle around her. In that moment of increased light, she saw them. Shapes. Not quite formed, not quite solid. They hung at the edge of the illumination like smoke given weight, and they were watching her. Dozens of them. Hundreds. All with the suggestion of eyes and mouths and hands that reached without quite reaching. The air tasted copper now. Twenty metres. One of the shapes drifted closer, and Rory could hear it more clearly—that laboured breathing, but now with an added dimension. Whispering. Multiple voices speaking over one another, creating a susurration that raised every hair on her body. She couldn't make out the words, but she understood the tone. Desperate. Hungry. Lonely in a way that suggested it had been lonely for decades. She broke into a run. The wildflowers thrashed around her ankles though there was no wind, and more shapes emerged from between the trees, blocking her path. They weren't attacking exactly. They were just... intercepting. Slowing her. The Heartstone pulsed in her hand with a rhythm that felt frantic, and the pendant itself had begun to ache in her chest like a second heartbeat going mad. Ten metres to the stones. The shapes converged, and Rory threw herself forward with her final stride, knife raised. She crossed through the boundary of the ancient oaks, and the moment her foot touched the ground on the other side, every sound ceased. The cold November night air hit her like a slap. She stood gasping at the tree line, the Heartstone still burning in her hand, no longer glowing. She forced herself to turn back. Inside the Grove, the wildflowers had gone dark. The luminescence was gone. She could see nothing beyond the oak stones now except for black so complete it seemed to have texture. But as her eyes adjusted slightly, she caught movement. Shapes beginning to coalesce directly at the boundary, pressing against it as though testing its strength. And then, in the blackness, she heard a voice she recognised. Eva's voice, but stripped of something vital. The compassion. The humour. Everything that made her Eva. "Please, Rory," it said. "You have to come back inside. You have to let us out."