Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX1T9N7NWZFM9WFH39T5YC

Richmond Park at night possessed a different gravity. The air felt heavier, thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, pressing down on Aurora’s shoulders like a physical weight. She pulled her coat tighter, the wool scratching at her neck, and checked her phone. No signal. Not even a single bar flickering on the screen. She shouldn't be here. The sane part of her brain, the part that had finished her Pre-Law degree and knew exactly how many ways a person could disappear in a city of nine million, screamed at her to turn back. But the Heartstone pendant against her skin was burning, a frantic, rhythmic heat that beat in time with her pulse. "Just a quick look. Verify the anomaly, then leave." The words hung in the cold air, a puff of white vapour that dissolved instantly. Talking to herself was a bad habit, a sign of nerves. Rory took a breath, steadying herself, and clicked off her torch. The moonlight filtering through the canopy was enough. Ancient oak standing stones loomed ahead, marking the boundary of the Grove. During the day, they looked like majestic sentinels of history. Tonight, they looked like jagged teeth waiting to snap shut. She stepped between the two largest stones. The change was instant. The ambient noise of the city—the distant hum of traffic on the A3, the sirens, the constant drone of London—vanished. The silence that replaced it wasn't empty. It was a listening silence. Rory crouched, running her fingers over the mossy earth. The wildflowers here defied the season. Blooms of vivid violet and phosphorescent white clustered around the roots of the oaks, their petals open wide as if gasping for air. She reached out to touch a violet stem, but stopped. The flower was twitching. Not trembling in the wind. There was no wind here. The flower was contracting, expanding, like a lung. She yanked her hand back, cradling it against her chest. The Heartstone flared hotter, a sudden spike of temperature that made her wince. She gripped the silver chain, pulling the crimson gem from beneath her shirt. It cast a faint, bloody glow on the grass, illuminating a patch of ground that looked disturbingly like fur. "Okay. Not natural." She stood up, her knees popping in the quiet. The shadows beneath the trees seemed to have deepened, stretching towards her like spilled ink. A snap echoed through the clearing. Rory froze. It sounded like a dry branch breaking, heavy and deliberate. It came from behind her, past the standing stones. Past the boundary she had just crossed. "Hello?" Her voice sounded thin, swallowed immediately by the trees. No answer. Just the rustle of leaves, a sound like dry skin dragging over stone. She turned in a slow circle, scanning the perimeter. The oaks were twisted, their branches gnarled into shapes that hurt the eye if she stared too long. Faces. Animals. Things with too many limbs. Her mind was trying to make patterns out of the chaos, a trick of the light and the creeping fear. Focus on the facts. The pendant reacts to Hel portals. It is reacting now. Therefore, there is a portal or something akin to it nearby. Another sound. *Drag. Scrape. Drag.* It was wet this time. Soft and heavy, like a wet sack being pulled across mud. It was coming from the dense thicket to her left. Rory shifted her stance, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. She looked for a weapon, a stick, a rock, anything. Her hand found a fallen branch, thick and heavy with rot. She lifted it, the wood crumbling slightly under her grip. The Heartstone pulsed against her palm, a frantic strobe light. *Thump-thump. Thump-thump.* "I'm armed," she said, her voice stronger this time. "I'm not alone." A lie. But a convincing one. The thicket went still. Then, a low chittering sound drifted out. It was high-pitched, like a rodent, but distorted, stretched until it sounded like a child giggling through a fan. Rory took a step back toward the standing stones. The exit. She just needed to step between the oaks. The air pressure dropped. Her ears popped. She looked up. The moon was gone. The sky above the Grove was not black, but a bruised purple, swirling with clouds that moved in a slow, impossible counter-clockwise rotation. The temperature plummeted, her breath coming out in ragged clouds. She moved faster, crunching over the flowers. They didn't crunch. They bruised, leaking a thick, dark sap that smelled of copper and old blood. *Drag. Scrape.* Closer now. Right behind the tree line to her right. She broke into a jog, aiming for the gap in the stones. Ten feet. Five feet. A shape detached itself from the shadow of the largest oak. It was tall, impossibly thin, with limbs that articulated in too many joints. It didn't walk; it flowed, its body a blur of grey and brown that shifted like smoke in a breeze. It stood between her and the exit. Rory skidded to a halt, digging her heels into the loam. The branch in her hand felt like a toothpick now. The thing had no face. Just a smooth, pale oval where features should be. But it had eyes. Dozens of them, opening and closing along its torso and arms, blinking independently. They were all the same bright, impossible blue. "Back off." The thing tilted its head. It didn't have a mouth, but a sound rippled through the air, a vibrating hum that vibrated in her teeth. *Look. Look. Look.* The voice wasn't in her ears. It was inside her skull, a invasive thought that wasn't hers. Rory gripped the pendant until the metal edges cut into her fingers. The heat was searing now, burning a brand into her chest. "Get out of my head." She swung the branch. It passed harmlessly through the creature’s torso as if it were made of mist. The creature didn't flinch. It just leaned closer, those unblinking blue eyes fixing on her face. *Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.* The ground beneath her feet softened. Rory looked down. The grass was gone. The earth was turning to liquid, a dark, viscous pool bubbling up around her boots. She tried to lift her leg, but the mud held fast, sucking her down with a wet, greedy schlurp. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced her calm. She thrashed, losing her balance and falling to one knee. The mud was up to her shin now, warm and pulsing. The creature drifted forward, hovering over the mud. It raised a long, spindly arm. The hand at the end split open into five tendrils, each one tipped with a single, dripping blue eye. *Give. It. Back.* Rory grabbed a root from the edge of the solid ground, her fingers slipping on the slime. "I don't have anything!" The pendant flared so bright it turned the world white. For a split second, the creature shrieked—a sound like tearing metal—and recoiled, shielding its faceless face with its many arms. The mud loosened its grip. Rory scrambled. She clawed at the earth, fingernails tearing, boots slipping. She threw herself forward, her chest hitting the solid ground near the stones. She didn't look back. She crawled, then scrambled up, and sprinted for the gap. The air behind her screamed. The wind howled, a gale force that tried to push her back into the clearing. Leaves whipped against her face, stinging like needles. She dove through the standing stones, tucking and rolling over the rough grass of the normal park. She hit the ground hard, the breath driven from her lungs. Silence. Real silence. The distant hum of the A3 was back, a comforting, gritty roar. A siren wailed in the distance. Rory lay on her back, gasping, staring up at the normal, starless sky of London. She clutched the Heartstone. It was cooling rapidly, the crimson gem dull and lifeless against her chest. She sat up, her body shaking with delayed adrenaline. She looked back at the Grove. The standing stones were just stones. The flowers were gone. Inside the clearing, everything was still. Just shadows and old trees. But on her ankle, just above the line of her boot, there was a mark. A perfect, blue handprint. Five fingers, long and thin, burned into her skin like a tattoo. She wiped the mud from her face, her hand trembling. "Note to self," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Don't go back."