Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX5T8XFCDYGR1C8VPBWZ0H

Rain had slicked the cobbles of Richmond Park long before Rory pushed through the last line of bramble into the clearing. Her boots sank slightly in the black loam, the soles peeling free with a reluctant squelch. She paused, breath steaming in the cold, and wiped wet strands of hair from her face. The air smelled wrong—too sweet, like lilac soaked in iron. She shouldn’t have come at night. But Yu-Fei’s note had been clear: *Drop the parcel at the standing stones before moonrise. No delays.* Simple. Routine. She’d done odd deliveries to the Grove before—heroin vials wrapped in silk, ancient-looking coins sealed in wax—for clients Yu-Fei never named. Never asked about. The rules were simple: don’t open it, don’t look at it too long, and never stay past the stones. This time, though, the moon was already a smear of bone behind cloud, and the sky held its breath. Rory unzipped her jacket just enough to let the pendant fall free. The Heartstone Pendant. She hadn’t worn it since last winter, when it pulsed like a trapped heartbeat at the Underground station. Now, cradled against her collarbone, the crimson gem stirred—warmth blooming gently beneath her skin. She touched it, fingers trembling. *Pulse.* One beat. Then another. Slow. Patient. She scanned the grove. The standing stones stood sentinel in a broken ring, ancient oaks warped into gnarled pillars, bark split like dried leather. Moss clung to their northern sides, heavy and damp. Between them, the wildflowers—snowdrops, foxgloves, some with petals too deep, too dark in this light—nodded in a wind that didn’t touch her cheeks. Rory stepped forward. Her boot crunched on something brittle. She looked down. Not a twig. A feather. Long, black, barbs intact—but wrong. The shaft was ribbed, like a spine segmented under flesh. She kicked it aside, pulse ticking faster. “Just deliver it,” she muttered. “Drop it and go.” The parcel, wrapped in waxed paper and tied with red twine, felt heavier now. Hot. She could almost hear it—an echo beneath her ribs, a subharmonic hum. She reached the largest stone, its surface carved with symbols she didn’t recognize: spirals that looped too many times, angles that didn’t obey perspective. She bent, placed the package at its base. “Done,” she said. Silence swallowed the word. Then—laughter. Not loud. Not near. But unmistakably human. A child’s giggle, quick and breathless, from the far side of the circle. Rory froze. She turned, scanning the tree line. Nothing. The flowers swayed. “Eva?” she called, hating how thin her voice sounded. “Not funny.” No answer. Just the warmth of the pendant, now steady, insistent. She stepped back. Something moved in her periphery—left, beyond the third stone. She snapped her head toward it. Nothing. Only a shadow, stretched too long. The moonlight, if it was moonlight, bled through the trees in uneven patches, pooled on the ground like oil. She started for the bramble line—the way she’d come—when the giggle came again. Closer. And behind her now. She didn’t turn. “I know you’re there,” she said, louder. “If Yu-Fei sent you, I did it. It’s done.” Another sound. A rustle. Not wind. Too rhythmic. Like fingers dragging through undergrowth. Slow. Deliberate. She reached the edge of the clearing. The bramble snarled, thick and thorned, but she knew the gap—had used it before. She dropped to one knee, pushed at the vines. They recoiled. Not from her hand. From the pendant. The silver chain twitched as if tugged, the gem flaring crimson for a heartbeat—then dim again. And then, from the center of the clearing, a voice. “Rory?” Her breath caught. It sounded like Eva. Pitch-perfect. The same lilt, the same warmth. But Eva wasn’t here. Eva was in Camden. Eva didn’t even know this place existed. “Rory, wait.” She turned. Between the stones, a figure stood. Tall. Slender. Hair hanging in long, wet coils. Wearing Eva’s coat. Eva’s boots. But the face— —the face was too long. The eyes sat too wide. The smile stretched too far, revealing too many teeth. It took a step. Rory backed into the treeline. “No,” she said. The thing tilted its head. “You dropped something.” And in its hand—her parcel. Impossible. She’d left it at the stone. It raised the package, unwound the twine with fingers too slender, too jointed. Rory reached for her phone. Nothing. No signal. No light. Just the cold glass. The air thickened. The flowers—dozens of them—turned. Slowly. Petals parting like mouths. Stems twisting toward her. The thing smiled wider. Then it began to hum. A tuneless, sliding note, rising and falling like something drowning. Rory’s pendant flared again—red heat searing her skin. And in the hum, beneath it, she heard something else. Voices. Not one. Not two. Dozens. Muttering. Crying. Laughing. Screaming. All layered beneath that single, sliding note. She clapped her hands over her ears. It didn’t help. The sound wasn’t outside. It was *inside*. The creature dropped the parcel. It didn’t land. It hovered. Then split open. No ribbon. No paper. Just darkness unspooling like thread from a reel. From it, a cold breath exhaled—sour, ancient, wet with rot. One of the standing stones groaned. A crack split down its center. From within—something shifted. Something vast. Something *waiting*. The pendant pulsed like a heart on fire. Rory stumbled back, tripped on a root, fell. The thing in Eva’s shape stepped forward, gliding now, feet never touching the ground. “You shouldn’t have come at night,” it whispered. And now its voice wasn’t Eva’s at all. It was hers. Her own voice. But warped. Dragging. “You shouldn’t have come *back*.” Behind it, the crack in the stone widened. A sliver of violet light bled through. And Rory knew—suddenly, horribly—that this hadn’t been a delivery. It had been a key. And she had just turned it.