Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXH8YBACC6W8VZA60G2VC0

The air in Richmond Park tasted different after sunset—damp and heavy, with the metallic tang of impending rain clinging to the back of Rory’s throat. She’d walked these paths a dozen times by daylight, but night transformed the familiar into something alien. Shadows pooled thick beneath the trees, and the distant city glow seemed to shrink away, leaving her isolated under a starless sky. She clutched the Heartstone pendant, its chain wound tight around her fingers. The deep crimson gem pulsed faintly against her palm, a steady, warm rhythm like a second heartbeat. Dymas hadn’t explained much when he’d pressed it into her hand—just muttered something about resonance and thresholds, his eyes darting toward the trees as if they might be listening. *Find the grove,* he’d said. *The stones will guide you.* Now here she was, guided by nothing but a faint warmth that grew stronger with every step toward the oak standing stones marking the boundary of the Fae Grove. The pendant’s heat was a low, persistent thrum against her skin, a silent confirmation she was heading the right way. Or walking straight into a trap. She couldn’t be sure which. The first standing stone loomed ahead, ancient and gnarled, more living wood than rock. She paused, running her fingers over the rough bark. The air shifted as she stepped past it—a subtle drop in temperature, a sudden silence that felt heavier than mere quiet. No distant traffic hum, no rustle of night creatures. Just the sound of her own breathing, too loud in the oppressive stillness. Wildflowers she couldn’t name bloomed in riotous patches across the clearing, their petals glowing faintly in the gloom as if holding moonlight within them. It should have been beautiful. Instead, the unnatural perfection felt staged. Wrong. She moved deeper into the grove, the pendant’s warmth intensifying. Her left wrist, the one with the small crescent scar, tingled. A childhood accident, her mother called it. Rory remembered the blood, the panic, the way the cut had refused to close for days. Here, in this place, the old mark felt fresh, sensitive. A soft crunch echoed from somewhere to her left. Rory froze, heart hammering against her ribs. She held her breath, straining to hear past the blood rushing in her ears. Nothing. Just that profound, waiting silence. “Hello?” Her voice came out thin, swallowed by the grove. No answer. Of course there was no answer. She was alone. She had to be alone. She took another step. The flowers beneath her feet made no sound, their stems bending without a whisper. Another crunch, this time from behind her. Sharper. Closer. She spun around, fists clenched. “Who’s there?” Only the standing stones watched her, their dark forms like silent sentinels. The pendant throbbed in her hand, its warmth now a near burn. She unwound the chain from her fingers and let it hang around her neck, the gem resting against her sternum. A bad idea, probably. Like wearing a beacon. Something flickered at the edge of her vision—a shift in the shadows between two oaks. Not movement, exactly. More a… thickening. A shape that wasn’t there a moment before. She took a slow step backward, her training—useless pre-law seminars on situational awareness—screaming at her to keep her eyes open, don’t turn your back, don’t run. Running felt like the only sane option. The air grew colder. Her breath misted in front of her face. In high summer. The flowers nearest her seemed to wilt, their luminous petals curling inward as if touched by frost. A low whisper brushed against her ear, no more substantial than a cobweb. It wasn’t a word. It was a feeling. A sensation of being peeled open, examined. “Show yourself.” Her voice was steadier this time. Demanding. The voice she used on drunk patrons at Silas’s bar just before she cut them off. The whisper came again, this time from her right. It coalesced into something almost linguistic. A sigh that sounded like her name. Not Rory. *Aurora.* The pendant flared, its crimson light bleeding through her shirt, casting a bloody glow on the ground at her feet. The warmth was no longer comforting; it was urgent. A warning. Another flicker of movement. This time, she saw it clearly—a tall, slender figure gliding between the trees without seeming to touch the ground. It was there for a fraction of a second, then gone, leaving behind only a deeper patch of cold and the scent of ozone and decay. Her skin prickled. She was being circled. Hunted. The figure appeared again, closer now, standing perfectly still beside a towering oak. It was man-shaped but impossibly thin, its outlines blurred, as if she were looking at it through warped glass. It had no face, just a smooth, pale expanse where features should be. It tilted its head. The pendant burned against her chest, the pain sharp and sudden. She gasped, her hand flying to the gem. It was scalding hot. The figure took a step forward. It made no sound. The flowers did not bend beneath its feet. Rory took a matching step back. Her heel caught on a root and she stumbled, catching herself against one of the standing stones. The bark was icy to the touch, and for a horrifying second, it felt like it gripped her back, holding her in place. The thing was gliding toward her now, closing the distance with that silent, effortless motion. The air around it shimmered, distorting the grove behind it like a heat haze. A chorus of whispers erupted around her, a cacophony of sighs and half-formed words, all speaking her name, her full name, the one she never used. They came from everywhere and nowhere, from the trees, the stones, the very air. The figure raised a long, slender hand. Its fingers were too many, jointed in all the wrong places. It reached for her. The pendant’s light exploded, a blinding flash of crimson that made her eyes water. The thing recoiled with a sound that was not a scream but a rupture of silence—a high, piercing shatter of glass and bone. The grove snapped back into focus. The whispers cut off. The crushing silence returned, heavier than before. Rory was on her knees, her hands braced against the cold earth, the pendant cooling rapidly against her skin. She was alone. The figure was gone. The frost was receding from the flowers, their petals unfurling once more. But the feeling of being watched remained. It clung to her, a weight in the air, a pressure against her skull. She wasn’t alone. She had never been alone. This place was awake, and it knew her name.