AI The ancient oak standing stones formed a jagged circle against the bruised twilight sky, their bark slick with a moisture that smelled of ozone and rotting lilies. Aurora Carter stepped across the threshold where the mundane world of Richmond Park bled into something older, sharper. The air inside the Grove hit her like a physical wall, thick and heavy, pressing against her eardrums until they popped. She stopped, her breath hitching in her throat. The wildflowers carpeting the ground bloomed in violent splashes of color that hurt to look at directly—purples so deep they appeared black, reds that seemed to pulse .
She checked her watch . The second hand stuttered, jerked backward, then froze entirely.
Rory adjusted the strap of her delivery bag, the leather creaking loud enough to echo in the unnatural silence . She came here because the pendant around her neck had burned a hole into her collarbone all afternoon. Now, the deep crimson gemstone rested cold against her skin, dormant and dead. That worried her more than the heat ever did. Heat meant activity. Cold meant waiting.
Her boots sank into the soil, but the earth felt spongy, unnatural, as if the ground breathed beneath her soles. She moved toward the center of the clearing, where the air shimmered like heat haze off tarmac. The plan was simple: locate the anomaly, verify the source, leave. No heroes, no grand gestures. Just a job for Yu-Fei, albeit one that paid in secrets rather than cash.
A twig snapped behind her.
Rory spun, her hand flying to the pocket knife clipped to her belt. Nothing but the towering oaks and the impossible flowers. The wind didn't吹 here. The branches hung motionless, suspended in the stagnant air. She scanned the tree line, her bright blue eyes narrowing. Shadows pooled beneath the trees, darker than the surrounding dusk, pooling like spilled ink that refused to spread.
"Show yourself," she called out . Her voice sounded thin, stripped of resonance , as if the Grove swallowed the sound the moment it left her lips.
Silence answered. Not the quiet of an empty room, but the heavy, expectant silence of a held breath .
She turned back to the center. The Heartstone pendant remained cold. She reached up, fingers brushing the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit ingrained since childhood. The skin felt clammy. Something scratched at the edge of her vision, a flicker of movement near the northern stone. When she whipped her head around, only the swaying grass remained, though no wind touched it. The grass bent inward, toward her, forming a subtle funnel.
Rory took a step forward. The ground squelched.
A low hum started in her teeth, vibrating through her jawbone. It wasn't a sound from outside; it resonated from within her own skull. The hum grew in pitch, sharpening into a whine that made her eyes water. She clamped her hands over her ears, but the noise persisted, drilling deeper.
Through the gap between her fingers, she saw the flowers closest to her feet wilt. Petals curled inward, turning brown and brittle in seconds, dissolving into dust that swirled upward against gravity. The dust formed shapes—faint, translucent outlines of limbs, of torsos, reaching for her before collapsing back into nothingness.
She backed away, her heel catching on a root that hadn't been there a moment ago. She stumbled, catching herself on the rough bark of an oak. The tree felt warm. Too warm. Like feverish skin. She snatched her hand back, wiping her palm on her jeans.
The shadows between the trees lengthened. They stretched toward the center of the clearing, elongating despite the lack of a light source to cast them. The darkness coalesced, thickening until it looked solid, a tar-like substance oozing from the base of the standing stones.
Rory's heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. She needed to leave. Now. The job wasn't worth whatever waited in this pocket of wrongness. She turned toward the entrance, the gap between two stones that marked the way back to Richmond Park.
The gap was gone .
Where the exit should have been, a wall of dense thicket stood, brambles interlocked so tightly no light passed through. The thorns glistened with a wet sheen. She pivoted, scanning the rest of the circle. Every exit sealed by the same impenetrable wall of twisting wood and sharp steel-like thorns.
Panic clawed at her throat, but she forced it down. Panic clouded judgment. She needed to think. Evaluate. Find the weak point.
The humming in her head spiked, becoming a scream. She dropped to her knees, gasping for air that tasted metallic, like old blood. The Heartstone pendant suddenly flared. Not warm. Burning. It seared her chest, glowing with a faint inner light that cast long, dancing shadows against the tree trunks.
The shadows detached themselves from the trees.
They didn't move like shadows cast by moving objects. They flowed like liquid, pooling on the ground before rising up, taking form. Tall, spindly figures, too many joints in their arms and legs, their heads featureless voids. They didn't walk; they glided, inches above the deadly flowers that had wilted at Rory's approach.
Rory scrambled to her feet, backing toward the center of the circle, the only space not yet occupied by the encroaching dark. Her back hit the invisible barrier of time distortion; the air here felt thinner, harder to breathe.
One of the figures stopped ten feet away. It tilted its head, a motion that cracked audibly, like dry wood snapping. It had no face, yet Rory felt the weight of its gaze, a physical pressure boring into her soul. It raised a long, multi-jointed arm and pointed a finger that ended in a shard of obsidian.
Another figure emerged from behind the southern stone. Then another from the west. They closed the circle, cutting off any chance of a rush, even if an exit existed.
Rory's hand tightened around her knife. The metal felt insignificant, a toy against this ancient wrongness. The figures didn't attack. They just watched, their formless heads fixed on her, on the glowing pendant at her throat.
The crimson light from the Heartstone pulsed faster, matching the frantic rhythm of her pulse . With every beat, the shadows surged forward, shrinking the safe space by inches. The air grew colder, freezing the sweat on her brow. Her breath plumed in front of her, white and thick.
She listened. Beneath the high-pitched whine in her skull, a new sound emerged. A wet, slithering noise, like scales dragging over stone. It came from below.
Rory looked down. The soil beneath her boots had turned to black sludge. The sludge bubbled. Hands, pale and bloated, broke the surface, grasping at her ankles. They weren't the shadow figures. These were solid, flesh and bone, or something mimicking them perfectly . Fingers dug into her boots, slick and strong.
She kicked out, her boot connecting with something soft that gave way with a sickening crunch. The hand released, sinking back into the muck, but two more took its place. They pulled.
Rory lost her balance, falling backward. She landed hard in the mud, the cold sludge soaking through her clothes instantly. The shadow figures loomed over her, blocking out the strange, color-saturated sky. They didn't speak. They didn't hiss. They simply advanced, their movements synchronized , a slow, inevitable tide of darkness.
The pendant burned so hot it singed her skin through her shirt. The light flared, blindingly bright for a split second, illuminating the features of the things surrounding her. They weren't monsters. They were people. Or they had been. Faces she recognized, faces from the city, from the park, twisted in silent screams, their eyes hollow pits of that same consuming black.
One figure knelt beside her. It reached out, a hand that looked disturbingly human, save for the nails which were long, black claws. It brushed a strand of straight black hair from her forehead. The touch froze the moisture on her skin, turning it to ice.
Rory stopped struggling. Fighting only made the mud pull harder. She lay still, her chest heaving, watching the faceless thing lean closer. The smell of ozone intensified, mixing with the scent of wet earth and decay. The humming in her head ceased, replaced by a absolute, deafening silence that pressed against her eardrums until they ached.
The figure's head tilted again. The crack of bone echoed in the stillness. It opened a mouth that shouldn't have been there, a vertical slit appearing in the smooth darkness of its face. Inside, no tongue, no teeth. Just an endless, swirling void that mirrored the space between the worlds.
The hands in the mud pulled her legs. The shadow figures closed the final gap. The crimson light of the Heartstone flickered , dimmed, and then died, plunging the Grove into total darkness.