Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXR0Y5CEFYQHKK7WD3XPD6

The ancient oaks loomed against the midnight sky like sentinels guarding secrets too old for mortal understanding. Rory pulled her jacket tighter as she stepped between the massive standing stones that marked the boundary of Isolde's grove, her trainers silent against the moss-covered ground. The Heartstone pendant hung heavy against her chest, its faint warmth the only comfort in the oppressive darkness. She'd come here following whispers in her dreams, fragments of memory that weren't quite her own. Something about answers hidden in the space between worlds, about truths that could only be found when the veil grew thin. The pendant had pulsed stronger with each step toward Richmond Park, drawing her like a lodestone toward magnetic north. But now, standing within the grove's embrace, every instinct screamed that she'd made a terrible mistake. The wildflowers that supposedly bloomed year-round lay withered and black, their petals scattered like ash across the clearing floor. No wind stirred the branches overhead, yet leaves fell in steady patterns around her, each one landing with a sound like brittle bone breaking. The silence pressed against her eardrums until she could hear her own heartbeat thundering in the stillness. "Right. Brilliant idea, Rory." Her voice cracked the quiet like gunfire. "Come alone to the magical murder grove. What could possibly go wrong?" But even as she spoke, her words seemed to die mere inches from her lips, swallowed by the thick air that tasted of copper and forgotten things. The pendant's warmth increased, becoming almost uncomfortable against her skin. She took another step deeper into the clearing and froze. Footprints marked the soft earth ahead of her. Fresh ones. Bare feet, larger than her own, with elongated toes that ended in what looked suspiciously like claw marks. They led in a perfect circle around the grove's centre, where a ring of mushrooms glowed with sickly phosphorescence. "Time moves differently here," she whispered, remembering what little she'd learned about this place. "Could be old prints. Could be from yesterday. Or next week." The rational part of her mind catalogued escape routes—three gaps between the standing stones that could serve as exits. But her feet carried her forward, following the strange prints as if pulled by invisible threads. The pendant's glow intensified with each step, casting crimson shadows that danced and writhed across the oak bark. A branch snapped somewhere behind her. Rory spun around, her breath misting in the suddenly frigid air. Nothing moved among the trees. The standing stones stood empty and impassive, their surfaces gleaming like polished bone in the pendant's light. But the wrongness in the air thickened, becoming almost tangible. She wasn't alone. The certainty settled in her chest like lead. Something watched her from the darkness between the oaks, something that breathed without sound and moved without disturbing the fallen leaves. Her fingers found the pendant, gripping it so tightly the silver chain bit into her neck. Another footstep. Closer this time. Then another. "I know you're there." The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "What do you want?" The response came not as sound but as pressure—a weight settling over her shoulders like invisible hands. The mushroom ring pulsed brighter, casting everything in hellish relief. In the shifting light, she caught glimpses of movement at the edge of her vision. Tall shapes that might have been trees, if trees could lean and sway with predatory intent. The footprints in the earth began to glow. Rory stumbled backward, her heel catching on something soft and yielding. She looked down to find more mushrooms sprouting from the ground where she'd stepped, their caps opening like tiny mouths lined with needle teeth. The spores they released shimmered in the air, and where they touched her skin, numbness spread. "No, no, no." She shook her head, trying to clear the growing haze. "This is wrong. All wrong." But the spores worked their way into her lungs with each breath, and the world began to tilt sideways. The standing stones wavered like reflections in disturbed water. The darkness between the trees took on substance, flowing toward her like thick oil. And in that darkness, eyes opened. Not human eyes. Too large, too bright, too hungry. They watched her with the patience of something that had waited centuries and could wait centuries more. The pendant burned against her chest now, hot enough to sear, but she couldn't let go. It was the only thing anchoring her to herself as the mushroom spores rewrote her perception of reality. "You came when called." The voice emerged from everywhere and nowhere, speaking words that bypassed her ears entirely and settled directly into her bones. "As we knew you would." Rory tried to run, but her legs moved as if through treacle. The grove stretched and contracted around her, distances becoming meaningless. The circle of mushrooms expanded until it surrounded her completely, their glow turning the air the colour of fresh blood. "The pendant remembers this place," the voice continued, and now she could see the speaker—or speakers. Multiple forms moved in the shadows, tall and angular, with too many joints in all the wrong places. "It was made here, in the time before time. And it calls its children home." The crimson light from her pendant met the phosphorescent glow of the mushrooms, and where they touched, reality cracked like glass.