AI The night arrived, a heavy, velvet blanket draped over Richmond Park. Rory, in a practical dark jacket that absorbed the last slivers of twilight, cut a solitary figure. The air, usually crisp, hung damp and still, carrying the scent of rich, wet earth and something else, something cloying, like overripe flowers. She had come for answers, a whisper of a lead, a cryptic message left for her on the back of a crumpled delivery receipt. The Fae Grove. The name had pulsed with an uncomfortable familiarity, a recognition from a dream she couldn’t quite recall .
She found the ancient oak standing stones marking the boundary, their gnarled forms stark against the encroaching dark. A shiver, not from the cold, traced its way up her spine. The trees here were different, taller, their branches intertwining into a thick, black canopy that swallowed the moon and stars whole. She stepped between two stones, the air immediately thickening, muffling the distant drone of city traffic, replacing it with a profound , unnatural silence . The only sound was the scuff of her boots on the leaf-strewn path. Her breath hitched. The wildflowers, they bloomed year-round, the note said. Despite the late hour, despite the season, vibrant reds and purples burst from the undergrowth, their petals unnaturally luminous in the gloom .
The path twisted deeper, the gnarled roots of ancient trees forming treacherous obstacles beneath her feet. She pulled her phone from her pocket, its screen a feeble oasis of light, but there was no signal, just a stark “No Service” notification. A prickle of unease started low in her stomach , a nervous butterfly taking flight. The note had been insistent, urgent. *They will be waiting by the Heartstone.*
Her fingers instinctively went to the chilled silver chain around her neck, her thumb tracing the smooth, crimson surface of the Heartstone Pendant. It offered no comfort, no pulse of warmth , no familiar internal glow. Just cold stone against skin.
A faint whisper brushed past her ear, a sound like dry leaves skittering across pavement, though there was no wind. She stopped, straining her ears, but the sound vanished as quickly as it came. The silence intensified, closing in, pressing down. Every rustle of a branch, every snap of a twig, became an amplified drumbeat in the sudden, cavernous quiet. She spun, scanning the impenetrable shadows, but saw nothing beyond the shifting curtains of darkness between the tree trunks.
She continued, her pace quickening, the silence now a tangible weight . The air grew heavier, thick with a scent that made her nose crinkle—a sweetness that bordered on decay, an almost sickly-sweet perfume. The path narrowed, the trees pressing in closer, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching for her. She could feel eyes on her, a persistent, prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She whipped her head around again, but the darkness offered no answers. The grove felt alive with unseen presences, a silent audience watching her every move.
A low scraping sound, like stone dragging against stone, emanated from behind a particularly ancient, ivy-choked oak. It grew louder, a grating, rhythmic rasp that vibrated in her chest. She froze, her breath catching in her throat. The sound stopped. Then, a new noise emerged, a deep, guttural sigh that seemed to echo from the very ground beneath her feet . It was too vast, too resonant to be human, a sound of ancient, sleeping earth rousing.
Rory’s heart hammered against her ribs. She tightened her grip on the pendant. The air went frigid, a sudden drop in temperature that stole the warmth from her face. She saw it, then, or thought she did. A flicker , a movement at the very edge of her vision, a tall, gaunt shape that seemed to be made of shadow, blending seamlessly with the surrounding darkness . It was gone before she could fully turn, a phantom of the periphery. Her mind screamed for her to run, but her feet stayed rooted. She had to find the Heartstone. She had to know.
She forced herself forward, her eyes darting, trying to pierce the gloom . The wildflowers ahead seemed to glow with an unnerving intensity , their colours almost incandescent in the suffocating darkness. They formed a rough circle around a clearing, their brightness a beacon drawing her in.
In the centre of the clearing, bathed in the faint, unearthly luminescence of the wildflowers, stood a rough-hewn stone altar, its surface stained dark with age. And on it, nestled in a bed of freshly plucked, still-glowing blossoms, lay another Heartstone, its crimson deep, its inner glow faint but unmistakable, mirroring her own pendant.
A wave of dizzying cold washed over her. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. This wasn't a meeting. This was a trap.
She felt it again, the touch, a cold pressure against her back, like a breath on her skin, though nothing was there. The air grew thick, like breathing through wet wool. The silence was gone , replaced by a low, constant hum, a vibration that ran through the soles of her feet, up her legs, settling in her bones. The sound wasn't in her ears, but in her very core. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t cry out, the sound trapped in her constricted throat.
The shadow shape appeared again, not lurking at the edge of her vision this time, but standing among the glowing wildflowers, its form a darker patch against the absolute blackness of the trees. It was tall, impossibly thin, its limbs elongated, almost spider-like. It didn't have eyes, or if it did, they were swallowed by the gloom . It tilted its head, a silent, unnerving gesture that suggested recognition. Rory felt a profound , primal terror blossom in her chest, stealing her breath. This was no human. This was something ancient, something that belonged to the night and the deep earth.
The hum intensified, vibrating through the ground, through her body. The ground beneath her feet began to subtly shift, a low, groaning rumble emanating from below. The wildflowers around the altar pulsed with an unnerving rhythm, their light flaring and dimming in sync with the subterranean tremor. The other Heartstone on the altar pulsed , too, its crimson glow mirroring the eerie rhythm of the grove.
The shadow creature took a single, slow step towards her, its movement fluid, silent, impossibly graceful. The groan from the earth grew louder, and the trees around the clearing began to sway, not with wind, but with an unseen force . Rory’s vision blurred at the edges, the world around her seeming to melt and reform. The air turned bitter, metallic.
The shadow lifted a hand, a long, skeletal appendage, and pointed not at her, but at the Heartstone on the altar . Its message was clear, silent, horrifying.