Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYNX9ZFXVWGD1G9A9NWT01

The standing stones loomed ahead, barely visible through the fog that coiled between the ancient oaks. Rory pulled her jacket tighter against the November chill and checked her phone—22:47. The screen flickered, signal dropping to nothing as she approached the boundary of the grove. She'd come because Silas asked her to. Well, not asked exactly. He'd slid a folded note across the bar that afternoon, his weathered face more drawn than usual. *Check the grove tonight. Isolde hasn't responded in three days. Just look. Don't go in.* The emphasis on those last words had carved themselves deeper than the cramped handwriting. The pendant beneath her shirt pulsed warm against her collarbone. It had been doing that more frequently lately, irregular heartbeats that matched no pattern she could discern. Rory stepped between two oak stones, their bark rough and ancient under her palm. The air changed. Thicker somehow, like pushing through a curtain made of something heavier than fabric. The sounds of Richmond Park—distant traffic, the occasional night bird—cut off abruptly. Only silence remained. The dense, muffling silence of a world wrapped in cotton wool. Wildflowers bloomed in impossible abundance for the season, their pale petals luminous in the darkness. The clearing stretched before her, circular and perfect, ringed by trees that stood too still. Not even the smallest branch swayed. The fog that had been so thick outside didn't penetrate here. The air lay clear and cold, sharp enough to ache in her lungs. "Isolde?" Her voice fell flat, absorbed by the wrongness pressing in from all sides. Nothing. No one. The pendant's pulse quickened. Rory moved further in, trainers silent on grass that felt more like velvet than vegetation. At the clearing's centre stood a stone table she'd seen before, waist-high and worn smooth by centuries of weather. Or magic. Whatever kept this place caught between worlds. Isolde usually left markers here, small signs that she'd been present—a arrangement of acorns, fresh cuttings from herbs that didn't grow in England. The stone stood bare. She circled it slowly, scanning the darkness between the trees. The clearing wasn't large, perhaps twenty metres across, but the spaces between the oaks seemed to stretch deeper than they should. As if the forest went back and back and never ended at all. A sound. Barely audible. A soft exhalation, breath against leaves. Rory froze. "Isolde?" No response. But something had made that sound. Something with lungs. She turned in a slow circle, hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, fingers wrapped around her phone though she knew it wouldn't work here. Time moved differently in the grove. Silas had warned her about that too. An hour inside could be minutes outside. Or days. The rules bent when you stepped through those oaken gates. Another sound. Closer now. Not quite footsteps. More like fabric dragging across earth. The pendant burned hot enough to make her wince. "I'm just looking for someone." Her words came out steadier than she felt. "I'll leave." The silence that followed felt attentive. Listening. Rory backed toward the standing stones, keeping her eyes on the clearing. The wildflowers seemed taller than they'd been moments ago, their pale heads turning to follow her movement. No wind stirred them. They simply moved, stems bending with deliberate purpose. She'd almost reached the boundary when she saw it. Something stood between two oaks on the far side of the clearing. Too tall to be human. Too still to be anything natural. It didn't quite resolve into a proper shape—her eyes slid off it, refusing to properly focus. But she could sense the mass of it, the weight of its presence. Watching. The pendant pulsed three times in rapid succession, hot enough now to burn. "Christ." She stumbled backwards, hand flying to her chest. The silver chain seared her fingers. Through the thin fabric of her shirt she could see it glowing, that deep crimson light bleeding through the weave like blood through gauze. The thing between the trees moved forward. One step. Two. Still too indistinct to properly perceive, but closer now. Definitively closer. Each movement it made produced that dragging sound, fabric or flesh or something worse scraping across ground that should have been soft with moss and grass. Rory's heel caught on a root. She went down hard, palms scraped raw on ancient stone. One of the standing oaks. She'd backed directly into it, and now the thing in the clearing advanced with terrible purpose. Still silent except for that awful dragging. Still refusing to take proper shape in her vision. The pendant blazed white-hot against her skin. She grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked, snapping the delicate silver links. The Heartstone tumbled into the grass, its crimson glow pulsing faster, brighter, painting the wildflowers red. The thing stopped. For a moment—one terrible, suspended moment—nothing moved. The creature stood at the clearing's centre, looming over the stone table. Rory crouched against the oak, chest heaving, the scent of scorched skin rising from where the pendant had burned her. Then it spoke. Not words. Not anything close to language. A sound like breaking glass run backwards, like screaming played at half-speed and filtered through water. It vibrated in her bones, set her teeth aching, made her eyes water with the wrongness of it. The Heartstone's glow guttered and died. Darkness rushed in. Complete and absolute. The clearing vanished. The impossible stars overhead winked out. Only the creature remained visible—or rather, the absence of light where it stood became somehow darker than the darkness surrounding it. Rory's hand found the oak behind her, bark biting into her palm. She pulled herself up. Ran her fingers along the trunk until she found the gap between stones. The way out. It had to be. Time worked strangely here but space remained constant. She'd entered through these oaks and she could leave through them. The dragging sound resumed. Closer. She squeezed through the gap between standing stones, felt that strange resistance of the boundary, pushed through— And stumbled onto damp earth beneath ordinary oaks. Richmond Park stretched around her in shades of grey and black, lit only by distant streetlamps. Fog curled between the trees. Traffic hummed on the A307. A fox barked somewhere in the darkness. Rory sucked in air that tasted of exhaust and dead leaves and the Thames, beautiful mundane London air. Her chest burned. Her hands shook. Behind her, the standing stones stood silent and dark. She checked her phone. 22:53. Six minutes. She'd been in there six minutes. From deep within the grove, something dragged itself across the earth. Moving toward the boundary. The sound grew louder, more insistent, as if whatever made it had grown bold enough to approach the threshold it had never crossed before. Rory ran.