Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYVR5AFVJBP842V9XZJXWZ

Mist clung to the iron spikes of the Pembroke Lodge gate. Aurora Carter vaulted the metal, the cold biting into her palms, and dropped into the tall grass on the other side. Her boots hit the earth with a dull thud. Usually, the hum of London bled into Richmond Park—the distant drone of Heathrow, the sirens from the South Circular, the endless murmur of the city. Tonight, the silence was absolute. It rushed in to fill the space where the city noise should have been, pressing against her eardrums like deep water. She adjusted her jacket, shivering not from the temperature, but from the sudden isolation. The darkness here had weight. It wasn't just the absence of light; it was a physical presence that swallowed the beam of her small flashlight after only a few yards. Aurora checked the silver chain around her neck. The Heartstone pendant rested against her sternum, pulsing with a rhythmic, faint warmth. A heartbeat that wasn't hers. "Okay," she whispered. The word died instantly, absorbed by the open space. "Just find the stones. Get in, get the answers, get out." She pushed through the bracken. Ferns brushed against her denim jeans, mimicking the sound of whispering voices. She kept her eyes on the ground, navigating the uneven terrain of rabbit holes and tree roots. Her phone showed midnight, but the sky above suggested something far deeper into the night. The moon hung low and sickly pale, illuminating the park in greyscale. A twig snapped. Aurora froze. She spun, bringing the flashlight beam up in a jagged arc. Nothing but ancient oaks and tangled scrub. The trees in this part of Richmond were old, untreated, allowed to rot and twist into gnarled shapes. In the harsh LED light, a hollow in a trunk looked like a screaming mouth; a broken branch resembled a fractured limb. She waited. Her own breath created small clouds of fog that drifted into the beam. "Hello?" Stupid. Horror movie stupid. She clenched her jaw and turned back to the path. The warmth in the Heartstone spiked, a sudden flare of heat that made her wince. She scratched at the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, a nervous tic she hadn't managed to shake since childhood. The path began to curve. The air grew thicker, smelling of ozone and wet decay. The wildflowers that the Codex spoke of—the ones that bloomed year-round in the Grove—were visible now, but they looked wrong. In the daylight, they might have been vibrant purples and yellows. Under this moonlight, they were black and bruised grey, their petals closed tight like fists. She walked faster. The rhythm of her footsteps sounded too loud, crunching on gravel. Then, a second crunch. It came half a beat after hers. An echo. Aurora stopped. Silence. She took a step. *Crunch.* Something behind her took a step. *Crunch.* She whipped around again, the flashlight beam trembling. "Who's there?" The beam illuminated a patch of tall grass twenty feet away. The blades stood still in the windless air. Then, the grass depressed. Not all at once, but systematically, as if an invisible weight were walking toward her. *Crunch.* Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in her chest. She backed away, keeping the light trained on the advancing depression in the grass. "Stay back." Her voice cracked. The crushing sound stopped. The weight shifted. From the darkness to her left, deep in the tree line, a shape detached itself from the shadows. A stag. A red deer, common enough in the park. Aurora let out a breath, her shoulders sagging. "Just a deer," she muttered. "Jesus, Rory. Get a grip." The stag didn't move. It stood perfectly broadside, its massive rack of antlers blending into the branches above. Its eyes reflected the torchlight—two burning orbs of reflective green. It didn't blink. It didn't twitch an ear or stomp a hoof. It stood with the unnatural stillness of a taxidermy mount left in the woods. Then she saw the others. She swung the light left, then right. Dozens of them. Does, fawns, stags. They stood in a perfect circle around the clearing she had walked into. None of them moved. Every single pair of eyes was fixed on her. They weren't grazing. They were waiting. The Heartstone burned hot enough to sting. The boundary of the Grove was close. Aurora took a step backward. The stag nearest to her opened its mouth. No animal sound came out. No grunt, no bell. "Rory," it said. The voice was wet, distorted, like someone speaking with a throat full of blood. It was a man's voice. The cadence was familiar—too familiar. It held the mocking lilt Evan used to have when he’d lock the flat door and pocket the key. Aurora’s blood turned to ice. She stumbled back, her heel catching on a root. "That’s not possible." "Where are you going, Laila?" a doe to her right asked. The voice was different this time—Aurora's mother, but warped, the pitch stretched thin as wire. The circle of deer took a step forward in unison. The sound was a singular, thunderous *thump* against the turf. Aurora didn't wait for them to speak again. She turned and ran. The flashlight beam bounced wildly, illuminating flashes of terror—a tree trunk that looked like skin, a patch of fog that resembled a reaching hand. She abandoned the path, sprinting toward the cluster of ancient oak standing stones that marked the true entrance to Isolde's domain. Behind her, the sounds of pursuit were all wrong. No galloping hooves. It sounded like wet palms slapping against pavement, hundreds of them, moving with terrifying speed. "Rory!" The voice screamed from the darkness, right at her ear. She ducked, swinging her arm blindly. Her hand passed through cold mist. The standing stones loomed ahead, jagged teeth jutting from the earth. The air between them shimmered, a barrier of oil on water. The sanctuary. Aurora lunged for the gap between the two largest oaks. She slammed into the invisible barrier, the impact knocking the wind out of her. It felt like hitting a wall of solid gelatin. It gave, but it didn't break. She clawed at the air, the Heartstone searing her skin now. "Open," she gasped. "Let me in." The slapping sounds stopped. The silence returned, heavier than before. Aurora turned, her back pressed against the yielding, impenetrable barrier of the Grove. She pointed her light into the dark. Ten feet away, something pale crouched on all fours. It had the body of a man, long and emaciated, but its limbs were multi-jointed, bending in places they shouldn't. It wore the head of a stag like a mask, the dead skin draped loosely over its own unseen face. The mask's jaw hung open, limp and rotted. "Found you," the thing whispered, using her own voice. Aurora scrambled sideways, her fingers digging into the bark of the standing stone. The barrier behind her rippled, refusing to admit her. The thing on the ground twitched, its shoulder dislocating with a wet pop to allow it to reach further. It didn't lunge. It just watched, savoring the distance. "Isolde!" Aurora screamed, hammering her fist against the empty air between the stones. "Open the damn door!" The creature rose to its hind legs. It stood seven feet tall, blocking out the pale moon. It raised a hand—fingers too long, too many joints—and pointed a single digit at her chest, right at the glowing crimson pendant. "Mine," it rasped.