Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYY2YR3YKBZM9113X4EDS7

Rory checked her watch for the tenth time. The digital face flickered and died. Just like the torch on her phone had, moments ago. A block of frost had coated the screen. She stood in the center of the circle of ancient oak stones, breath puffing in the frigid night air. Richmond Park was usually a sanctuary, a winding maze of deer and sprawling parkland, but this stretch felt wrong. The air here didn't smell like pine or damp earth. It smelled of iron and something sickly sweet, like crushed honeysuckle left to rot in the sun. The Heartstone pendant against her chest felt warm. Hot, actually. Usually, it was a cold weight. A piece of silver and crimson glass given to her by a man who vanished in a cloud of hospital hallways. It glowed faintly then. Not now. It burned. A dull, radiating heat seeped through the fabric of her coat, warming the skin of her sternum. *Wrong.* Rory tightened her grip on the canvas delivery bag slung across her shoulder. Inside sat a carton of late-night dumplings for a flat above Silas' bar. That flat. That life. Usually, a twenty-minute cycle was all it took. One ride up the crowded stairs of the tenement, a thirty-second conversation about the weather, and a twenty-minute ride back. She had spent three hours trying to find the correct footpath. The park map on her dead phone had only shown a dense cluster of trees marked as "restricted area." No fences. No warning signs. Just the smell of rot and the pull of the stones. She looked down. The grass beneath her boots wasn't dead. It was a riot of color. Purple and gold wildflowers choked the dirt path, defying the late November frost. They swayed in a breeze that she couldn't feel on her cheeks. "Okay," she whispered. The sound felt brittle in the damp air. "Rory. Focus." She took a step forward. Her boot crunched. Not on dead leaves, but on something hard. Bone. The path was littered with white fragments, polished smooth by the passage of something massive and soft. She shuddered, adjusting her black hair. The straight strands fell across her face, hiding the crescent-shaped scar on her wrist. Her breath hitched. She dragged her hair back, forcing herself to look ahead. The trees here didn't touch the sky. They grew low, tangled roots lifting the earth like knotted fingers. The canopy was so thick it blocked the moonlight, leaving the grove in a perpetual, bruised twilight. The heat from the pendant suddenly spiked, shooting a sharp jolt to her collarbone. She stopped. "Hello?" Her voice echoed, bounced off the stone circles, and came back distorted. It sounded like a stranger’s voice. Rory spun around, scanning the gloom. Just shadows. Leaves. "She would have known," she muttered to herself. "The ex. The one who talked about... about not going too deep into the trees." She shoved the thought away. Panic wasn't helpful. Silas said the gardeners couldn't reach the grove; the roots entangled the lawn mowers and rusted the blades. But he also said the time distortion was a myth. That the Fae were just stories used to scare kids away from the woods. Her phone had died at the gate. Her watch had stopped. But she had a feeling. A gut instinct that tightened into a vice. The pendant burned her skin now. It pulsed, a rhythmic thumping against her sternum. Thump. Thump. Thump. Rory turned back to the open path leading into the heart of the grove. The flowers parted as she walked, bowing not to the wind, but to her movement. They smelled stronger now. Cloying. Enfolding her in a thick, choking perfume. A sound came from her left. The dry, snapping of a twig. Rory flinched, her hand flying to the strap of her bag. She whirled. Nothing. Just a phantom tree, its bark bleached white and glowing with a faint bioluminescence. She exhaled, a long shaky breath. The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was dense. It pressed against her ears. If she listened hard enough, she could hear the slow, wet sounds of something breathing in the dark. Click. Drag. Click. The sound was close. Coming from somewhere behind her. Maybe on the other side of the stones she had just crossed. Rory took a step backward. Her heel caught on a root. She stumbled, losing her balance for a fraction of a second before catching herself against a rough oak trunk. The pendant flared blindingly hot, almost searing her. She gasped, tearing the pendant away from her clothes. The silver chain felt like it was on fire. The crimson gemstone inside churned, glowing with a violent, angry light that bathed the surrounding darkness in deep red. In that light, the shadows in the trees didn't look like trees anymore. They looked like limbs. Long, spindly arms reaching out from the dark. Rory backed away until her spine pressed against the cold stone of the outer circle. "Back off," she said, her voice trembling but pitching up in an attempt at authority. "I know who you are." Silence answered. Then, a voice. It didn't come from a direction. It came from inside her head, or from the hollow of her own chest. It was the sound of wind rattling dry bones. *Guest.* The word was insistent, a drip of sludge into her mind. The heat of the pendant intensified, turning her skin clammy and slick. It was pulling her forward. Not away from the danger, but *into* it. Rory looked at the opening in the stone circle. The path was still there, straight and inviting, leading to a clearing where the ground was carpeted in flowers of a color that didn't exist in the real world. "Stop it," she snarled. She slapped the pendant with her free hand, trying to quell the glowing heat. The metal burned, turning her palm red. She dropped it into her pocket, cradling her hand. The red light from the pocket pulsed in time with her hammering heart. A twig snapped again. Closer this time. Barely ten feet away. Rory froze. Her eyes darted to the space between two large boulders. The shadows there were deep, darker than the rest of the forest. They moved. They shifted. A shape coalesced out of the darkness. Large. Lanky. Standing perfectly still despite the lack of wind. She stared at it. Her mind refused to process what she was seeing. It had no distinct features—just a shifting smear of void-like darkness against the forest floor. But she knew it was watching her. She could feel the weight of eyes, hundreds of them, burning into her back. She reached for the pocket where she kept her delivery knife, but she never drew it out. The shadow stepped into the ring of the pendant’s light. It stood on two legs, its elongated arms swaying at unnatural angles. The creature tilted its head, a motion that felt too fluid, too liquid. It opened its mouth, revealing a cavernous maw lined with too many teeth. It didn't roar. It didn't speak. It made a sound like wet flesh tearing. Rory backed up against the far stone. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The pendant in her pocket throbbed, a constant, nagging rhythm of danger. The creature extended a long, spindly finger. It didn't touch her, but the air itself seemed to sing when it did. A warning? A promise? The wrongness of the place hit her like a physical blow. The time wasn't just passing differently. It was flowing backward. The creature let out a sound—a low, guttural murmur of delight. Then, the first bloom of the wildflowers by her feet turned from purple to black, withering in seconds.