Run: 2026-02-19-01KHVPMVWEMX9SJB6CJB1XR9B7

Richmond Park vanishes the moment Rory steps between the ancient oak standing stones. The transformation offers no bridge. The heavy grind of night traffic rolling down the A3 cuts off. The crisp chill of a London winter dies, replaced instantly by a suffocating, heavy warmth. The air pressure spikes, popping her eardrums. Rory forces a swallow, blinking against the sudden assault on her senses. The Fae Grove refuses to obey the natural laws of the city she left behind. A bruised, starless twilight filters through an impossible canopy overhead. Wildflowers carpet the forest floor beneath her boots, a chaotic sea of color defying the season. Feverish yellows, aggressive crimsons, and sickly purples thrive in the humid dark. The scent of them coats her throat, a dense mixture of sweet honeysuckle and the rotting, metallic tang of old wet copper. Rory rubs her thumb across the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. The skin marks a childhood accident back in Cardiff. It serves as a physical anchor in a place where reality bends. The Heartstone lies heavy against her collarbone. Through her thick jacket, the thumbnail-sized gem radiates a steady, uncomfortable heat. She pulls the artifact free from her collar, letting the silver chain wrap around her knuckles. A deep crimson light bleeds out of the gem. The glow throbs against her palm. One slow pulse, followed by another. A rhythmic warning. The artifact serves as a compass. The heat signifies close proximity to a Hel portal. That logic drove her here tonight. She parked her scooter, leaving behind her delivery shift for Yu-Fei Cheung’s Golden Empress, trading the concrete safety of the restaurant for the unpredictable magic of Isolde’s hidden pocket dimension. The grove acts as a bridge between Earth and the Fae. The pendant reacts to darker thresholds. "Chart the tear. Find the source. Get out." Rory pitches her voice to break the silence. The grove swallows the sound. The words die inches from her mouth, absorbed by the dense atmosphere. She looks down at her wrist. The second hand of her watch stutters backward, catches on the twelve, and stops entirely. Time warps inside the standing stones. Hours spent walking among these ancient oaks shape-shift into mere minutes on the outside. Or worse, a five-minute detour traps the wanderer for days. The unknown variable twists a knot of cold dread deep in her gut. She drops her arm. Rory pushes deeper into the clearing. Her black boots crush a cluster of violet bellflowers. A thick, milky sap bleeds from the snapped stems, slicking the soles of her shoes. The pendant flares hot against her palm. The deep crimson light stretches further, painting the tree trunks the color of fresh blood. She pauses mid-stride. The crunch of broken stems continues. Step. Step. A deliberate pause. Rory freezes, her bright blue eyes darting toward the distant treeline. The noise did not echo from a distance. It rang out ten feet to her left, mimicking her exact weight and stride. She strains her ears. The clearing remains tomb-quiet. The thick canopy overhead refuses to sway. The air hangs completely dead. She commands her rigid muscles to relax. She forces a breath through her nose, demanding her racing heart slow down. She lowers her boot, pressing it into the damp earth. An identical footfall lands heavy behind her right shoulder. Rory pivots, dropping her center of gravity into a defensive half-crouch. She sweeps the crimson beam of the pendant across the gnarled oak trunks. Rough bark. Saturated flowers. The curtain of bruised twilight. Nothing stands among the timber. "I hear you." That is an empty threat. She carries no weapon, clutching only a piece of glowing Dymas rock. Intelligence and quick thinking saved her from her abusive ex Evan, but manipulation and sociopathy obey human rules. The Fae Grove operates outside reason. A patch of darkness shifts at the extreme boundary of her peripheral vision. She snaps her head to the right. The gap between two massive trunks holds only undisturbed shadows. She stares at the void, her lungs burning, refusing to blink. Movement registers on her left. A silhouette slides behind a thick oak trunk. It moves without the rigid constraints of human joints, pouring from one patch of darkness to another like spilled oil. Rory locks her gaze straight ahead. The air pressure drops a second time. A metallic taste floods her gums. The void detaches from the wood. It refuses to step out into the clearing. Instead, the shape bleeds onto the carpet of flowers, pooling and stretching upward into a jagged, towering verticality. Rory stares, her mind stripping gears, rejecting the geometry in front of her. The entity possesses no defined edges. It consumes the ambient red light, manifesting as a literal hole cut out of the fabric of the woods. The Heartstone sears her flesh. Rory gasps, dropping the heavy gem. It bounces against her chest, burning through the thick cotton of her shirt. The intense, blistering heat broadcasts immediate proximity. The portal stands open. Something crossed the threshold. Rory tracks the movement. The absence of light drifts parallel to her path, slipping effortlessly behind another thick trunk. It circles her to take measure of its prey. She eases backward. Her heel catches an exposed, moss-slick root. She throws her arms out, regaining her balance, keeping her line of sight locked onto the trees. Another heavy crunch of boots strikes the earth. To her left. A violent snapping of branches erupts to her right. The mimicry shreds her calm. The sounds replicate the panicked tempo of her own heart, twisting the audio into a dozen overlapping echoes. The unseen watcher traps her inside her own escalating fear. Rory abandons the search pattern and retreats toward the entrance of the grove. She visualizes the pathway in her head. Past the cluster of yellow blooms, around the split trunk, straight through the ring of standing stones. The exit requires immediate speed. She turns. A solid wall of woven bark blocks her path. Rory stumbles backward, her shoulder slamming into a low branch. The landscape rearranged itself behind her back. The boundary markers vanished entirely. A fortified maze of overgrown roots and tangled, thorny brambles seals off every possible exit route. The unnatural wildflowers stretch out in all directions, an unbroken sea of color mocking the darkness. The Heartstone pulses with violent torque, vibrating hard enough to rattle her ribs. The glow flashes frantic and erratic. A low, wet slithering noise breaches the silence. Dragging flesh sliding over damp leaves and broken stems. Rory clenches her jaw. She shifts her weight onto the balls of her feet, preparing to throw herself into the dense brush. She scans the shadows, searching for any break in the solid wall of timber. The slithering noise halts. A breath grazes the shell of her ear. The air carries the distinct stench of stagnant marsh water and old copper. "Rory." The voice belongs to Jennifer Carter. The mimicry catches her mother's specific Welsh lilt flawlessly, but the cadence falls flat. The sound lacks a soul. A recorded audio file played through a rotting throat. Rory rips herself away from the invisible speaker, throwing her back against the nearest oak. The rough bark bites deep through her jacket. She sweeps her gaze across the empty space inches from her nose. "Show yourself." The dark void detaches from the heavy branch directly over her head. It drops without a sound, a chaotic mass of elongated limbs and sharp, impossible angles folding together. The shape eclipses the bruised twilight above. White, lidless eyes ignite within the black cavity, reflecting the frantic, deep crimson pulsing of the pendant trapped against her chest. Rory presses her spine deep into the unyielding wood. The artifact hits a branding-iron temperature, burning a new mark into her skin. The creature twitches. A low, rhythmic thud echoes from within the mass of shadows. The noise captures the exact frantic speed of her own racing heart, amplifying the terrified pulse until it consumes the entire grove.