Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY7HEW90RPSSBT0DTYY5JS4

Aurora Carter gripped the steering wheel tighter as she navigated the winding paths of Richmond Park, the city's glow fading into a distant haze behind her. It was past midnight, and the autumn chill seeped through the cracked window of her battered Fiat, carrying the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves. She shouldn't be out here—not after a twelve-hour shift dodging traffic and cranky customers for Yu-Fei at the Golden Empress—but the pendant had demanded it. Tucked beneath her collar, the Heartstone warmed against her skin like a feverish pulse, its deep crimson glow seeping through her shirt in faint, insistent throbs. It had started that afternoon, right after she'd delivered a bag of dim sum to a woman who wouldn't meet her eyes, whispering something about "old debts" before slamming the door. Rory wasn't one for superstitions. Born and raised in the orderly chaos of Cardiff, with a barrister father who dissected fairy tales like legal precedents and a mother who recited Welsh poetry over Sunday roasts, she'd always favored logic. But the pendant—given to her by that shadowy figure in the alley behind Silas' bar months ago, no name, no explanation—had a way of upending her certainties. It had led her out of Evan's grip once, a sudden heat warning her to run before his fists could land again. Now, it tugged her toward this place, a pinprick on the map she'd found tucked into her glove compartment: The Fae Grove, marked with a crude sketch of ancient oaks. She parked at the edge of the park, the engine's rumble dying into silence that pressed against her ears. The lot was empty, the sodium lamps flickering like hesitant heartbeats. Rory slipped the pendant's silver chain over her head, letting it dangle openly now, its thumbnail-sized gem catching the moonlight in a way that made her squint. She locked the car, the beep echoing too loudly, and slung her backpack over one shoulder—torch, water bottle, a pocket knife from her delivery runs. Just in case. Her black hair, straight and shoulder-length, whipped across her face as a gust swept through, and she tucked it behind her ear, feeling the small crescent scar on her left wrist itch under the cool air. The path into the park was a gravel vein snaking between skeletal oaks, their branches clawing at the starless sky. Rory's trainers crunched softly, but the sound seemed muffled, as if the ground swallowed it whole. She consulted the map again under the beam of her phone's light: head west past the deer enclosure, look for the standing stones. The air grew thicker the deeper she went, laced with an unfamiliar sweetness—like wildflowers in bloom, which was impossible this time of year. Her breath fogged briefly, then dissipated without warmth. It started subtly, that off-kilter tilt to the world. The gravel path veered left when the map said right, but Rory pressed on, trusting the pendant's heat, which now radiated like a coal against her sternum. She emerged into a clearing ringed by massive oaks, their trunks twisted into shapes that suggested faces frozen in mid-scream. No, not oaks—standing stones, she realized, their bark etched with runes that gleamed faintly under the moon. The Fae Grove. Wildflowers carpeted the ground, petals unfurling in shades of violet and crimson, nodding as if in a breeze she couldn't feel. Time moved differently here, the note had said. An hour inside could be minutes or days outside. Rory glanced at her watch: 12:47. She stepped forward, crossing the boundary. The world inhaled. At first, it was the silence. The distant hum of London traffic, the rustle of leaves—gone. Replaced by a profound quiet, broken only by her own footsteps on the soft grass. The flowers brushed her jeans, their petals cool and silken, releasing a pollen that dusted her hands like fine ash. She knelt, examining one: impossible, these blooms belonged to spring, not October's frost. The pendant pulsed hotter, urging her deeper into the clearing. Why here? The anonymous note had hinted at answers—about the pendant's origin, Dymas, whatever that meant—but now, alone in this pocket of unreality, doubt crept in. What if it was a trap? Evan had friends in low places; maybe this was his idea of revenge, luring her out to— A snap. Like a twig underfoot, but she hadn't moved. Rory froze, her blue eyes scanning the treeline. Nothing. Just shadows pooling at the base of the stones, deeper than they should be. She straightened, heart kicking up a notch, and clicked on her torch. The beam sliced through the dark, illuminating petals that seemed to recoil from the light, curling inward. Ridiculous. Her mind was playing tricks, fatigue from the endless deliveries blurring the edges. She walked on, circling the clearing's center, where a flat stone altar squatted like a forgotten tombstone, moss-cloaked and etched with the same runes. The air shifted. A whisper, faint as silk tearing, slithered through the flowers. Wind? But the petals lay still. Rory tilted her head, listening. It came again, from the oaks—soft, sibilant, like voices murmuring in a language half-remembered from her mother's lullabies. Welsh? No, older, twisting around vowels that pulled at her gut. She swung the torch, the beam jittering across bark that looked... wrong. The grooves in the wood moved, subtle as veins under skin, pulsing in time with her pendant. She touched the gem; it burned her fingertips, not painfully, but insistently, like a warning. "Okay, Rory," she muttered to herself, voice swallowed by the grove. "Think. Out of the box." Her father's lessons: assess, adapt. The pendant had brought her here for a reason—perhaps to find a Hel portal, whatever that was. The note mentioned pulses near such places. She edged toward the altar, gravel—no, it was grass now, soft as carpet—cushioning her steps. At the edge of her vision, something flickered: a shadow detaching from the stone, tall and slender, melting back into the dark before she could turn. She did turn, torch sweeping wide. Empty. But the whisper returned, closer, threading through the flowers like roots seeking soil. It shaped words now, or the illusion of them: her name. Rory. Laila—no, that was an alias she'd used once, fleeing Evan. How? Paranoia, she chided herself, rubbing her scar for grounding. The wrist mark from that childhood fall off the swing in Cardiff, a reminder of clumsier days. Solid. Real. Deeper into the grove she went, the standing stones looming taller, their branches interlacing overhead to form a canopy that blotted the moon. The path narrowed, flowers giving way to a mist that coiled at her ankles, cool and cloying, tasting of salt on her tongue when she breathed it in. Time—her watch read 12:49. Only two minutes? But her legs ached like she'd hiked for hours. The pendant glowed brighter, its crimson light painting the mist in bloody hues. She followed it, drawn to a hollow beneath the largest oak, where the ground dipped into a pool of shadow. There, the sounds built. Not whispers now, but rustles—dry, like paper scraping stone. From the corner of her eye, petals stirred without wind, lifting in a lazy spiral before settling. She paused, torch beam trembling. "Hello?" The word hung, absurd in the stillness. No echo, no answer. But the rustles multiplied, circling her, from behind, to the left, right—always just beyond sight. Shadows lengthened, stretching from the stones like fingers probing the dark. Rory's pulse thrummed in her ears, cool head fraying at the edges. She wasn't alone. The certainty settled in her bones, heavier than the mist. Something watched from the periphery, patient, waiting for her to notice. She backed away from the hollow, torch cutting erratic paths. A shape—humanoid, perhaps—flitted at the beam's edge, gone when she focused. The whispers coalesced: Aurora... come... deeper... The pendant scalded now, yanking her forward like a leash. She resisted, spinning to face the altar again. The flowers there writhed, stems twisting into knots that resembled hands, grasping at the air. Her breath came shallow, the air thickening, pressing on her chest. How long had she been here? Watch: 12:50. Impossible. Outside, dawn must be breaking, Silas opening his bar below her flat, wondering where she'd vanished to. Eva would worry, phoning from Cardiff. A step. Not hers. Gravel—no, the ground was stone now, unyielding—crunched softly to her left. She whirled, torch illuminating only empty space, but the mist swirled in her wake, as if displaced by a body. The shape returned, fuller this time: elongated limbs, a head tilted in curiosity, hovering at the treeline before dissolving into bark. Not wind. Not imagination. The grove breathed with her, in her, the standing stones leaning inward, runes pulsing like the pendant. She ran then—not blindly, but toward the boundary, logic screaming escape. The flowers clawed at her jeans, thorns she hadn't seen drawing pinpricks of blood that welled and vanished into the soil. Whispers chased her: Rory... stay... time is yours... The rustles flanked her, shadows multiplying, brushing her arms with feather-light touches that raised gooseflesh. The pendant swung wildly, its glow illuminating faces in the mist—pale, eyeless, mouthing her aliases: Laila, Malphora. The boundary stones rushed up, but the path looped, spitting her back into the clearing's heart. Watch: 12:51. An eternity compressed. She staggered to the altar, hands splaying on its mossy surface for balance. Cold stone, etched deep: a warning? A map? The whispers drowned her thoughts, the shadows closing in—no longer at the edges, but encircling, forms solidifying into silhouettes that mirrored her stance, her scar, her fear. She wasn't alone. They were here, born of the grove's fold between worlds, hungry for the warmth she carried—the pendant's fire, her fleeting mortality. Rory clutched the gem, its heat her anchor, and whispered back, voice steady despite the terror: "Show yourselves." The mist surged, and the faces turned fully toward her, eyes blooming like the impossible flowers—watching, waiting, eternal.