Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYA0CGR5W77FC0J5HWYPV8Y

The air in Richmond Park was thick with the scent of damp earth and something older—something that clung to the back of Rory’s throat like a held breath. She adjusted the strap of her crossbody bag, the Heartstone pendant pressing cool against her collarbone, its faint pulse barely noticeable beneath her fingers. The standing stones loomed ahead, their gnarled oaks twisting like skeletal fingers against the bruised twilight sky. She’d been here before, but never like this. Never at night. The Grove wasn’t supposed to be like this. Rory stepped past the boundary, her boots sinking slightly into the soft earth. The moment her toes crossed the threshold, the world seemed to exhale. The air grew warmer, thick with the sweet, cloying perfume of wildflowers that bloomed in impossible profusion—petals the color of spilled wine and silver, their edges glistening with dew that hadn’t fallen from any sky she recognized. The standing stones hummed, a low vibration that resonated in her bones, like the plucked string of some instrument buried deep in the earth. She told herself it was just the pendant. The Heartstone had been acting strange all evening, its warmth flickering like a dying ember. That was why she’d come. To test it. To see if it would react to the Grove the way it did near the Hel portals back in London—the way it had that one night when she’d nearly walked into something she wasn’t meant to see. Rory pulled out her phone, the screen casting a sickly green glow over her face. The time read 10:47 PM. She pocketed it. Time didn’t work the same here. An hour could stretch into days, or a minute could bleed into forever. She’d learned that the hard way. She moved deeper into the clearing, her breath steady, her pulse too fast. The Grove was quiet. Too quiet. No crickets. No rustling leaves. No distant laughter from park-goers or the occasional bark of a fox. Just the whisper of wind through branches that shouldn’t have been there, branches that twisted in ways that made her skin prickle. Rory stopped. Something had shifted. She turned slowly, her fingers tightening around the pendant. The Heartstone was warm now, almost hot, its glow pulsing faintly beneath her palm. She shouldn’t have felt it so strongly here. The Grove wasn’t a Hel portal. It wasn’t even supposed to be *connected* to the Hel realm, not like that. Then she saw it. A figure stood between the trees, just at the edge of her vision. Tall. Too tall. Its limbs were long, its movements fluid, unnatural. Rory’s breath hitched. She told herself it was a trick of the light, a shadow playing games with her eyes. But when she blinked, the figure didn’t vanish. It tilted its head, and for a heartbeat, she swore she saw eyes—black, endless, like pools of oil. Rory backed up, her heel catching on a root. She stumbled, nearly falling, and the pendant burned against her skin. The figure didn’t move. Didn’t speak. It just *watched*. She swallowed hard. “Hello?” Her voice sounded too loud in the sudden silence. No answer. Rory’s pulse roared in her ears. She should leave. Now. Before whatever this was decided she was worth its attention. She turned, her boots crunching over fallen leaves that hadn’t been there a second ago, and broke into a run. The Grove twisted around her. Paths she’d just traversed now stretched impossibly long, the trees bending to form corridors that shouldn’t have existed. The air thickened, pressing against her skin like wet silk. She could feel it behind her, just out of sight, its breath hot against the nape of her neck. The Heartstone pulsed in time with something she couldn’t name, its heat searing through the fabric of her shirt. Rory skidded to a halt, pressing her back against the rough bark of an oak. Her fingers dug into the pendant, willing it to give her answers. *What is this place?* A sound. Not from the trees. Not from behind her. From *above*. She looked up. The branches of the oak stretched higher than they should have, their leaves blackened at the edges, curling like burned paper. Something moved in the canopy—a shape, a shift in the dark. Then another. And another. Dozens of them, watching. Waiting. Rory’s breath came in shallow gasps. She could run. She could keep running until her legs gave out. But she knew, deep in her gut, that the Grove wouldn’t let her leave. Not like this. She reached into her bag, her fingers closing around the small silver flask she kept there. Not whiskey. Not gin. Something else. Something Eva had given her before Rory had left Cardiff, before everything had gone wrong. A vial of salted water, blessed by a woman who’d once dabbled in things Rory didn’t want to understand. Rory uncorked the flask and hurled it at the base of the nearest tree. The moment the liquid hit the earth, the Grove *screamed*. The sound wasn’t in her ears. It was in her bones, a vibration that shook her teeth, that made her vision swim. The trees shuddered. The flowers wilted in an instant, their petals crumbling to dust. The figure between the trees—if it had ever been real—vanished, as if it had never existed at all. Rory didn’t wait to see if it came back. She ran. The boundary stones loomed ahead, their edges sharp in the fading light. She didn’t slow down until her boots hit the pavement of Richmond Park, until the air around her lost its unnatural warmth, until the scent of damp earth replaced the cloying sweetness of the Grove. She didn’t stop until she was gasping on the sidewalk, her hands braced on her knees, the Heartstone cold against her skin. Something had been in the Grove with her. And it had been waiting.