Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYAJTE3W6RXT0XXNMW62KV4

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 half-remembered dream. She adjusted the strap of her backpack, the weight of the pendant tucked inside pressing against her ribs. The Heartstone. It had led her here, or so she’d been told. A pulse of warmth against her palm when she’d held it near the standing stones, just before they’d dissolved into mist. Now, standing beneath the skeletal branches of the ancient oaks, she wondered if she’d been foolish to trust it. The Grove wasn’t supposed to be like this. She’d expected wildflowers, maybe the hum of unseen insects, the kind of quiet that invited rest. Instead, the silence was too perfect, too *clean*, like the world had been scrubbed of sound. Rory exhaled slowly, her breath curling in the cold night air. The standing stones loomed at the edge of the clearing, their surfaces slick with something that wasn’t quite moss. She’d read about the Grove in Eva’s old journals—how time bent here, how the Fae left their mark in the dappled light. But this? This wasn’t Fae. This was something else. A twig snapped. Rory froze. The sound had come from the trees, but not from the direction of the path she’d taken. She turned slowly, her fingers brushing the pendant through her shirt. The Heartstone was warm now, almost hot, but not in the way it had been near the portal. This was different. This was *wrong*. “Hello?” Her voice sounded too loud in the stillness. No answer. Just the whisper of wind through leaves that shouldn’t have been moving. She should leave. She should turn and run back the way she’d come, before whatever was here realized she was standing in its space. But the pendant burned against her skin, and she knew—knew with a certainty that settled in her gut like a stone—that she couldn’t. Not yet. Rory stepped deeper into the clearing, her boots sinking slightly into the damp earth. The wildflowers here were too perfect, their petals too bright, like they’d been painted on. She crouched, brushing her fingers over one. The petals didn’t crumble. They didn’t *breathe*. They just *were*, frozen in some unnatural stillness. A shadow moved at the edge of her vision. She whirled, heart hammering, but there was nothing there. Just the trees, their branches twisting into shapes that almost—*almost*—looked like hands. Rory swallowed hard. She was imagining things. It had to be the pendant. The thing was playing tricks on her. She reached into her backpack, pulling out the small flashlight Eva had given her before she left. The beam cut through the dark, illuminating the path ahead. The light wavered. For a second, it caught on something—something *moving*—before it darted away, too fast to be an animal. Rory’s breath hitched. “What the hell—?” A sound. Not a snap this time. Not a rustle. A *laugh*. It came from the trees, high and childlike, but wrong in a way that made her skin crawl. She spun, flashlight sweeping the undergrowth, but the darkness swallowed the sound whole. There was nothing. Just the Grove, just the wrongness of it all. She should have turned back when she had the chance. The pendant grew hotter. Rory fumbled with the clasp, nearly dropping it in her haste. The moment it left her skin, the warmth vanished, replaced by a cold that seeped into her bones. The air thickened. The flowers around her began to *twist*, their petals curling inward like fingers. “No,” she breathed. The laughter came again, closer this time. Closer than it should have been. Rory backed away, her heel catching on something soft. She looked down. A hand. Pale. Too long. The fingers were curled into the earth, as if someone had been digging. She stumbled back, the flashlight clattering to the ground. The beam flickered, casting long, skeletal shadows that stretched and *reached* for her. The trees groaned, their branches bending low, not with wind, but with *intent*. Something was coming. Rory didn’t wait to see what. She turned and ran, her pulse roaring in her ears. The path was there—she could see it, just ahead. She lunged for it, her fingers scraping bark as she pushed past the gnarled roots. Behind her, the Grove *shifted*. The standing stones pulsed, their surfaces rippling like water. The laughter followed her, a chorus now, high and sweet and *hungry*. She didn’t look back. The pendant was still in her hand. She clutched it, pressing it to her chest as if it could shield her. The warmth was back, but it wasn’t comforting. It was a warning. The path opened into the park proper, the normal world waiting just beyond the trees. Rory didn’t stop running until she was clear of the Grove’s edge, until the standing stones were nothing but a blur behind her. Only then did she dare to breathe. She didn’t look back. Not even when the laughter faded into silence. Not even when the flowers in the Grove began to bloom in colors that didn’t exist.