Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYB1J2BKG7650XF0Y708CGM

Aurora Carter parked her battered Vespa on the gravel edge of Richmond Park, the engine's sputter dying into the night's hush. She killed the headlights, and darkness swallowed the path ahead, thick as ink spilled over the world. The air hung heavy, laced with a sweetness that cloyed her throat—honeysuckle, maybe, but sharper, like fruit left too long in the sun. She had come for the pendant. That faint pulse in her pocket had quickened two nights back, warm against her thigh during a late shift at the Golden Empress. Yu-Fei had noticed her fidgeting, asked if she carried a hot coal, but she brushed it off with a laugh. Now, the map app on her phone had led her here, to this forgotten corner of the park, marked only as "ancient oaks." The pendant's donor remained a ghost—no name, no note, just the silver chain slipped into her delivery bag one foggy morning. She swung her leg over the scooter, boots crunching leaves that shouldn't litter the ground this deep into autumn. Richmond Park sprawled vast during the day, deer grazing under tourists' lenses, but at midnight, the gates locked, and the wild claimed it back. Rory zipped her jacket higher, the chill seeping through denim like fingers probing for weakness. Her wrist itched where the old scar pulled tight, a crescent moon etched from a fall off her father's garden wall as a kid. She shook it off, pocketed her keys, and clicked on the torch from her phone. The beam sliced a narrow cone through the black, illuminating twisted roots that snaked across the earth like veins. The path wound narrow, flanked by brambles that tugged at her sleeves. She pressed on, the pendant's warmth building in her pocket, a steady throb now, like a second heartbeat. Isolde's grove, the old stories called it—whispers from Eva's late-night ramblings after too much gin, tales of a hidden spot where time bent. Rory dismissed them as pub lore, but the pendant's glow had flickered crimson in her flat above Silas's bar, drawing her out. If it pointed to something Fae-touched, as the warmth suggested, maybe answers lay here. Answers to what haunted her dreams since London: shadows that stretched too long, voices murmuring in Welsh she half-remembered from her mother's lessons. Ten minutes in, the trees thickened, their branches interlocking overhead to form a canopy that smothered starlight. The air grew denser, pressing against her skin, and the ground softened underfoot, springy as if layered with moss no boot had ever trod. Wildflowers dotted the edges—violets and lupines, blooming defiant against the season's frost. She paused, sweeping the torch low. Petals gleamed unnaturally vivid, edges shimmering as if edged in frost that didn't melt. A breeze stirred, but no leaves rustled in response. Silence blanketed everything, the kind that amplified her own breath, ragged now in the stillness. She pushed deeper, the path vanishing into a clearing ringed by ancient oaks. Their trunks rose like sentinels, bark etched with patterns that caught her light—swirls resembling runes, or perhaps just the scars of wind and rain. At the center stood stones, not boulders but slabs of oak weathered to mimic granite, upright and evenly spaced, forming a rough circle. The Fae Grove. Her pulse matched the pendant's rhythm, quickening as she crossed the boundary. Inside, the air shifted, warmer, the sweetness blooming into something metallic, like blood mixed with nectar. Rory circled the stones, fingers brushing one. The wood felt alive, pulsing faintly under her touch, warm as flesh. She yanked back, heart slamming. Imagination, she told herself—low blood sugar from skipping dinner. But the pendant burned hotter, and she drew it out, the deep crimson gem catching her torchlight in a faint inner glow. It hung there, thumbnail-sized on its silver chain, no longer just warm but insistent, vibrating against her palm. She scanned the clearing: grass knee-high, dotted with more flowers that swayed without wind, their colors too bright, too wrong for October. A sound broke the quiet—a snap, like a twig underfoot, but from behind the stones. She whipped around, torch beam jerking. Nothing. Just shadow pooling where the oaks met earth. "Hello?" Her voice cracked, swallowed by the grove. No echo returned. She waited, breath held, but the silence pressed back harder, expectant. She moved on, pendant clutched tight. The purpose anchored her: find the source of the pulse, whatever portal or relic it signaled. Hel's domain or Fae whim, she didn't care—answers beat the nightmares. The flowers brushed her jeans as she walked the circle's edge, petals soft as silk but sticking, leaving faint stains like ink on her cuffs. Another sound, softer this time—a rustle, fabric on leaves? No, too dry, like scales shifting over stone. She froze, beam fixed on a gap between stones. The darkness there seemed to deepen, coiling, but when she blinked, it flattened to ordinary night. Her skin prickled, hairs rising along her arms. The air tasted thicker now, laced with that metallic tang, and her scar throbbed in rhythm with the pendant. She pressed forward, weaving through the stones toward the clearing's heart. A low mound rose there, carpeted in clover that glowed faintly phosphorescent. Kneeling, she parted the growth. Beneath lay a flat stone, etched with the same swirling marks as the oaks— a slab perhaps, or an altar. The pendant swung forward, inches above it, and the glow intensified, crimson light bleeding into the etchings like water into parched soil. The rustle came again, closer, circling from her left. Rory's head snapped up. The torch swept wide, catching a flicker at the edge—a shape, tall and thin, melting back into shadow before she could focus. Deer, she thought, heart pounding. The park teemed with them. But deer didn't pause, didn't watch. She stood slowly, beam steady on the spot. Empty. Just brambles and oak bark. The certainty crept in then, slow as fog rolling off the Thames. She wasn't alone. The grove held its breath with her, the flowers still, the stones silent witnesses. Another sound—whisper this time, faint words in a tongue that twisted her gut, half-Gaelic, half-gibberish, slithering from the canopy above. Leaves? No, the branches hung motionless. She tilted her head, torch upward. Shapes darted there, brief as bats, but larger, limbs too jointed, eyes catching the light in silver glints before vanishing. Rory backed toward the stones, pendant tight in her fist. The warmth spread up her arm, comforting yet wrong, like a promise laced with threat. The whispers grew, overlapping, a chorus murmuring her name—Rory, Laila, Aurora—aliases she hadn't voiced aloud in years. Eva's drunken tales flooded back: the grove's boundary thinned at night, pulling the unwary in, where hours stretched to eternities. Time moved differently here, an hour inside minutes or days without. A branch creaked overhead, deliberate, and she spun. Nothing. But the shadows lengthened, stretching from the oaks like fingers inching across the grass. One brushed her boot, or seemed to—cold, insubstantial, yet it sent a shiver racing up her spine. She bolted for the circle's edge, torch bouncing, illuminating petals that now curled as if flinching from her light. The whispers swelled, names twisting into laughter, light and brittle as breaking glass. She reached the first stone, hand slamming against its warmth. Solid, but yielding, like pressing into dough that reformed behind her palm. Panic clawed her throat, but she swallowed it, cool-headed Rory, the one who outthought Evan back in Cardiff, who mapped escape routes in her sleep. Think. The pendant—follow its pull. It led here, so it led out. She held it aloft, the crimson glow painting the stones in ruddy hues, and the whispers stuttered, faltering. But the shapes returned, edging into view now, not at the periphery but bolder. A silhouette detached from an oak, humanoid yet elongated, limbs folding at impossible angles. It didn't advance, merely observed, head tilting as if appraising. Rory's breath hitched. Not deer. Not human. The air hummed, vibrating through her bones, and the metallic scent sharpened, blood and ozone. She edged sideways, keeping the stone at her back. The shape mirrored her, silent, and another peeled from the shadows to her right—shorter, hunched, fingers—claws?—trailing the air. The pendant's pulse raced, warning or urging, she couldn't tell. Whispers resumed, closer, brushing her ear like breath: "Stay, Rory. Time bends for you." Her scar burned, the old wound reopening in her mind's eye, spilling memories of falls and hidden hurts. The grove tightened around her, the circle shrinking, flowers encroaching, their blooms unfurling petals that resembled eyes, watching. She ran then, not toward the path but circling the stones, pendant swinging like a compass. The shapes pursued, not chasing but herding, their forms blurring at the edges, merging with the night. A low moan rose from the ground, the mound in the center splitting with a crack like thunder muffled in cotton. Crimson light spilled from the fissure, matching the pendant, and the whispers peaked in a cacophony of voices—her father's stern tones, her mother's soft songs, Eva's laughter twisted sour. Rory stumbled, torch dropping into clover that swallowed it whole, plunging her into near-blackness save for the gem's glow. The shapes closed in, outlines sharpening: faces elongated, eyes like polished obsidian, mouths lipless and smiling. One reached, fingers grazing her sleeve, cold as grave soil, and the pendant flared, searing her palm. She wrenched free, vision blurring with tears of strain, and dashed between stones. The boundary loomed, oaks parting like a curtain parting for the final act. But the whispers followed, coiling around her ankles, and a hand—real, clammy—brushed her wrist, right over the scar. She screamed, sound lost in the grove's maw, and the world tilted, time folding in on itself.