Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8X0VSBS91V23YA1FRAXV7R

**Draft Response:** The ancient oak standing stones were darker than the night around them. Rory placed a hand against the nearest one, the bark rough and cold under her palm. The air in the clearing tasted different—thick with the scent of blooming wildflowers despite the late hour, a sweetness that clung to the back of her throat. She had waited until the park was empty, until the last dog walker’s torchlight had vanished over the hill. The Heartstone pendant hung heavy against her sternum, a constant, quiet weight. It hadn’t pulsed since she’d passed through the stones, but the silence felt like a held breath. “Just a place,” she whispered. Her voice was swallowed by the grove. “A weird, hidden place.” Eva’s voice echoed in her memory, sharp with concern over a static-filled phone line. “You’re not going back to that park at night, Rory. That’s how urban legends start.” “It’s not an urban legend. Silas showed me the police reports. Three people in the last year, all last seen near Richmond Grove. They vanished.” “And you think a magical necklace is going to explain that? You sound like him.” Rory’s fingers tightened around the pendant. The chain bit into her skin. She hadn’t sounded like Evan. Evan’s obsessions were possessive, jealous, a closed fist. This was a thread, a single line of logic she couldn’t ignore. The pendant warmed near portals. People vanished here. The connection was a hook in her mind. A soft crunch came from her left. She froze. The sound was dry, like a footstep on brittle leaves. The grove’s floor was a carpet of moss and soft grass. No leaves. She turned her head slowly. Between the thick trunks of the boundary oaks, shadows layered upon shadows. Nothing moved. The wildflowers nodded in a breeze she couldn’t feel. “Animal,” she said, forcing her shoulders down. “Fox. Badger.” Her own reasoning sounded thin. The air was too still for a breeze, yet the flowers swayed in a gentle, rhythmic wave. As if something had just passed through them. The pendant gave a single, distinct throb of heat. Rory’s breath hitched. She cupped the crimson stone in her hand. It was warm, not burning, but alive. A faint inner glow seeped between her fingers, painting her skin a sickly watered-down red. Another crunch. This one closer, from behind the standing stone to her right. She spun, heart hammering against her ribs. The stone was a monolith of blackness. Nothing there. But the space around it… the darkness seemed deeper. It drank the faint starlight. “Hello?” The word left her before she could stop it. No answer. Just the sigh of the flowers. Then, a whisper. It wasn’t a word. It was the suggestion of sound, a brush of air against her ear that carried the cadence of speech. She jerked her head around. Empty air. *You’re imagining it. Stress. Lack of sleep.* The lawyerly part of her mind, her father’s gift, began cataloging evidence. *Subjective sensory input. No corroborating data.* The pendant pulsed again, a slow, steady beat like a second heart. The glow intensified. A figure flickered at the edge of her vision. A tall, narrow impression between two distant trees. When she snapped her gaze toward it, there was only trunk and shadow. “I see you,” she lied, her voice steadier than she felt. Cool-headed. Think. What did she know? The grove was a border. Time moved wrong here. An hour inside could be minutes outside. Or days. How long had she been here? She fumbled for her phone. The screen was black, unresponsive. The time read 00:00. The battery icon was full, but the device was dead. A cold trickle traced her spine. The whisper came again, clearer this time. It curled around a word she almost understood. It sounded like her name. Not “Rory.” Not “Aurora.” Something older. A vibration in the air that resonated in the hollow of her teeth. *Malphora.* She didn’t know that name. She had never heard it. The flowers to her left suddenly bent, pressed down as if by an invisible weight. The depression moved, a slow, deliberate path leading toward her. No sound of footsteps. Just the silent yielding of blossoms. Rory took a step back. Her heel sank into soft earth. The standing stones formed a loose circle. She was near the center. The path of bent flowers was coming from the tree line. Another depression appeared in the moss to her right, then another directly ahead. Converging. “Okay.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “Okay. You’re here. What do you want?” The whispers coalesced. They weren’t in her ears anymore. They were in the rustle of the leaves above, in the creak of the ancient oaks, in the very soil under her feet. A chorus of faint, hungry voices speaking over each other in a language of sighs and cracks. *…came through the stones…* *…wears the key…* *…the blood is strong…* *…Malphora…* The pendant was hot now, a brand against her skin. Its crimson light spilled out, illuminating the trampled flowers, the deep green moss, the base of the standing stones. In that blood-red glow, she saw them. Footprints. Dozens of them. Etched into the moss as if by great pressure. They encircled her. Some were small, like a child’s bare feet. Others were long and twisted, with too many toes. They all faced inward. Toward her. They had been there the whole time. She just hadn’t seen them in the dark. The whispers stopped. The grove fell into a silence so absolute it pressed against her eardrums. The flowers stood still. No wind. No rustle. Nothing. From the deepest shadow between the stones, a shape detached itself. It didn’t walk. It unfolded. Tall, impossibly slender, a cut-out of deeper night. It had no features, just a suggestion of a head, of long, spindling limbs. It stood at the edge of the circle of footprints, watching her. Rory’s hand clenched around the Heartstone. The heat was nearly unbearable. The light flared, and for a fraction of a second, she saw it clearly. A face, long and pale like a birch trunk. Eyes that were not eyes, but pools of starless dark. A smile that was a crack in the world. Then the light died back, and the figure was just a shadow again. But it was closer. It had taken a step without moving. The certainty was a physical weight in her chest, cold and solid. She was not alone. She had never been alone from the moment she stepped through the stones. They had been waiting. They had been watching. And they had called her by a name she did not know.