AI The cold knot tightened in Rory's stomach , twisting further each time a twig snapped behind her. There was no wind. The dense canopy above the Fae Grove held the air still, heavy with the scent of damp earth and something sickly sweet, like overripe plums left too long in the sun. She stopped, shoulder-length black hair brushing her collar as she tilted her head, listening. Nothing. Just the frantic thump of her own pulse against her ribs.
"Bloody hell." Her whisper, surprisingly loud in the unnatural silence , broke the spell. She pressed on, pushing through a curtain of ancient, hanging moss that coated the old trees like tattered shrouds. The ground under her boots felt springy, a soft carpet of emerald moss and wildflowers that refused to wither, even in late autumn. The light filtering through the leaves took on a perpetual twilight hue here, green-tinged and muted. It felt wrong, every fibre of her practical existence screaming against the whimsical , unnatural vitality of the place.
The small crimson Heartstone pendant at her throat grew warm, a faint, almost imperceptible throb against her skin. Rory reached up, her finger tracing the smooth, cool silver chain, then the thumbnail-sized stone itself. It was more than warmth now, a low pulse , like a slow heartbeat against her oesophagus. It had done this before, a subtle alert when near places that felt… thin. This time, it felt like an insistent demand.
She pulled out her phone, the screen showing a frantic battery warning. Zero signal. A quick glance at the time confirmed her unease: 11:47 PM. She remembered checking it just an hour ago outside the Richmond Park entrance — 9:00 PM. Two hours had passed, not one. Or had only an hour passed? The Fae Grove’s reputation for temporal distortion was not exaggerated. A shiver, colder than the evening air, traced its way down her spine .
Her objective, a series of crude markings etched into an old cartographer’s map, lay somewhere deep within this pocket of otherworldly greenery. These weren't tourist trails. This was a place whispered about, avoided. A place where things lingered.
She stepped between two gnarled, colossal oaks, their bark like faces frozen in silent screams. Suddenly, the strange, cloying sweetness in the air intensified, taking on a metallic tang. Like copper. Like blood. Rory’s nostrils flared. Recent.
Then she heard it. A whisper . Not wind, not rustling leaves, but something lower, closer . A murmur, like hundreds of voices speaking just below the threshold of understanding. It ebbed and flowed, almost a song, but too discordant, too *wrong * to be music. Gooseflesh erupted on her arms.
"Anyone there?" Her voice cracked on the last word. She hated the tremor in it. Rory Carter didn't crack. She didn't scare easily. But this , this was different. This wasn't some back alley mugging or an irate customer. This was primal.
The whispers seemed to coalesce, to focus, drawing closer. She saw no movement, no shifting shadows, yet the air around her thickened, pressing in. The Heartstone pulsed harder against her collarbone, a frantic beat now, radiating heat that felt almost painful.
She scanned the dark, unyielding trunks of the trees, her bright blue eyes searching. Each shadow pooled deeper than it should, each patch of moonlight seemed to shift, deceiving her vision. Was that a shape, just behind the thickest oak? A flicker of something pale, gone before she could truly focus. Her quick out-of-the-box thinking, usually her greatest asset, struggled to find a logical explanation. Every fibre of her mind resisted attributing it to anything supernatural, even in a place known for it.
*It's just the light. Your eyes are playing tricks.*
But the metallic smell grew stronger, filling her head, coating her tongue. She took a tentative step back, then another. The whispers grew louder, now individual words seemed to tear themselves from the cacophony , jagged shards of sound she couldn't quite grasp . *Laila... come... lost...*
Laila. Her given name. No one used that name anymore. Not since Cardiff. Not since Evan. A cold dread, far deeper than any Fae oddity, settled in her gut. How did it know ?
A branch, thin and brittle, snapped underfoot somewhere to her left. Rory whirled, her heart leaping into her throat. Nothing. The silence that followed was suffocating , heavy. Too heavy. It felt like the forest itself was holding its breath.
She reached for the worn leather strap of her delivery bag, finding cold comfort in the familiar weight of its contents — a handful of spare menus, her payment terminal, a half-eaten protein bar. Useless. Completely and utterly useless against… *this *.
The faint inner glow of the Heartstone flared, crimson light blooming momentarily, then fading back to a dull pulse . Just ahead, the mossy ground dipped into a small hollow, choked with darker, thornier growth. There, at its centre, stood a single, ancient stone. Not an oak like the boundary markers, but a rough, grey slab, almost swallowed by the relentless flora . It bore no visible markings, but pulsed with a faint, deep resonance that seemed to vibrate in her teeth. This was it. This was the place her cryptic clues led to. The source of the intense, raw energy she felt pressing down on her.
The whispers intensified again, now a chorus of lamentations, tinged with a predatory hunger. They were not *around * her anymore. They were *inside * her head, pressing against her skull, demanding entry.
*Join us, Laila... So cold... So dark...*
Her logical mind offered a desperate theory: infrasound. Low-frequency sound waves that could induce feelings of dread, even hallucinations. But the specificity of the whispers, the name, shattered that rationalisation. This was intelligent. This was malevolent.
She forced herself to move forward, each step an act of pure defiance against the rising tide of terror. She needed to understand. She was close to understanding. Why had she been led here? Who had sent her?
As she approached the stone, an unnatural wind, smelling of grave -soil and stagnant water, swept through the hollow, rustling not just the leaves, but the very fabric of her clothes, tugging at her hair . It carried with it a new sound, a low, guttural growl that solidified the presence she felt. It wasn't human. It wasn't animal.
She looked down at the old stone. A dark, oily sheen seemed to coat its surface, almost like dried blood, or slime. Her brilliant blue eyes scanned for any detail, any clue. There was nothing. Just the stone, the overwhelming presence, and the frantic heartbeat of the pendant against her skin.
Then, at the edge of her vision, a shape detached itself from the gloom behind the stone. It moved with a sickening unnatural fluidity, a ripple in the fabric of the shadows themselves. She spun around fully, but it dissolved back into the impenetrable darkness before her gaze could pinpoint it.
The sound of dripping water echoed from behind the stone. Slowly, reluctantly, Rory peered around its rough surface. Nothing. Just the dark, thorn-choked hollow. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep, shuddering breath, trying to regain her composure, to find that cool-headed centre she prided herself on.
When she opened them, a spectral face hovered inches from her own. It was a woman’s face, pale as bone, with dark, hollow eyes that held an eternity of sorrow and malice. Its lips, thin and bloodless, slowly parted, revealing teeth too long, too sharp. The air around it shimmered , vibrating with a cold, desperate energy, and the metallic tang grew overpowering, sickening. It was no longer a scent. It was a taste.
The whispers surged, no longer distant murmurs but a deafening shriek of a thousand agony-filled voices. The Heartstone erupted with searing heat against her chest, the crimson light pulsing violently, a beacon in the encroaching gloom . The spectral face leaned in closer, a silent scream frozen on its terrifying features, its skeletal hand reaching towards her, a long, bony finger pointing directly at the pendant on her chest.
A sudden, sharp pain flared on her left wrist, right where the small crescent-shaped scar from her childhood accident lay. It felt as if something was boring into it, a cold, needle-like pressure. She gasped, staggering back, stumbling over unseen roots. The spectral face gave a silent, bone-chilling laugh that reverberated not in her ears, but deep within her very bones . The Fae Grove, once merely unsettling, now felt like a living tomb, pulling her down into its suffocating depths . The presence was no longer at the edge of her vision. It was here, solidifying, corporeal, a predator finally revealing itself in the dark.