Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ95J5SA2Z9X1P28EYWHFZ53

The iron gates of Richmond Park creaked behind Aurora, a shrill, rusted protest that cut through the stagnant London humidity. She didn't look back. Her boots crunched on the gravel path, the sound unnervingly loud in the absence of the city's usual low-frequency hum. Usually, the distant roar of the A3 or the hum of a passing Heathrow flight offered a comfort of civilization. Tonight, the air held its breath. She reached into the collar of her jacket and pulled out the Heartstone. The deep crimson gem sat heavy against her palm, its silver chain slick with the sweat of her neck. It didn't just glow; it throbbed. The light ebbed and flowed like a slow, dying pulse, casting long, rhythmic shadows across the ferns. "Fine. You want me here. I’m here." Her voice sounded thin, stripped of its resonance by the dense canopy. She adjusted the strap of her delivery bag, the weight of the Golden Empress takeout containers shifting against her spine. Yu-Fei hadn't sent her here, but the pendant had. It had practically burned a hole through her shirt since she left the flat above Silas’ bar. The path began to warp. The well-trodden gravel gave way to a carpet of wildflowers—pale, translucent things that didn't belong in a London park in the dead of night. They smelled of ozone and ancient honey. Rory slowed her pace as the ancient oak standing stones loomed out of the darkness. They didn't look like wood. In the moonlight, the bark shimmered with the texture of cured leather, twisted into shapes that suggested agonized limbs. "This wasn't on the map, Silas." She stepped into the center of the grove. The temperature plummeted. One moment the night was a sticky twenty degrees, the next, her breath blossomed into a white cloud before her face. She checked her watch. The digital display flickered, the numbers tumbling into nonsense symbols before the screen cracked from the center out. "Great. Fantastic timing." Rory hiked her jacket up and gripped the Heartstone. It was hot now, a sharp, localized heat that radiated through her fingertips. She scanned the perimeter of the clearing. The oaks stood like sentinels, their branches interlaced so tightly they blocked out the stars. A snap broke the silence. It didn't come from behind her. It came from above. She tilted her head. The upper boughs swayed, though not a puff of wind stirred the wildflowers at her feet. Something heavy shifted in the canopy, a dragging sound like a wet sack being hauled over bark. "Who’s there? I know you’re watching. I haven't got all night." Silence rushed back in, thicker than before. Rory turned in a slow circle, her thumb tracing the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. The old injury itched. It always did when her adrenaline spiked. A soft, rhythmic clicking started near one of the standing stones. It sounded like a tongue hitting the roof of a mouth, or perhaps bone knocking against stone. *Click. Click-click. Click.* "Is that you, Evan? If you’ve followed me here, I swear to God—" She stopped. The clicking moved. It was twenty feet to her left, then suddenly ten feet behind her. It was too fast for someone to move through the thick undergrowth without a sound. "This is a joke. A very bad, very expensive joke." Rory reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. The screen remained black, reflecting only the frantic red pulse of the pendant. She shoved it back and pulled a heavy brass lighter from her pocket, flicking the wheel. The flame stood perfectly still, a tiny yellow spear that didn't flicker. Darkness pooled in the gaps between the trees, a concentrated black that felt more like a physical substance than a lack of light. Something pale moved in the corner of her eye. She whipped her head toward the largest oak. "I saw you." The tree trunk remained motionless, but the shadows at its base seemed to detach. They didn't move toward her. They stretched, elongating into spindly, many-jointed limbs that mimicked the reach of the branches above. A voice drifted through the clearing. It wasn't a human voice. It sounded like the wind whistling through a hollow bone, shaped into the jagged edges of her own name. *Rory...* She stiffened, her fingers whitening around the Heartstone. "I didn't give you permission to use that name." *Laila... Aurora...* The voice layered over itself, a dozen versions of her name whispered in unison. It came from the ground. It came from the flowers. The blossoms began to tilt toward her, their pale petals opening to reveal centers that looked uncomfortably like human gums. Rory took a step back. Her heel caught on a root that hadn't been there moments ago. She stumbled, her hand flying out to catch herself on one of the standing stones. The texture was warm. It pulsed back against her palm, a slow, hydraulic thud that matched the beat of the pendant. "You’re alive. The whole damn place is alive." The clicking intensified. It was everywhere now, a frantic, percussive storm that vibrated in her teeth. Above her, the canopy groaned. A long, thin shadow dropped from a branch, dangling like a spider on a thread. It stopped just above the circle of light cast by the pendant. It was a face, or the suggestion of one. Features stretched thin over a frame that was far too long, eyes like dull coins that caught no reflection. It didn't have a mouth, only a vertical slit that leaked a faint, silver mist. "What do you want? The stone? Take it." She held the Heartstone out, the silver chain dangling. *Not the stone, Malphora...* The voice echoed inside her skull, bypasssing her ears entirely. The creature drifted closer, its limbs unfolding with the sound of snapping dry wood. "Don't call me that. My name is Aurora Carter. I deliver Chinese food in London. I have a flat in Peckham. I am not whatever you think I am." The creature tilted its head. The silver mist from its face curled toward her, smelling of copper and wet earth. It mimicked her movement, tilting its head to the exact same angle. *The blood remembers. The soil remembers.* "I’m leaving. Right now." Rory turned, but the path was gone. Where the gravel trail had been, there was now only a wall of thorns that grew several inches as she watched. The standing stones had shifted, closing the circle. The clearing had shrunk. "Let me out. This wasn't the deal." The clicking died away, replaced by a low, vibrating hum that made the pendant in her hand scream with heat. She dropped it. The Heartstone fell into the wildflowers, and where it touched the earth, the plants shriveled and blackened in a perfect circle. The dangling creature descended further, its long, needle-like fingers brushing the top of her hair. Rory didn't scream. She frozen, her breath coming in shallow, jagged gasps. "You’re not real. This is Richmond Park. There are joggers and deer and—" *There is only the Grove. There is only the hunger.* A second creature emerged from behind the stone she had touched. Then a third. They didn't walk; they drifted, their bodies shimmering in and out of the moonlight like a bad television signal. They weren't solid, but the air around them felt heavy, pressurized. "Silas said this was safe. He said if I had the pendant, nothing would touch me." The creatures stopped. The one in front of her extended a hand, the skin looking like translucent parchment. It pointed to the Heartstone on the ground. *The pendant is not a shield, daughter of the barrister. It is a dinner bell.* Rory looked down at the crimson gem. The glow was no longer rhythmic. It was constant, a blinding, furious red that illuminated the faces of a dozens of things standing just beyond the tree line. They had been there the whole time, watching and waiting for the light to reach its peak. "I'm not my father. I'm not anyone's daughter. I'm just Rory." The lead creature's vertical mouth split open wider. A row of teeth, fine as fishbones, glinted in the red light. *You are the key. And the key must be turned.* Rory reached for the pendant, but the ground beneath it softened into a slurry of mud and rotted petals. The Heartstone sank, swallowed by the Earth. The light didn't vanish; it bled into the soil, turning the entire clearing into a glowing, venous map of red lines. The trees began to lean inward. The ancient oaks groaned, their trunks twisting with an audible screech of fiber. The circle was closing. "Back off!" She pulled a small utility knife from her belt, her hand trembling so violently the blade rattled in its casing. The creature didn't flinch. It reached out and touched the crescent scar on her wrist. The skin there didn't burn. It turned cold—a deep, biting frost that spread up her arm. *The mark is opening...* "It's just a scar. I fell off a bike when I was six." *You fell through a world. And you brought the scent of the void with you.* The ground heaved. A massive root erupted from the center of the grove, tossing Rory off her feet. She landed hard on her side, the takeout bag spilling open. Containers of noodles and rice scattered across the mutated flowers, but the creatures ignored the food. They moved toward her in a synchronized, fluid motion, their long shadows overlapping her body. Rory scrambled backward, her heels digging into the freezing mud. Her hand hit something cold and hard. It was the top of the Heartstone, resurfacing near the edge of a standing stone. It wasn't crimson anymore. It was black, a void-darkness that seemed to suck the very moonlight out of the air. "Stay away from me!" She grabbed the stone. The moment her skin made contact, the clicking sound returned, but this time it was coming from inside her own chest. The lead creature leaned down, its face inches from hers. The silver mist filled her lungs, tasting of a thousand years of forgotten winters. *The Grove has been hungry for a long time, Aurora Carter.* "Then eat something else." She slammed the black stone against the base of the standing stone. The impact didn't shatter the gem; it shattered the silence. A shockwave of sound, like a cathedral bell being struck by a mountain, tore through the grove. The creatures recoiled, their forms flickering wildly. The ground beneath Rory split open, not into mud or soil, but into a jagged, vertical rift that pulsed with a pale, sickly violet light. She looked into the rift and saw a sky with three moons. "What is this? Where is the park?" *This is the truth behind the curtain.* The creature reached for her again, its fingers elongating into claws. Rory didn't look away. She gripped the black pendant until the edges drew blood from her palm. "I don't belong here." *You belong to the one who sent you.* The trees began to scream. It was a high, undulating wail that shook the leaves from the boughs. The red veins in the ground flared, and the flowers began to pull themselves into the earth, dragging the edges of the rift wider. Rory felt the pull. The gravity of the grove changed, tilting toward the violet light. She slid toward the edge of the crack in reality, her boots finding no purchase on the slick, frozen grass. "Silas! Eva! Someone!" *No one hears you in the fold.* The first creature’s hand closed around her ankle. Its grip was like a vice of ice. It didn't pull her toward its mouth; it pulled her toward the rift. "Let go of me!" She kicked out, but her foot passed through the creature’s chest as if it were made of smoke. The cold spread to her hip, numbing her leg entirely. The Heartstone in her hand began to vibrate. It grew larger, the black surface cracking to reveal a white-hot core that hissed against the damp air. "If I'm the key, then I'm locking the door." She shoved the stone into the creature's grasping hand. The reaction was instantaneous. A blinding flare of white light erupted, turning the grove into a stark, colorless void. The scream of the trees reached a deafening crescendo, and then, the world went silent. The pressure in her ears popped. The smell of ozone vanished, replaced by the mundane scent of damp earth and car exhaust. Rory lay on the ground, gasping for air. The grass beneath her was normal green. The oaks were just oaks, their bark silent and still. The sun hadn't come up, but the oppressive, heavy dark had lifted. She looked at her hand. The Heartstone was gone. The silver chain lay snapped in the grass, but the gem had vanished. Her wrist throbbed. She pulled back her sleeve. The crescent-shaped scar was gone. In its place was a thin, glowing line of violet that pulsed beneath her skin, a permanent reminder of the heartbeat of the Grove. A twig snapped in the darkness behind her. "Who's there?" She stood up, her legs shaking. The park was quiet, but it wasn't the silence of peace. It was the silence of something holding its breath, waiting for the next heartbeat. A low growl echoed from the shadows of the nearest oak. It wasn't the creature. It was something heavier, something with teeth and weight. "I said, who is it?" The red light began to bleed back into the soil at her feet, one thin line at a time. Rory backed away, her hand reaching for a knife that was no longer there. The shadows at the edge of the grove began to stretch again. "Not again. Please, not again." *Rory...* The voice was closer now. It didn't come from the air or the trees. It came from the violet line beneath her skin. "Be quiet." She turned and ran, but the more she ran, the more the trees seemed to repeat themselves. Each oak she passed had the same knot, the same pattern of bark, the same agonizing lean. She wasn't leaving the grove. She was circling the drain. The clicking started again, soft and rhythmic, right behind her ear. "I'm not the key." *You are the door.* The ground beneath her feet began to soften once more, the wildflowers blooming in the wake of her footprints, pale and hungry.