Run: 2026-03-18-01KM0AMFMKRK2BYPD8HN067A62

The engine’s cough turned to silence. Rory killed the headlights without thinking and sat in the dark, the tick of metal cooling in the engine bay the only sound left. The lane had narrowed to a dirt track before it vanished entirely, swallowed by bracken and bramble. She hadn’t been down this stretch in years—last autumn, maybe, when she’d tried to find Eva after that text message about ‘root things.’ Eva had sent three more after that one. Each shorter than the last. The last just a single word: *Lost.* Rory exhaled, pushing the door open. It groaned against damp hinges, then stuck halfway, like the air itself was heavy. The scent of rain-soaked earth and crushed fern rose from the ground. A thick mist clung to the verge, curling around her ankles as she stepped out. Her headlamp beam sliced through it, fracturing the gloom into silvered threads. She lifted the lamp higher, sweeping it over the trees. Their trunks were too pale, too smooth, no bark, no lichen, just bleached columns rising from the dark. She shook her head. No lichen in October. Not here. Not in Richmond Park. Her boot caught on something jagged. She stumbled, caught herself on the bonnet. Below the car’s undercarriage, half-buried in the mud, lay a silver chain. She knelt, wiped the dirt with her thumb. Engraved along it: tiny vines, thorned, biting into one another. She didn’t remember buying anything like it—ever. But her mind supplied an image with startling clarity: Eva’s hands lifting it out of a velvet box on Rory’s birthday, two years ago. “For luck,” Eva had whispered. “It chooses you.” A high, thin note sounded—like a child’s scream cut short. Rory snapped upright. The beam quivered in her grip. Nothing moved. No birds. No rustle of leaves. Only the sound of her own breath, too loud. She reached for her phone. No signal. Of course. She swallowed. Eva was in danger. That’s why she’d come. But danger meant danger. Not absence of birds. Not silence where sound should hum. Another sound came—a child’s giggle, soft and wet, from the trees straight ahead. Her pulse hammered in her throat. She clicked the lamp off. In the dark, the mist thickened. She could still see the trees though—pale, smooth columns rising from nothing. A shape moved in the gaps between them. Small. Too small. Shrubs rustled. A twig snapped. The giggle came again, closer this time, wetter. Rory stepped back, heel sinking into soft earth. The mist wrapped around her calves, cold as a corpse. The lamp flickered. She thumbed the switch. The beam returned, weaker now, battery draining like her thoughts. At the edge of the light, something shifted. A low, rhythmic sound pulsed through the ground—like a heartbeat beneath soil. She swung the beam toward it. In the mist, a child stood. Or what looked like one. Too tall for a child. Too still. Wearing something white that clung to its limbs. Its hair hung in long, black strands, straight and unmoving, though Rory felt a breeze that didn’t touch her skin. Its eyes were black. Not pupils. Not irises. Just black, wet, pulsing like oil. It opened its mouth. “Rory,” it said. Not Eva’s voice. Not human. Something mimicking speech through a mouthful of wrong. There was no breath. No warmth in the words. They came from inside her skull. She stumbled back, heel catching again. The pendant beneath her shirt thrummed. Not warmth. Cold. Like a corpse heartbeat. The thing took a step forward. Its feet made no sound. Rory’s fingers closed around the chain beneath her shirt. The Heartstone was warm now—almost hot. The moment her skin touched it, the mist around the figure parted, recoiled, like it feared it. The pendant burned. The child-thing’s face twisted. Its jaw unhinged. Something dark and glistening protruded from its throat—a root, thick as her wrist, knotted with thorns. It twitched. The root curled toward her like a finger. She wrenched the pendant free. Light erupted. Not the weak white of her lamp, but crimson, deep as fresh blood, pulsing in time with the pendant’s rhythm. The mist screamed—high, wordless—and the figure recoiled, limbs folding like broken branches. The roots retracted with a wet sound. The thing fell, dissolving into the dark like ink in water. Silence returned. The air smelled of iron and damp rot. Rory’s hands shook. The pendant’s glow faded to a dull ember. She tucked it back under her shirt, lifting the lamp again. The trees were just trees now. Thorny. Dark-barked. Normal. She exhaled. Rationalized. Stress. Sleep deprivation. All of it. But then she heard it—a child’s sob, muffled, from somewhere deeper in the wood. Not laughter. Not mimicry. Real. Rory stepped forward, boots sinking into earth that felt too soft, too yielding. The sob came again. A girl’s voice. Eva’s voice. “Eva?” No answer. She moved faster, lamp beam cutting ahead. The trees grew denser. The ground sloped upward. The sobbing stopped. The mist thickened again. Then she saw it—a ring of standing stones, pale gray, slick with moisture. Between them, standing upright like a grave marker, was a figure wrapped in ivy and white cloth. Its head lolled forward. Eva. Rory sprinted forward, slipping on wet moss. Eva’s wrists were bound with thorned vines. Her eyes were open. Fixed. Black veins spread from her lips like cracks in porcelain. Her chest didn’t rise. “Eva!” Rory dropped to her knees, fumbling with the vines. They didn’t cut, but clung like bone to skin. Eva’s skin was ice-cold. A laugh came from above. Not from the girl. From behind the stones. “Welcome,” the voice whispered. Rory spun, lamp swinging. Nothing there. Then the ground beneath her shifted. She sank into it, boots disappearing up to the ankles. The earth was warm now. Breathing. The pendant glowed brighter. Between the stones, Eva’s hand twitched. Her fingers curled. Her lips parted. “Rory,” Eva said. Her voice was thick, wet. Her eyes were entirely black. Rory recoiled. Scrambled back. The earth held her calf like a hand. The laughter came again—from everywhere. From nowhere. The pendant pulsed. Not in time with her heart. Slow. Deliberate. Like a countdown. The boy from before stood at the edge of the ring. Only now he wasn’t a boy. His limbs were longer. His head too large for his body. His mouth stretched too wide. The thorn-root curled from his throat, dripping black sap. “She called you,” he said. “And you came.” Rory’s breath came in short gasps. Her fingers found the pendant. It burned her palm. Blood welled where the silver bit into skin. Eva’s head turned. Her black eyes fixed on Rory. “Help me,” Eva whispered. Her lips didn’t move. Rory shook her head. The pendant’s glow surged, crimson and hot. The ground released her leg with a wet sigh. She stood, backed away. The boy smiled. His teeth were small, too many. “You can’t leave,” he said. “Not without her.” The mist swirled. From the trees, shapes emerged—small, pale, their limbs too long, their faces blank. They walked without sound. One held a silver chain, swaying gently. A child’s giggle. The pendant’s glow steadied. Steady. Not flickering. Rory’s mind blanked. Or filled. With a memory that wasn’t hers— A younger Eva, beneath these very trees, her hand outstretched, pressing a silver chain into Rory’s palm in the dark. “Now you’ll remember,” Eva had said. And Rory had. Everything. The truth rushed into her like cold water—Eva had always known this place existed. Had always played in the groove between realms. Had always called things that answered. The ring of stones pulsed with inner light, like a heartbeat. Eva’s laughter echoed through the grove—not from one mouth, but from them all. The pendant’s gemstone flared. Hotter. Brighter. Rory looked down at the chain in her hands. It wasn’t silver. It was thorn. The things in the mist stepped closer. Their hands were children’s hands. But their eyes were black. And they were smiling. Rory closed her fingers around the pendant. The world went red.