Run: 2026-03-18-01KM1GXFGX4FJ9A27NM23YEDEH

The parking lot at Richmond Park had been empty when Rory pulled her moped to a stop near the gate. No cars, no joggers, no dog walkers with their little headlamps and reflective vests. She'd expected that much. Her phone had died two hours ago, and she'd lost track of time sitting on the bench outside the Golden Empress waiting for the dinner rush to thin, but Eva had been specific. The meeting needed to happen after dark. Something about the veil being thinner, about the energy being right. Rory had stopped questioning Eva's strange requests months ago. The Heartstone Pendant rested against her collarbone, its weight familiar now. She'd worn it since the night in the alley behind the restaurant when a woman she didn't recognize had pressed it into her hands and said, "You'll know when to use this." She'd never seen the woman again. The wrought iron gate to the park stood open. That was the first thing that felt wrong. Parks closed at dusk, had done for years, but this gate hung loose on its hinges like it had been that way for decades. She ducked through the gap and onto the gravel path that wound toward the treeline. October had stripped the oaks bare, but as she walked deeper into the park, Rory noticed the trees changing. The branches grew denser, the leaves thicker than they should have been for late autumn. Then she pushed through a curtain of hanging willow branches and found herself standing before the standing stones. They rose from a clearing in a perfect circle, each one massive and ancient, covered in script she couldn't read. The moss on their surfaces seemed to glow faintly in the moonlight, though she knew moss didn't glow. The wildflowers Eva had mentioned carpeted the ground between the stones, colors that shouldn't exist side by side. Deep purples next to oranges that burned too bright. Reds so dark they looked like dried blood. Rory checked her watch. Still working. She'd set out from the restaurant at half past nine, and according to the watch face, she'd been walking for fifteen minutes. But the ache in her calves suggested longer. Much longer. She stepped into the circle. The air changed immediately. It thickened, pressing against her skin like cold water. The sounds of the park—the distant hum of traffic, an owl somewhere in the dark—cut off like someone had flipped a switch. Total silence. The kind of silence that existed only in places where sound went to die. Rory turned in a slow circle, scanning the treeline beyond the stones. The forest pressed close, the branches interlocking overhead until she couldn't see the sky anymore. Moonlight filtered through in thin silver threads, but the spaces between the trees seemed darker than they should have been. Darker than shadows. She waited. This was the meeting point. Eva had drawn her a map on a napkin two days ago, the ink bleeding through in strange patterns she hadn't noticed until she was already halfway here. The spot was marked with an X and the words "be there at moonrise." Simple enough. Rory had learned not to ask questions about Eva's sources, about how she knew the things she knew, about why she needed Rory to act as courier for packages and messages that sometimes hummed against her skin when she carried them. Minutes passed. Five. Ten. The pendant grew warmer against her chest. A sound reached her ears—distant, fragmented, like someone trying to speak through a wall. She strained to hear it, tilting her head toward the treeline. It came again. Closer now. A voice, or something like a voice, shaped into syllables that almost made sense. Almost formed words. Rory. The pendant pulsed against her skin. Warm. Too warm. She pressed her palm flat against it, and the heat receded slightly. She turned toward the sound. Between two of the standing stones, at the exact spot where the moonlight should have fallen brightest, something shifted. Not moved—shifted. Like the darkness itself had rearranged its edges. A shape formed there, humanoid but wrong, proportions stretched and compressed in ways that made her eyes water if she looked directly at it. "Eva?" The name left her mouth before she could stop it. The shape didn't respond. It just stood there, swaying slightly, and Rory realized with a spike of cold terror that she couldn't tell which direction it was facing. Every angle looked like the front. Every angle looked like it was looking directly at her. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere behind her. She spun around. Nothing. Just the circle of stones, the impossible flowers, the darkness pressing in from all sides. "Rory." This time the voice was clear. Familiar. Eva's voice, but flatter somehow, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "You came." "Where are you?" She took a step toward the treeline, toward the voice, and the shape between the stones moved with her. Matched her step. Kept its impossible face aimed at her chest. "I told you to wait. You weren't supposed to come inside yet." Rory stopped. Her feet had crossed the threshold without her noticing, carrying her deeper into the grove than she'd meant to go. She tried to step back, but the air had grown thick again, and her legs felt heavy, like she was walking through honey. "Ev, I don't—" She stopped. The wildflowers had started moving. Not swaying in a breeze that didn't exist, but actively moving, their petals rippling outward from the center of the clearing in waves. They parted around something. Something standing upright in the middle of the grove. Another shape. No—two shapes. Three. They emerged slowly from the flowers, their forms as wrong as the first, stretched and compressed into configurations that made her brain stutter. One of them had too many arms. One of them had no face at all, just smooth skin where features should have been. The third looked almost human except for the way its head bent backward at an impossible angle. Rory backed up until her shoulders hit something solid. One of the standing stones. She'd been pushed against it without feeling the contact, and now she couldn't move at all. The air had solidified around her, holding her in place. "Ev, please—" The pendant flared hot against her skin, hot enough to burn, and she heard a sound that wasn't a scream tear from her throat. But even as the pain lanced through her, she saw the shapes hesitate. They drew back slightly, their impossible forms flickering at the edges. The heat faded. The pendant lay still against her chest, its glow dim but present, pulsing faintly. The shapes hadn't moved closer. But they hadn't retreated either. They stood in a loose ring around her, swaying in that terrible unison, their faceless heads tilted in perfect synchronization. Something wet touched her ankle. Rory looked down without being able to move her head, forced to rely on the downward tilt of her eyes. The flowers had grown. They climbed her legs now, their stems wrapping around her calves, their petals pressing against her skin through the fabric of her jeans. They were warm. They pulsed with a rhythm that matched the pendant against her chest. A heartbeat. Their heartbeat. Hers. The silence stretched. The shapes swayed. The flowers held her in place. And then, from everywhere and nowhere, from the stones themselves and the spaces between them, a whisper began to build. Not words. Not sounds, exactly. Just pressure. Just the weight of attention from something vast and patient and so very, very hungry. The pendant pulsed again. The whisper faltered. But only for a moment.