Run: 2026-05-22-01KS879JZ1CGYXT1T4H75XRM5C

Branches whipped against Rory’s leather jacket as she navigated the dense underbrush of Richmond Park. The ancient oak standing stones emerged from the gloom, their twisted bark pale and skeletal in the moonlight. A thick carpet of night-blooming wildflowers crushed beneath her boots, releasing a cloying, sweet perfume that masked the damp rot of the forest floor. She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped Eva’s contact. The harsh screen illumination highlighted the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. "Rory? It’s three in the morning." Eva’s voice crackled through the speaker, thick with sleep and confusion. "I’m at the boundary. The stones are right in front of me." "Turn around. Go back to Silas’s bar. You don't know what the time dilation will do to you tonight." Rory rubbed the deep crimson gemstone resting against her collarbone. The Heartstone pendant pulsed with a rhythmic, unnatural heat. A faint inner glow bled through her cotton shirt, painting her skin in shades of blood. "The pendant is practically vibrating. It’s leading me inside." "Rory, listen to me. Evan is still out there looking for you, and those woods aren't normal. Just come home." "I'll be quick. Ten minutes. If I'm not back, call Silas." "Ten minutes in the Grove could be ten days out here! Rory?" The line went dead. Rory pulled the phone away from her ear. The signal bars vanished, replaced by a stark No Service notification. She shoved the device back into her pocket and stepped past the threshold of the oak stones. The transition felt like stepping through a wall of cold water. A physical resistance pushed against her chest before giving way. The air pressure plummeted. A heavy, suffocating silence swallowed the distant hum of London traffic. The wildflowers here grew waist-high, their petals shifting in hues of violet and sickly green despite the lack of sunlight. Rory clicked on her heavy metal flashlight. The beam cut through the thick, swirling mist clinging to the ground. She swept the light across the clearing. Empty. Just the towering oaks and the endless sea of unnatural flora. She checked her wristwatch. The second hand ticked backward, sweeping counterclockwise in a smooth, continuous motion. The digital display flickered, the numbers scrambling into alien symbols before the screen went completely black. A twig snapped behind her. Rory spun around, sweeping the flashlight beam over the path she just walked. Nothing but swaying ferns and deep shadows. "Hello?" Her voice sounded flat, absorbed instantly by the dense fog. Silence answered. She adjusted her grip on the flashlight and ventured deeper into the pocket realm. The silver chain of the pendant dug into her skin. The crimson gem throbbed in time with her heartbeat, radiating a heat that bordered on painful. Sweat beaded at her hairline despite the cool night air. A low, rhythmic scraping echoed from the tree line to her left. Like fingernails dragging across rough bark. The noise vibrated through the soles of her boots, a deep, resonant frequency that rattled her teeth. Rory halted. She killed the flashlight, plunging herself into the dim, ambient moonlight filtering through the canopy. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The shadows between the massive oak trunks stretched and contorted, defying the angle of the moon. A scrape echoed, followed by another. The sound moved. It circled her, staying just beyond the edge of her vision. She pivoted slowly, tracking the noise. Her boots sank into the soft, loamy earth, the soil squelching with an unnatural wetness. The scent of the wildflowers soured, turning into the sharp tang of ozone and copper. "Who's there?" Rory kept her voice steady, projecting from her chest. The scraping stopped. A soft giggle drifted from the canopy above. It sounded exactly like Eva. "Ten minutes, Rory," the voice whispered from the branches. Rory’s jaw tightened. She reached up and gripped the Heartstone. The gemstone seared her palm. A Hel portal was close. The lore she’d pieced together from Silas’s rambling stories warned of the things that crawled out of those rifts. Mimics. Scavengers. Things that wore the voices of the desperate. "You're not Eva." "Turn around. Go back to Silas's bar," the voice mimicked perfectly, adopting the exact cadence and sleepy rasp of her friend's earlier phone call. Rory backed toward the center of the clearing, putting distance between herself and the encroaching tree line. She thumbed the heavy butt of her flashlight, ready to use it as a blunt instrument. Her bright blue eyes darted between the ancient oaks, mapping out the gaps in the standing stones. A pale, elongated shadow detached itself from the trunk of the nearest oak. It lacked distinct features, a towering silhouette of shifting gray mist that absorbed the moonlight. The mist around its base curled and writhed, leaving a trail of dead, blackened grass in its wake. The pendant flared. Bright crimson light spilled from the gem, casting long, stark shadows across the wildflowers. The entity recoiled, emitting a sound like tearing metal. Rory didn't run. Running triggered the chase instinct. She planted her feet, her breathing shallow and controlled. "Stay back." The shadow rippled. Two hollow voids opened where a face should be, fixating on the glowing pendant at her throat. More movement caught her peripheral vision. To her right, another shadow peeled away from the standing stones. Then a third from the dense ferns behind her. The scraping resumed, multiplying into a deafening chorus of claws on bark. The air grew freezing cold, frost crystallizing on the petals of the waist-high flowers. Her breath plumed in the sudden chill. The entity in front of her stretched a limb, a spindly appendage ending in too many joints, reaching toward the crimson light. "Rory?" Eva's voice echoed again, this time coming from the hollow void of the creature's face, laced with genuine terror. "Help me."