Run: 2026-05-22-01KS87ENSZEY8FPYVFC21ZKX35

The air inside the tree line dropped ten degrees the moment Aurora stepped past the ancient oak standing stones. She pulled her denim jacket tighter across her chest. The silver chain of her Heartstone pendant rested cold against her collarbone, a stark contrast to the sudden, biting chill. She checked her phone. The signal bars vanished, replaced by a stark No Service icon. "Come on, Eva. Pick up." The screen displayed a spinning wheel. Aurora tapped the glass with her thumb, leaving a smudge over the glowing display. "You have got to be kidding me. I had three bars at the bus stop." She shoved the phone into her pocket and clicked on her torch. The stark white beam cut through the low-hanging mist, illuminating patches of wildflowers. Bluebells, foxgloves, and blooming heather grew in thick, unnatural clusters despite the bitter November wind sweeping across Richmond Park. Aurora crouched and brushed her fingers over a cluster of blue petals. They felt like wet tissue paper, slimy and cold. A sharp pulse of heat flared against her sternum. She gasped and grabbed the deep crimson gemstone. It glowed with a faint inner light, the stone searing her skin through her cotton shirt. "Right. A Hel portal. Just what I needed tonight." She stood and swept the torch beam across the clearing. The ancient oaks twisted upward, their bark groaning in a wind she could not feel. The standing stones formed a perfect, unbroken circle, their surfaces etched with grooves that seemed to shift when she looked at them from the corner of her eye. Moss clung to the northern faces, glowing with a faint, bioluminescent green that pulsed in time with her own heartbeat. Silence pressed against her eardrums. Richmond Park sat in the middle of London, yet the distant hum of the A308 was gone. No owls called from the canopy. No rustling foxes scurried through the underbrush. Just the heavy, suffocating quiet of a sealed vault. Aurora rubbed the small crescent scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she had never managed to break. "Just find the epicenter, map the coordinates, and get out." She took a step forward. The soil gave way with a soft, wet squelch, sinking an inch beneath her boots. A twig snapped behind her. Aurora spun around. The torch beam sliced through the empty space between two massive oak trunks, highlighting nothing but swirling fog. "Hello?" The mist absorbed her voice. "Silas, if you followed me, I swear I will pour your best whiskey down the drain." The wind picked up, carrying the distinct scent of copper and rotting apples. It brushed past her cheek, carrying a whisper of static. Aurora lowered the torch. The shadows cast by the standing stones stretched across the wildflowers, long and distorted. One of the shadows twitched. She blinked. The shadow snapped back to its proper angle, aligning with the jagged edge of the stone. "Get a grip, Carter. You are running on four hours of sleep and cheap coffee." She turned back to the center of the grove. The pendant pulsed again, harder this time. The heat radiated through her shirt, turning from a warm prickle to a distinct burn. A low hum vibrated through the soles of her boots, rattling her teeth. Aurora checked her watch. The second hand spun backward in a frantic blur, the minute hand ticking counter-clockwise. "Time dilation. Brilliant." She pulled out her phone again. The screen lit up with a dozen missed calls from Eva. The timestamps read three hours from now. "Eva?" Static hissed through the speaker, loud and grating. "Rory?" Eva's voice crackled, thin and distorted, as if speaking through a submerged radio. "Where are you? You have been gone for days." "I just got here. I am standing in the grove." "Get out of there. The news... they found another body near Richmond. It looks like the others. The skin is..." The line went dead. "Eva. Eva, talk to me." Aurora tapped the screen. Dead black glass reflected her wide blue eyes and the pale oval of her face. A soft crunch echoed from the edge of the clearing. The sound of a heavy boot crushing dry leaves, though the ground was covered only in soft, damp petals. Aurora killed the torch. Darkness swallowed the grove, save for the crimson glow of the pendant leaking through her fingers and the pale moonlight filtering through the twisted branches above. She held her breath. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, and heavy. They circled the perimeter of the standing stones, keeping just beyond the tree line. Aurora backed against the rough bark of the nearest oak. The wood felt warm. It pulsed with a slow, rhythmic heartbeat against her spine. She jerked away, stumbling forward into the wildflowers. The footsteps stopped. "Who is there?" A voice drifted from the mist. It was her own voice, mimicking her cadence, her slight Welsh lilt, and her pitch. "Who is there?" Aurora clamped a hand over her mouth, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Silas, if you followed me, I swear I will pour your best whiskey down the drain," the voice repeated from the darkness, flat and devoid of any human emotion. She slid her delivery knife from her belt. The cheap metal felt useless against the crushing weight of the silence. Her thumb rested on the release catch, her muscles coiled tight. The crimson light flared, illuminating a patch of wildflowers ten yards away. A figure stood among the bluebells. It wore her exact denim jacket. It had her exact height and shoulder-length black hair. But its limbs hung a fraction too long, the joints bending at sickening, inverted angles. Its neck stretched upward, the head tilted at a ninety-degree angle. The thing righted its head with a sharp crack of bone. "Right. A Hel portal. Just what I needed tonight," it stated in her voice. Aurora tightened her grip on the knife. Her knuckles turned white. The figure took a step forward. The wildflowers beneath its boots withered, turning to black ash that drifted upward into the stagnant air. The pendant burned against her sternum, the heat blistering her skin. The deep crimson gemstone flared so bright it cast sharp, bloody shadows across the clearing. The entity raised an arm, pointing an elongated, multi-jointed finger directly at her chest. The joint popped, a sharp sound that echoed off the ancient oaks. "Get out of there," it whispered in Eva's distorted, static-laced voice.