Run: 2026-07-25-01KYD6WFBSSB02HX557KXM4S2C

The Grove swallowed her whole. One moment she was stepping through the iron gate, the next her boots sank into grass that felt suspiciously springy beneath her weight. The air here carried a sweetness that made her throat tight, like breathing in a greenhouse where every plant was blooming out of season. She’d been walking for what felt like an hour, but her phone—still clutched in her coat pocket—showed only fifteen minutes had passed since she’d left the pub. The standing stones loomed ahead, their oak surfaces darkened by moss that shimmered faintly green in the moonlight. She’d read about them in that dusty Folklore Society pamphlet Eva had left on her desk last year, the one mentioning ancient druids and portals to somewhere “beyond the veil.” Rory had laughed then, too drunk to care whether the stories were true. Now, the pamphlet was a crumpled square in her pocket, and the stones felt less like tourist attractions and more like sentinels. She stopped short, hand drifting to the pendant at her chest. The Heartstone had been warm since she’d crossed the threshold, its crimson gem pulsing in time with her heartbeat. A trick of the light—or something else. She’d found it three nights ago, wrapped in oiled cloth on her doorstep, no note, no explanation. The delivery app had been offline, her flatmate Silas unreachable. Just the pendant, heavy as a stone, and a certainty that it belonged around her neck. The Grove’s silence pressed against her eardrums. Not the peaceful quiet of the countryside, but the kind of stillness that made her skin crawl. She shifted her weight, boots crunching on something that wasn’t grass—gravel, maybe, or crushed petals. The wildflowers here were impossible. Roses with midnight-blue petals. Daisies that glowed faintly silver. They swayed in a breeze that didn’t exist, their heads tilting toward her like curious children. A sound cut through the quiet. Not a footstep. Not wind. A *hum*, low and rhythmic, as if the earth itself were tuning a violin string. She froze, pendant flaring hotter against her skin. The gemstone’s inner light flickered, casting shadows that didn’t match the stone’s shape. “Hello?” Her voice cracked, too loud, too desperate. The Grove swallowed the sound. She took a step forward, then another, toward the stones. The path—if it could be called that—wound between clusters of flowers that seemed to lean away from her approach. One petal detached and floated upward, spiraling instead of falling. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and it happened again. The first stone was taller than a man, its surface carved with spirals that looked fresh, as if someone had scratched them in the past week. She reached out, hesitated, then brushed her fingers across the markings. They were warm. Warm like skin. Then the second stone did the same thing. She stumbled back, heart hammering. The pendant blazed crimson now, its chain clinking against her shirt. The hum deepened, vibrating through the soles of her feet. She could feel it in her teeth, in the scar on her wrist—still healing, still tender from that childhood accident with the bicycle chain. A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision. She spun around. Nothing. But the wildflowers were different now. Their colors had dulled, petals curling inward as if recoiling. The silver daisies had gone dark, and the roses—those impossible midnight-blue ones—were wilting, their stems blackening at the base. The stones pulsed in response to her movement, their carvings glowing faintly, like embers beneath ash. She took another step, then another, drawn closer despite her better judgment. The path had narrowed, the air thickening with the scent of damp earth and something sweeter, more cloying—like overripe fruit left to rot. Her phone buzzed. She fished it out, squinting at the screen. 2:17 AM. The time stamp had jumped three hours since she’d arrived. The hum was louder now, a drumbeat beneath her feet. She looked down. The grass beneath her shoes was no longer grass. It was something softer, spongy, like moss or— A handprint, pale and too large to be any animal she knew, pressed into the ground a few paces ahead. It was still wet, the edges dripping something that gleamed silver in the moonlight. She wanted to run. Wanted to turn and flee back through the gate, but her legs wouldn’t obey. The pendant had gone dead weight, its chain cold against her skin. The stones loomed closer, their surfaces rippling like water disturbed by an unseen current. The path ahead split. One direction led toward the gate, its iron bars just visible through the curtain of night-blooming jasmine. The other curved deeper into the Grove, where the flowers grew thicker, darker. She should have chosen the gate. Instead, she took a breath and walked toward the deeper path. The last thing she heard before the Grove claimed her was the stones singing.