Should be Out Blipping...

...but the muse is ever present.

Third Passage
The crisp autumn morning air carried the scent of wet earth and pending rain. Elena had barely slept due to her mind attempting to make sense of her two previous passages through the stone. She put her digital recorder in her pocket, It was filling with whispered observations which seemed to blur the lines between scientific documentation and something more - something she could not yet put a name to. Her arrival at the Mên-An-Tol this time was just before dawn. She watched as the first light painted the grey stones in shades of silver and gold, and made the landscape seem otherworldly.

Her steps were confident now, more purposeful, all pretence at hesitation gone. Whatever was happening Elena had committed herself to understanding it. There the stone stood seeming to pulse with anticipation. She touched the surface feeling the smoothness of the curve of the circular opening. For the briefest moment she could have sworn that she felt a heartbeat - not her own, this was something primal, patient, more ancient. 'Third passage' she murmured. Now she felt something different about her approach. She seemed to move with an odd fluidity. It was as if the stone was guiding her movements. The passage this time was less a physical act, it felt more like a negotiation, a delicate dance between her will and something indistinct, unidentifiable. As she threaded herself through the hole it seemed to her that the world around her seemed to shimmer and fold. It was not a dramatic transformation, more subtle, a sort of rippling like looking at the world through the raindrops running down a window. Sound accompanied her. Indistinct, not quite a whisper, not quite a song, it was something in between on the edge of hearing. She was reminded of childhood memories just beyond retrieval, of the stories of her grandmother, stories of the old ways, the old magic that lived in the Cornish landscape.

Emerging she noticed that the landscape had subtly shifted. The standing stones appeared to be closer together, A small stream that hadn't been there before ran through the landscape reflecting light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. To her left a cluster of standing stones cast shadows that didn't quite match the morning light. There just at the edge of her peripheral vision something moved, something quick and small, something that disappeared before she could focus on it. Elena reached for her recorder
'Third passage' her voice barely above a whisper 'time 6:22am. Significant perceptual anomalies. More potential spatial displacement. Something is watching' she hesitated before quietly adding 'I don't think I'm alone anymore.'.

The chough from her second passage watched from a nearby stone - silent and knowing.

Three passages complete. Six more to go - if she was brave enough to continue.