a 5000 word story about 4 people randomly teleport

The Blackwood Manor

The iridescent shimmer swallowed them whole. One moment, Liam, Maya, Chloe, and Ben were huddled around a flickering campfire, sharing ghost stories in the remote Appalachian wilderness; the next, they were sprawled on damp, moss-covered stone, the smell of decaying earth thick in their nostrils.

Gone was the crackling fire; replaced by a looming silhouette against a bruised, twilight sky. Before them stood Blackwood Manor, a gothic monstrosity of crumbling grey stone, its myriad windows like empty eyes staring into their souls. The sheer scale of the place was terrifying – larger than any photograph could capture, its sprawling wings stretching into the gloom like skeletal fingers.

“What…what happened?” Chloe stammered, her voice barely a whisper. Ben, usually the bravest of the four, was pale, his eyes wide with a primal fear. Liam, a history student, was the first to speak coherently.

“Blackwood Manor,” he breathed, consulting his phone, the signal miraculously working despite their seemingly impossible location. “It’s… it’s supposed to be abandoned. A historical landmark, infamous for its… its dark history.” His voice trailed off, unable to articulate the chilling details he’d just read. The manor’s history, he learned, was a tapestry woven with tales of brutal murders, ritualistic sacrifices, and unexplained disappearances.

The group, bound by a shared sense of dread, slowly began to explore. The massive oak doors, etched with grotesque carvings, were unlocked, a chilling invitation into the unknown. The interior was a labyrinth of decaying grandeur, ornate rooms swallowed by shadows, the air heavy with the scent of mildew and something else… something acrid and metallic, like old blood.

Maya, a photographer, held her camera tight, its flash illuminating fragments of a terrifying past. In the grand hall, they found a shattered suit of armor, stained crimson. In the library, the shelves were lined with leather-bound books, their pages brittle with age, filled with indecipherable symbols and chilling illustrations. Whispers seemed to snake through the corridors, unintelligible but unnerving, like the breath of unseen things.

As darkness descended, the manor revealed its true nature. The temperature plummeted. Shadows danced in their peripheral vision, taking on grotesque shapes. A disembodied laugh echoed from the depths of the house, sending shivers down their spines. Ben, plagued by increasingly vivid hallucinations, saw spectral figures lurking in the corners of his eyes – gaunt, skeletal forms with glowing red eyes.

One by one, each of them faced their own personal terrors. Liam, haunted by the manor’s history, felt the weight of centuries of suffering pressing down on him. He experienced vivid flashbacks, seeing the horrific events that transpired within those walls – witnessing brutal murders, feeling the cold steel of a blade against his throat. Maya found her camera malfunctioning, the pictures it took showing distorted images, grotesque faces superimposed on the decaying beauty of the manor. Chloe, always the most sensitive, heard whispers that spoke directly to her deepest fears and insecurities, driving her to the brink of madness.

Ben’s hallucinations escalated. One night, he stumbled upon a hidden chamber, its walls covered in strange symbols. As he touched the wall, a surge of icy energy coursed through him, paralyzing him with terror. He saw a grotesque creature emerge from the shadows, its form shifting and changing, its eyes burning with malevolent intent. He screamed, a primal, desperate cry that echoed through the silent house. Liam and Maya found him collapsed, babbling incoherently, the experience scarring him deeply.

Days blurred into nights. They were trapped, their attempts to leave the manor met with seemingly impenetrable walls of darkness. The house seemed to feed on their fear, their desperation, twisting their minds and bodies. They rationed their meager supplies, the silence punctuated only by their ragged breaths, the whispers, and the increasingly frequent appearances of the ghastly apparitions.

One particularly harrowing night, Chloe vanished. Her screams, choked and desperate, were cut short, swallowed by the echoing silence of the manor. Liam and Maya searched frantically, their hope dwindling with each passing moment. The fear of losing another to this cursed place gnawed at their souls. They knew, with a certainty that chilled them to the bone, that Chloe had become another victim of Blackwood Manor.

They found her the next morning, slumped against a crumbling stone wall in the courtyard. Her expression was one of pure, unadulterated terror, her eyes wide and staring at something unseen. But there were no signs of struggle, no wounds, nothing to explain her death. She had simply… ceased to be.

Liam, driven to the edge of madness, decided they needed to find a way out, even if it meant facing their greatest fears. He delved into the manor’s darkest corners, guided by a desperate hope that he would find a way to break free from this infernal prison. He discovered a hidden passage behind a tapestry in the grand hall, a passage that led to a subterranean chamber. In the center of the chamber, a single, obsidian altar stood bathed in an eerie, ethereal glow.

On the altar lay a book bound in human skin, its pages filled with ancient incantations. As Liam touched the book, a voice, cold and ancient, echoed in his mind. It revealed the truth – the manor wasn’t haunted; it was a nexus point, a gateway to another dimension. They hadn’t been teleported; they had been chosen.

The voice explained that the manor fed on fear and despair, drawing energy from those trapped within. Chloe, Ben, and even Liam and Maya were sacrifices, their essence fueling the manor’s otherworldly power. The “hauntings” were manifestations of their own deepest anxieties and terrors, amplified and manipulated by the manor itself.

Liam, in a desperate act of survival, grabbed the book. He ripped a page, intending to use the incantations to escape, only to find that the page was blank. He looked around. The obsidian altar was empty. The subterranean chamber vanished. He was back in the grand hall. Maya was there, looking at him with unnerving calmness.

“It’s always been us, Liam,” Maya said, her voice devoid of any emotion. “We chose this. We summoned this.”

Liam stared at her, his mind reeling. He looked closer at Maya’s eyes. They were not human eyes. They were cold, black pits, devoid of life. They were the eyes of something ancient, something hungry. He realized it then. The summoning ritual, the campfire stories, the supposedly random choice of location… It was all planned. Maya had orchestrated everything, using Ben, Chloe and Liam’s shared belief in the supernatural and her knowledge of the occult to fulfill the ancient ritual. Maya was the true entity, the creature that had been drawing on their energy all along. The Blackwood Manor was not a prison; it was a sacrifice. And Liam was the final offering.

The iridescent shimmer returned. The last thing Liam saw before being swallowed by the light was Maya’s chilling smile, a smile that promised an eternity of torment in a realm beyond human comprehension. The shimmer dissipated, leaving an empty, silent Blackwood Manor behind, undisturbed for another cycle.