THE BLACKWELL CURSE

The van, which had seen better days and was in line with their college

budget, rattled down the lonely Oregon highway. The city lights shrank

away into distance and indifference. The outside air thickened, wet earth,

and the ancient, brooding presence of the forest. Ravenwood Manor, a

skeletal profile against a bruised, moonlit sky rose up like a god of old, long

forgotten, its decay a cold promise of buried secrets.

Ryan, the film studies major and documentarian, held his camera, fingers

white with tension. He always prided himself on being a little privileged with

raw, unbiased truth. But now, with the palpable fear bearing down upon him

from inside the manor, his gut instinct proved otherwise. “Claire, are you

joking?! This place...looks like something out of a nightmare.” Plenty of

strange places, rooms, buildings; he’d seen them all. This was different,

though. This place was just wrong.

Claire, resting on the van’s window, her face an image of cynical

amusement, did her best to keep her customary cool composure. “It was a

joke, Ryan. A morbid, ironic joke about discovering the ideal ’abandoned

creepy place’ for your film project.” Instead of an honest suggestion, Claire

had offered Ravenwood in jest, in obscenely warped iteration of her dry

sense of humor. Yet seeing Ethan’s eyes suddenly come alive - their

depths lit with a predatory luster - was unnerving. Now bearing down on the

manor, the joke seemed less funny to Claire and more like some dark

omen.

Ethan, the group’s self-declared leader, the person who felt that this film

project was his escape hatch to something bigger, to a life beyond the

drudgery of college, smiled, his eyes aflame with what seemed to be a

near-crazed energy. “This is perfect, isn’t it? Raw. Visceral. We’re going to

take home ‘Best Short Film’, I can just feel it. This place... it has

atmosphere.” He was longing for affirmation; a ravenous, almost desperateneed to validate his vision of creative brilliance, to pull him out from under

the cloud of banality. This film project was not just a project for him; it was a

lifeline.

Ava, the quiet, intuitive one, shivered, despite the overwhelming warmth of

the van. The air in this place was heavy, draped with an invisible weight; a

silent scream trapped in the dilapidated walls. “I don’t like this place,” she

breathed. “It feels... toxic.” She had always been attuned to an unseen

presence, the whispers of the world beyond the palpable, and Ravenwood

was screaming at her, trying to warn her away.

Jason, her loyal protector, placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. His

eyes were filled with concern. “We’ll be fine, Ava. We are just filming a

movie. A story.” Even he couldn’t hide his own slight lacking assurance, as

a quiver in his voice revealed that he shared Ava’s concern. Jason felt her

fear, and the manor’s stillness felt heavy.Inside the manor, the air was an

oppressive maze of dust and deterioration. The flashlights were merely

beams of light even in the dark space, illuminating furniture with thick webs

all over, faded images of strange people with harsh expressions, along with

the ruined remains where glory once existed. The silence was thick, barring

the creaks and groans of the aged house shifting, each sound was an eerie

whisper from the secrets it holds.

They assembled their equipment, feeling the anxiety heighten as the hours

ticked by. The manor almost felt alive, as if it was watching them with

unseen eyes. Ethan’s impatience was building, his need for something to

happen was growing, and he paced like a caged animal. “We need

something,” he muttered, an edge of desperation in his voice. “Something

real.”

Time passed at a snails pace. The silence was imposing. Ethan, fueled by

his ambition, his desire to obtain something special, something personal

that would separate him, became more and more agitated. “We’re wastingour time,” he said, his voice piercing the silence. “Let’s go check the

backyard.”

Anxiety bubbled up inside Ava and she felt her breath start to constrict in

her throat. “At three in the morning, Ethan, this is a terrible idea. This

place... it’s just wrong.” She could feel the darkness reaching into her

bones and she felt exposed to things lurking in the shadows.

“Bad ideas make good films,” Ethan replied, his tone tinged with an odd

and near-manic urgency. He was pushing them, pushing himself, driven by

a force of which he could not adequately explain.

They discovered the well, its stony exterior plastered with age-old,

undecipherable etchings, a mute witness to a history they could not

understand. Ethan, who was curious to the point of obsession, with his

fingers running over the odd symbols, forced open the heavy cover against

Ava’s pleas for him not to.

A rush of freezing air burst from the well, pulling with it the stench of rot and

something else: something long forgotten and evil. Then, the black

spheres, like twin bullets of darkness, flew out at Ethan and Claire–the hit

felt nasty. The room went quiet, eerily still, with only ragged, distorted

breathing to be heard.

Ethan and Claire’s eyes were wide and unblinking, and they claimed they

were all right, but something had changed, ever so slightly, then quite

drastically. Ethan’s cocky bravado turned into a chilling stillness, that dark,

brooding silence radiated with a disturbing kind of strength. Claire, sharp

and witty in conversation, spoke in an empty monotone and appeared to

move stiffly and unnaturally, like a puppet on invisible strings.

In the morning, the alterations were horrific, undeniable. The color of their

skin turned from brown to pale, their veins were blackened, even whispers

appeared to come from them, whispers that made the blood turn cold andscratched sanity’s brink. Ryan, Ava, and Jason felt their fear rising as they

realized - this was not a bad spot; it was a curse.

The town’s dusty library, filled with forgotten history, revealed the reality: the

well was a prison for a demon, an ancient evil locked away beneath the

manor. By opening it, they had broken a curse, a dark stain on their souls.

The only recourse was a ritual, a last resort, but it demanded a heavy price:

one life for another, a sacrifice to pay the darkness back.

Ethan, battling the demonic presence fighting for dominance inside of him,

learned the awful truth about their circumstance. The demon was hissing

continuously in his mind, enticing promises of power and creating havoc,

and Ethan felt his will start to drain slowly. He sensed the enjoyment of

darkness and violence spreading through him, but underneath all that

chaos was a small glimmer of his old self, memories of his friends, and a

strong fire to protect them. That would be his motivation to overcome the

demonic subconscious and provide a path toward his goal. He allowed

himself to exhibit weakness and to comply with the demons desire to

believe it had overcome and reigned supreme. And then with a burst of

adrenaline and strong will, he took back command. He used the demons

own arrogance against him. The demon commandeered power was

redirected right back to the well. This move was all-consuming to his

energy and concentration. Finally he pushed back the demon under an

ear-piercing scream of frustration and madness before sealing the well one

more time.