Blackwood Academy
When Eli is forced to enroll at Blackwood Academy, he thinks it is just another remote boarding school. But on his first night, he realizes the terrifying truth.
This school is a prison.
Trapped in endless, deadly time loops, students are forced to complete cruel, supernatural trials. Ghosts, cursed hallways, hidden rules, and unspeakable creatures hunt them after dark. The only way to stay alive is to solve mysteries, earn credits, and obey the academy's twisted commands.
No one remembers how they arrived.
No one has ever graduated.
No one leaves alive.
Eli must team up with other desperate students to uncover the academy's century-old secret. If they fail, they will be trapped in the nightmare forever.
At Blackwood Academy, survival is the only exam.
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Chapter 4
The scream ripped through the empty woods, echoing for barely a second before it was swallowed whole by the torrential downpour of blood rain.
The mansion fell dead silent once more, as if that gut-wrenching cry had been nothing but a hallucination. Every single heart hammered against its cage of ribs. Icy rain slid down foreheads, mixing with cold sweat to soak through the backs of their shirts.
Junior clung to Irene's arm, his knuckles white, his teeth chattering. "Th-that sound... it was one of the people who came in with us, right?"
"Most likely." Leah Carter lowered her camera, her face grave as she flipped through the photos she'd just snapped. "Nothing inside the house shows up. Every window's boarded up tight-only the front door's open."
Eli Walker lifted his gaze toward the mansion. Blood rain streamed down its stone walls, pooling into dark, rust-red puddles at the foundation. The open front door gaped like a black hole, pouring out frigid wind thick with the stench of mildew and blood, cold enough to seep straight into bone.
"We can't stay out here," Eli said, his voice eerily calm. He jerked his chin toward the dark depths of the forest behind them. "Listen."
The group held their breath, shoving down their terror. Beneath the patter of blood rain on the leaves, they heard it: low, inhuman growls, and the sharp crack of snapping branches. The sounds were getting closer, as if some massive, unseen beast was tearing through the darkness, heading straight for them.
"Blackwood Academy doesn't give us safe zones." Eli pulled his gaze back to the group. "There's something in those woods, and our objective is inside. We go in and face what's waiting, or stay out here and get torn apart. We have no choice."
Leah nodded at once, snatching a thick branch from the ground and gripping it like a weapon. "Eli's right. The only way we finish the Trial, earn our credits, and get out alive is to find that will."
Irene held Junior steady, her voice soft but unshakable. "I'm with you. I'll do everything I can to keep us all safe."
Junior glanced between the black, growl-ridden forest and the looming, sinister mansion, finally grinding his teeth and nodding hard. He snatched up a jagged rock and clenched it in his fist. "I-I'm not scared! Let's go!"
Eli took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the folding knife in his pocket, and took the first step toward the mansion's open maw. Icy blood rain hit his face, thick with a metallic tang. He planted each step steady, his eyes locked on the open doorway.
The second they crossed the threshold, a wave of mildew, blood, and rot hit them, thick enough to taste. The foyer was cavernous, with a high ceiling holding a shattered crystal chandelier caked in dust and cobwebs. It swayed in the draft with a high, creaking whine. The red carpet beneath their feet was black with rot, stained with dark, dried splotches, littered with splintered furniture and moldering clothes.
On the far wall hung a massive family portrait. The canvas was yellowed and blackened, crisscrossed with cracks and mold, depicting a family of four. Eli's gaze locked on the painting, and his stomach dropped-every single person in the portrait had their eyes gouged out, leaving nothing but empty black holes that seemed to stare straight down at them.
No matter where they stood, those hollow sockets followed.
"Oh my god..." Junior clapped a hand over his mouth, unable to look any longer, pressing himself tight against Eli's back.
Leah lifted her camera and snapped a photo. The flash fired, and in that split second, Eli's pupils blew wide-he saw it, clear as day: the little girl in the painting, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a sick, twisted smile.
When the flash faded, he stared again. The portrait was exactly as it had been. No smile, no movement. Like it had all been in his head.
"Guys! Over here!" Irene's voice cut through the silence from the left side of the foyer, tight with a barely concealed tremor.
Eli and Leah spun and sprinted over. Pinned to the stone wall with a dozen rusted iron nails was the body of a young girl, her limbs splayed in a crude cross, her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Her eyes had been gouged out, leaving two oozing, bloody sockets, her mouth stretched wide in a silent scream.
Eli recognized her. Megan. A college student who'd entered the Trial with them. She'd sat right next to him in the classroom, whispering if any of this was real.
Now, she never would.
Half an uneaten loaf of bread was still clenched in her hand, stained black with blood. The wristband on her arm was gone.
Irene stepped forward, slipping on disposable gloves to examine the body, and shook her head, her voice heavy. "Been dead at least ten minutes. Cause of death is massive trauma and exsanguination. These nails were driven through from the back, straight into the stone. No human being could have the strength to do this."
Leah lifted her camera, firing off a rapid series of shots. When she glanced down at the screen, her face drained of all color, the device nearly slipping from her grasp.
"What is it?" Eli grabbed her arm to steady her.
Leah held the camera out to him, her voice shaking. "L-look."
Eli took the camera and stared at the screen. The photo showed Megan's body pinned to the wall, but looming behind her was a tall, indistinct black shadow. It had no head, no clear limbs, just a solid mass of frozen darkness, pressed tight against her back.
He flipped through the next photos. The shadow was in every single one. And with each shot, it was moving forward, inch by inch, like it was crawling out of her body.
Eli's blood turned to ice. He lifted his head, staring at the wall behind Megan's body. It was clean. Nothing but rust and blood. No shadow.
That's when they heard it: a soft thudfrom upstairs.
Like someone in heavy boots had taken a single step on the staircase.
Every single person froze, holding their breath, and snapped their heads toward the wooden stairs. The steps were black with rot, the handrail thick with dust and cobwebs, and completely empty.
Thud... thud... thud...
The footsteps grew louder, slow and heavy, descending the stairs one by one. But the staircase stayed empty. The sound echoed right in their ears, as if an invisible person was standing directly in front of them.
Junior shook so hard he nearly collapsed, pressing himself flat against the wall, his eyes locked on the top of the stairs.
Eli tightened his grip on his knife, his gaze pinned to the steps. And he saw it: a bright red, bloody handprint suddenly appeared on the first step.
Then the second. Then the third.
One by one, fresh, dripping handprints snaked down the handrail from the second floor, each one accompanied by the soft, sickening drip, dripof thick blood, loud in the dead silence of the foyer.
"These prints... they weren't here a second ago." Leah's voice shook. The photos she'd taken of the stairs minutes before showed a clean, empty handrail.
Eli's heart hammered against his ribs. They'd just triggered the first death trap.
That's when the mansion's front door slammed open with a deafening crash.
Kane Royce burst through, flanked by his two goons, Tucker and Rex, all of them soaked to the bone. Their faces were twisted with panic and rage, a long gash on Tucker's left arm oozing black blood.
"Goddammit! There's some fucked-up thing in those woods!" Kane spat a mouthful of blood-flecked saliva, his voice a snarl. "Fast as hell. We almost got torn to shreds!"
His gaze landed on Megan's body pinned to the wall, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before it hardened back into rage. When he spotted the loaves of bread and water bottles peeking out of the group's packs, his eyes lit up with greedy hunger.
"Hand over half your food and water." Kane stepped right up to Eli, towering over him. "Or you end up just like the bitch on the wall."
Rex and Tucker closed in at once, daggers drawn, their knuckles white.
Junior scrambled behind Eli, and Irene clutched her first aid kit tight.
Eli lifted his head, staring calmly up at Kane, his voice flat. "I can't do that. This is our only supply for the next 72 hours."
"Then I'll take it by force!" Kane roared, lunging for the pack at Eli's feet.
"Don't." Eli's voice stayed calm, but his eyes turned to ice. "You forgot the rule. No intentional killing of fellow participants. Break it, you lose all your credits. And you get erased."
Kane's hand froze mid-lunge. His face turned purple with rage, then pale-he remembered. He'd seen the brute in the classroom get erased, screaming, right in front of his eyes.
"I ain't gonna kill you." Kane ground his teeth, his voice a vicious snarl. "I just want your supplies."
"Without them, we won't last 72 hours. We'll be dead all the same." Eli held his gaze, every word sharp and unyielding. "That's the same as killing us. The Academy's rules won't let that slide."
Kane stared daggers at Eli, looking like a rabid dog about to snap. Eli didn't flinch. Finally, Kane wrenched his hand away, spitting on the floor.
"Real fucking clever." Kane snarled. "But this ain't over. When we find that will, half the credits are mine. Or I'll make sure you wish you were dead long before the 72 hours are up."
Eli said nothing. He knew better than anyone that picking a fight now would only make things worse. They needed a temporary truce.
"Now we split up to search." Kane jerked his chin at his men, then glared at Eli. "Me and my boys take the second floor. You take the first. You find anything, you tell me. Try to hide something, and you'll never leave this house alive."
With that, he turned and stalked toward the stairs, Tucker and Rex right on his heels.
When they reached the staircase, Kane froze. His eyes locked on the dozens of fresh, dripping blood handprints, his brow furrowing.
"Where the hell did these come from?" Kane snapped.
"Right before you came in," Eli said.
Kane's face turned grim. He drew his dagger, stepped carefully onto the first step, and started up. Tucker and Rex followed, their footsteps fading into the second-floor hallway.
The foyer fell silent again.
Eli let out a quiet breath. "We start searching too. Rule number one: no one goes anywhere alone. You see anything off, you yell. Immediately."
Leah and Irene nodded, and Junior glued himself to Eli's side.
They cleared the first-floor rooms: the living room, kitchen, dining room, study, and a cluttered storage closet. Every room was decayed and trashed, filled with dust and garbage.
In the kitchen, Eli found a brown leather-bound journal tucked inside a rotting oak cabinet. The cover was worn, with neat, delicate handwriting across the front: Emily Black.
Eli flipped it open. The handwriting was childish. It told the story of the horrors in the mansion, and the insane experiments her father, Abraham Black, had conducted.
The final page held only one line of scrawled, smudged writing, as if written through tears: It's in the mirror. Don't look in the mirror.
Eli's stomach dropped.
That's when Junior's scream ripped through the house from the foyer, high and shrill with unhinged terror. "Eli! Get over here! Oh my god, GET OVER HERE!"
Eli, Leah, and Irene sprinted back into the foyer.
Junior was collapsed on the floor, his finger shaking as he pointed at the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror in the center of the room. His face was white as a sheet.
The group followed his gaze, and their blood turned to ice.
In the mirror, a little girl in a white dress stood in the center of the hall, holding a ragged doll, staring back at them with a sick, twisted smile.
And in the empty hall outside the mirror, the space right in front of it?
There was no one there.
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7.7
Nora's life turned into a nightmare after she was banished from her pack by her own husband. She was subjected to mockery, abuse and humiliation before being cast out with nothing.
Faced with the cruelty of a world that had never once been kind to her, the moon goddess decided to bless her with her fated mate.
The same man she watched slaughter others without a single trace of mercy. The man who was twice as cold and twice as ruthless as the husband who destroyed her.
Yet he would not let her go. She found herself stuck between the husband who used her and the ruthless mate who wanted her but refused to admit it. Two powerful men. One woman who was never supposed to survive any of it. And a moon goddess who was not done with her yet.
7.1
The last thing I remembered was the blinding flash of my starship crashing. But instead of a rescue crew, I woke up tied to a wooden post, surrounded by hostile beastmen.
My universal translator kicked in just in time to hear their priestess, Chelsea, declare that I was a cursed demon who ruined their hunt. To save the clan from winter starvation, I was to be burned alive.
The flames were already blistering my legs, and jagged stones hurled by the crowd gashed my forehead. I barely negotiated a three-day reprieve to find them food, venturing into the deadly primeval forest.
I found a massive supply of wild potatoes and even gained the protection of Bronson, a terrifyingly powerful saber-toothed tiger beastman.
But Chelsea wouldn't stop.
She labeled my food as poisonous, tried to sentence me to starve in a penitent's cave, and when my agricultural knowledge proved her wrong, she invoked an ancient law. She incited the tribe's savage warriors to fight over me, turning me into breeding property.
I was a scientist offering them endless food, yet their primitive ignorance and one woman's vicious jealousy kept pushing me toward a brutal end. I was terrified, completely powerless against their monstrous physical strength.
As five ruthless challengers drew their bone axes to claim me, I begged Bronson to leave me and run.
Instead, he pulled me against his scarred chest and kissed me fiercely in front of the entire clan.
"She is my mate," he roared, unleashing a soul-crushing aura. "Anyone who wants her, come at me together."
8.9
The Moon Goddess gave them a bond-Adrian gave his heart to someone else.
For three years, Luna Mira has lived in the shadow of her trauma, clinging to the comfort of an Alpha who felt like safety. until a grieving widow arrives and exposes the truth. While Mira struggles to heal, Adrian risks everything for another woman, showering her with the affection and gifts meant for his wife.
After a brutal betrayal on the streets of France, Mira learns that being a mate is destiny-but being a Luna is power. If Adrian won't choose her, she'll choose herself. and the most dangerous Lycan King in the world may already be waiting to claim what Adrian foolishly threw away.
9.8
When I woke up on the muddy bank of the freezing river, I unlocked a brutal, unfiltered preview of my actual future.
For the past six months, I had been the town's ultimate joke, chasing after a city boy who looked at me like a diseased insect. Everyone thought I jumped into the river because he rejected me.
But the nightmare didn't stop there. In the future I foresaw, my entire family was destroyed. My eldest brother was handcuffed and dragged into a squad car. My second brother died in a pool of blood on the asphalt. My parents passed away from sheer grief and humiliation, and our farm was foreclosed.
Meanwhile, Bart Hawkins—my family's sworn enemy, the boy everyone accused of pushing me, but who actually jumped in to save my life—became a billionaire tech mogul. I ended up starving to death in a damp, moldy basement, completely alone.
I finally understood that I was just a pathetic, tragic side character meant to drag my family into hell. My own sister-in-law, Felicie, had been stealing our food and money, laughing at my misery behind my back.
But right now, my mother was still alive, my brothers were safe, and the farm was ours.
When Felicie walked into my bedroom, playing the devoted sister-in-law with a bowl of clear, meatless broth while a stolen roasted chicken thigh leaked grease through her apron pocket, I didn't play along.
"What's in your pocket, Felicie?"
This time, I was going to tear that horrific future apart with my bare hands.
8.5
Sera was the obedient, spoiled Hollywood socialite of the Beaumont family, completely devoted to her fiancé, Ethan.
But her life ended in a freezing Eastern European warehouse, chained to a damp concrete floor.
Right before she died, her captors shoved the transfer documents in her face. Ethan had sold her to human traffickers to cover his massive underground gambling debts.
While she suffered in absolute hell, her adoptive mother went on national television.
She squeezed out fake tears, publicly framing Sera for stealing family funds and eloping with a secret lover.
Sera's reputation was completely destroyed, and she was left to die a miserable, agonizing death in the dark.
She didn't understand why her family treated her like a disposable piece of trash.
She understood even less how the man who promised to marry her could hand her over to monsters without a second thought.
When she opened her eyes again, the biting cold and heavy iron chains were gone.
She was back five years in the past.
She was lying on a hotel bed, her limbs heavy with date-rape drugs, while a predatory Hollywood director hovered inches from her face.
It was the exact "exclusive audition" Ethan had arranged to exploit her for the very first time.
Sera didn't scream. With lethal, practiced precision, she shattered the director's wrist and brought a heavy crystal ashtray down on his skull.
The bleeding man collapsed onto the carpet and whimpered.
"Ethan promised... he said you'd be compliant..."
Staring at his pathetic face, a cold, predatory smile stretched across Sera's lips.
This time, she was going to systematically dismantle their lives.
7.2
I was an Omega married off to the powerful Gamma Ryker Blackwood to save my dwindling pack.
But on our wedding night, he threw me into the spare room, declaring our bond a mere political alliance.
He refused to mark me, leaving me to suffer through my agonizing heats with nothing but toxic suppressants.
I soon discovered his heart belonged to a powerful Alpha warrior named Jessa.
They openly humiliated me at pack events, mocking my unmarked status and telling me to initiate a rejection.
When I finally found the courage to leave, his mother threatened my family's survival if I didn't produce an heir.
That night, a drunken Ryker came home and used the forbidden Alpha Command on me.
"Kneel."
My knees crashed onto the cold marble floor, the dark magic breaking my will and tearing our sacred bond apart.
I was trapped in a gilded cage, abused by my fated mate, and forced to bear his cruelty for the sake of my people.
How could the Moon Goddess shackle me to a monster who would profane our bond just to show his dominance?
The next morning, a terrified Ryker woke up realizing he could be ruined by the council for using the Command.
I didn't scream or report him to the Alpha King.
Instead, I wiped away my tears, gave him a gentle smile, and pretended to forgive him.
He gave me a crumb of remorse, and I will use it to bake a loaf of revenge.