A scream—sharp, ragged, human. Not the echo of an animal, not the confusion of wind or distant thunder. It was something else. A raw, primal sound, too full of desperation to be anything but real. Igor froze. His body responded before his mind. Heart thundering, breath held, he turned his head toward the sound.
There it was again. Fainter now, but unmistakable.
Not howling. Not a threat. A plea. A voice unraveling at the edge of survival. It did not call words. It did not scream a name. But within it, there was the purest expression of terror and surrender—as if someone, somewhere, was vanishing.
He dropped his backpack and ran.
The forest closed around him like a living thing. Branches clawed at his jacket, thorns tugged at his arms. The air thickened, humid and stale, hanging low like an old curtain soaked in rain. The ground shifted under him, becoming wet, slick, and strange. One misstep, and his boot sank ankle-deep into soft muck.
But he didn’t stop.
What kind of sound was that? Who was screaming in a place like this?
He hadn’t planned to come this far. The trail, narrow and poorly marked, had tempted him deeper into the wetlands than he’d ever ventured. He was supposed to chart some old survey points, take photos for his part-time job with the forestry department. This part of the swamp was marked “unstable” on his map. “Avoid if possible.” Now he knew why.
But none of that mattered now.
The scream had stopped.
That silence—thicker than the fog—was worse.
He pushed forward. The forest grew darker even though it was only midday. Trees leaned in, their mossy trunks sweating moisture. The water below, once no more than puddles, now spread into black mirrored pools. Still, he kept going. The direction of the scream was branded into his mind like a beacon. He trusted it.
And then he saw it.
A disturbance in the reeds. A deep groove torn through the mud. Drag marks. The footprints were frantic, erratic, like someone stumbling, falling, crawling. Something—or someone—had come this way, fast and wounded.
“I’m here!” Igor called out.
No answer.
He moved faster, each step requiring effort, his boots making sickening suction sounds. The trees parted suddenly, revealing a clearing—silent, sunless, unnaturally still. In the middle of it was a pool of water, darker than ink, edged by dead roots and scattered moss. On the far side, something was lying still.
He stepped closer.
A person.
A woman.
She was half-submerged in the shallow edge of the bog, soaked, mud-covered, her arms sprawled at odd angles. Long, tangled hair veiled her face. She wasn’t moving.
Igor’s heart twisted. “Miss! Are you hurt?”
He splashed into the water, coldness slicing through his pants, numbing his legs instantly. The mud resisted like a beast pulling him backward. But he reached her.
She was breathing.
Faint, but real.
He turned her gently, wiping the mud from her mouth, her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered. Blue, glassy. Lips trembling.
“Help,” she whispered.
Two syllables, barely audible.
Igor pulled out his phone. No signal. Not a bar. No GPS. The last ping was nearly three kilometers back. He had to get her out. Now.
He scooped her into his arms. She was lighter than expected. Exhausted, starved. Her fingers were scratched, torn. Her skin marked with what looked like rope burns. Someone had tied her. Left her. Abandoned her to die.
And she had screamed.
That sound—he would never forget it.
The journey back was grueling. Every step was a battle with the earth. The weight of her in his arms, the pull of the swamp, the creeping fear that something—or someone—might be following, watching, waiting for him to stop.
But he didn’t stop.
It took over two hours to reach the ridge where his signal returned. He sent the coordinates, called emergency services, and collapsed beside her, barely conscious.
Help arrived 20 minutes later. Paramedics carried her away. Police asked questions. Igor gave what answers he could.
They found no signs of another person. No camp. No vehicle. No belongings.
But they did find something else.
Buried shallow beneath a patch of disturbed soil near the clearing—three other graves.
Unmarked. Recent. Two female. One male. All unidentified.
The woman survived.
She later revealed her name: Katya. She had been abducted two weeks earlier on her way home from work in a nearby town. Held captive by a man who wore a mask, never spoke. One night, without warning, he drove her deep into the swamp and left her there. Tied. Bound. As bait, she believed. For what, she didn’t know.
Authorities launched a massive manhunt. The swamp yielded no suspects. No weapons. No fingerprints. Just cold traces of a predator who knew how to vanish.
Igor became a reluctant hero. Interviews followed. Some called him a savior. Others, a man in the right place at the right time. He rejected both.
“I just ran toward the scream,” he said.
But at night, in the quiet of his apartment, he could still hear it. That scr
