Galina woke up earlier than the roosters, as she always did. Darkness still ruled inside her small village house, as if the night itself refused to surrender to the new day. But she, a woman hardened by life, had long been used to rising at the faintest glimmer of dawn, no matter how heavy the fog outside. Work does not wait, she would say with a half-smile, tying a bright scarf over her gray hair.

Yet this morning was different. Instead of her usual energy, she felt an unexplainable anxiety. The silence outside did not comfort her—it pressed against her chest. Something was lurking there, unseen but dangerously close. She moved to the window.

The village was still asleep, wrapped in a silver veil of fog. The houses, with their darkened windows, looked like lifeless faces staring into emptiness. Only the distant barking of a dog reminded her that life still pulsed here. She reached for her wicker basket, her loyal companion for countless mushroom hunts.

As she stepped out into the yard, the air hit her with a biting chill. Even the wind, which usually played freely in the fields, seemed frozen in place. She whispered: “Something’s wrong today.” Still, she had no choice. The forest would not wait.

The path to the woods carried her past the crooked houses at the edge of the village. And there, sitting on his porch as though he had been carved out of the mist, was Peter. The 75-year-old widower, hunched and silent, was a figure as permanent as the old barns. For decades, he had lived alone after the tragic death of his wife Marina.

No one ever really knew what kept him tied to this place. Some whispered that he was cursed, others that he kept terrible secrets. Children were told not to go near his yard. And Peter never explained. He simply watched, silently, as life passed him by.

But what Galina did not know was that Peter had not been alone the night before. A figure—young, slender, and completely drenched—had stumbled out of the swamp and into his yard. Witnesses later swore they saw him drag the stranger into his house. And then, silence. No one dared approach.

The next morning, the silence was broken. A scream ripped through the village, shrill and inhuman. People froze where they stood. Windows swung open, doors creaked, but no one moved closer. The scream came from Peter’s house.

Galina, unable to contain her terror and curiosity, finally pushed open his unlocked door. What she saw inside made her clutch the doorframe for support.

On the floor, half-conscious, lay a young woman in torn clothes, her eyes wild with fear. Mud and swamp weeds clung to her skin, as if she had been dragged from the depths of the bog. And Peter, trembling like a leaf, stood in the corner, his face pale, his eyes filled with something between guilt and despair.

The woman’s voice cracked as she whispered: “He saved me… but the swamp… the swamp wouldn’t let me go.” Then she screamed again, louder, a cry that echoed through the village like the toll of a funeral bell.

By evening, rumors devoured the village. Some swore the woman was not human at all, but a spirit of the bog. Others insisted Peter had made a bargain with dark forces, and now it had come due. No one dared spend the night near his house.

Only one truth remained undeniable: after that morning, Peter’s house was never the same. Some nights, villagers claimed they still heard screams from within, long after the young woman had vanished without a trace.

And so, the story of the old widower and the woman from the swamp became the kind of tale mothers whispered to frighten their children. A warning that some secrets should never be uncovered. Because when the swamp gives something back, it always takes something in return.