He heard a cry — sharp, ragged, unlike any animal sound he had ever known. It cut through the thick stillness of the forest like a blade. He froze, instinct overthinking, and tilted his head to listen again. There it was — faint, but unmistakable. Not behind him, not from the path he’d come, but ahead. Somewhere in the brush. Beyond the swampy lowlands.

He stepped cautiously, the ground growing softer beneath his boots. Another cry. Not a howl. Not a roar. Not threatening. It was pleading. Desperate. The kind of sound that does not echo — it sinks, low and raw, into the gut of the one who hears it. Igor had heard wild animals fight, had heard men scream in pain and fear. But this — this was different.

It was the kind of sound that triggered something older than reason. A primitive call to act. As if something ancient inside him responded before he could stop it. As if the cry wasn’t just for help, but the last flash of life flaring before being consumed by the abyss.

He dropped his backpack where he stood. No calculation. No plan. Just movement. A run.

Branches lashed at his arms as he forced his way forward. The smell of wet earth, stagnant water, and decomposing leaves wrapped around him. The cries had stopped. That made it worse.

The bog sucked at his feet. He nearly fell once, catching himself against a root that jutted from the mud like a skeletal arm. There were no birds now. No insects. Only his breath, ragged as the cry had been, and the distant sound of his own feet disturbing the water.

Then, a shape.

It was small, half-submerged, motionless. His heart lurched.

He waded faster, chest-deep now, ignoring the cold that stole into his spine. As he neared, the form became clearer. Not a deer. Not a child. A figure, yes. Human. But wrong.

The hair was tangled with algae, the skin pale, too pale — as if it hadn’t felt the sun in years. He reached out, trembling. The eyes opened.

Not afraid. Not pleading. Watching.

Igor recoiled.

What he had taken for a cry was not just a call for help — it was a summons.

She — if that was still the right word — rose slowly from the water, her movement unnatural, as though the bog itself exhaled her. Her face was young and old all at once. Her lips were parted, but the sound she made now was not audible — it was inside his head, like pressure.

He stumbled backward. The water resisted him now. The swamp wanted him to stay.

Something brushed his ankle. Not a fish. Not a branch.

Another hand.

The realization struck cold: she was not alone.

Around him, other shapes stirred beneath the surface. As if her cry had awoken not only him — but them. Their limbs, bloated and silent, reached through the mire. And they were not reaching for help. They were reaching for him.

His instinct snapped back.

He turned, fought the sucking mud and roots, clawed his way toward firmer ground. He did not scream — something in him understood that screaming was for the living.

He did not look back.

The forest didn’t welcome him. It tolerated his escape. And the silence behind him was heavier than before, as if the swamp was thinking.

When Igor collapsed on dry soil, lungs burning, he lay there for minutes, unmoving. The sun was low now, barely filtering through the trees. He listened.

Nothing.

But the air was wrong. Still damp. Still too quiet.

He found his backpack where he had left it. Its presence grounded him, gave him the illusion that everything that had just happened might be a hallucination, a stress-induced dream, a misfire of survival instincts.

But as he turned to leave, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before.

A set of wet footprints leading from the bog… to where he had stood.

Only his boots had been there.

And the prints were bare.