The Shadows of Tauragnai
It was supposed to be just another summer weekend.
Three friends – Lukas, Dainius, and Mantukas – wanted a break from the city.
They invited two girls, Eglė and Rasa, to join them for a camping trip near Tauragnai Lake, deep in the Lithuanian forest — a place where silence has its own sound.
They packed everything: three tents, a few cans of beer, champagne for the girls, a fishing rod, snacks, and a little weed “to lift the mood.”
Music played in the car, laughter filled the air, and for a while, it felt like freedom.
But the Tauragnai forest doesn’t forget who enters it.
By sunset, they reached a small clearing by the lake.
The spot was perfect — a calm shore, quiet water, and tall pines whispering above.
They set up the tents, lit a fire, and drank until their jokes echoed through the trees.
Everything was peaceful… until the night arrived.
As darkness thickened, Eglė and Rasa began glancing into the woods.
They kept hearing something — faint cracks, like footsteps, just beyond the firelight.
– “Did you hear that?” Rasa whispered.
The boys laughed.
– “Probably a deer,” Mantukas said. “Or the forest saying goodnight.”
But the girls didn’t smile.
Eglė leaned closer to the fire.
– “I swear, someone’s watching us.”
The boys started teasing them, making up ghost stories about drowned fishermen and missing hikers.
At first, everyone laughed — until the fear became too real.
The girls’ faces turned pale.
The wind picked up, and from between the trees, a dark figure appeared.
Still. Silent.
Standing by a pine tree, maybe fifteen meters away.
Lukas froze mid-sentence.
– “Do you see that?”
No one moved.
Even the fire seemed to stop crackling.
Dainius whispered,
– “Should we turn off the light?”
– “The car’s that way,” said Lukas. “We’d have to go past him.”
The silence grew heavier.
An owl called somewhere deep in the Tauragnai forest, but its echo sounded wrong — almost like laughter.
And then they saw it clearly — he was holding a bow.
They ran.
No one shouted, no one looked back.
The only sound was their breath, and the rhythm of branches whipping their faces as they fled through the dark.
Then — a light.
Another fire.
Rasa gasped,
– “People! Someone’s there!”
They rushed toward it.
But when they reached the clearing, joy died instantly.
Around the fire lay three bodies.
One slumped to the side, frozen in a scream.
Another sat motionless, eyes wide open.
And the third… hung above the fire, pierced through a metal rod like meat roasting on a spit.
Fat dripped into the flames, sizzling softly.
The smell — sweet, heavy — made them gag.
Eglė covered her mouth.
Rasa stumbled back.
Then Lukas noticed the bow, lying on the ground — and a single arrow, red at the tip.
He looked up.
A shadow moved just beyond the flames.
> “Why did you leave?” whispered a man’s voice.
“That fire was meant for you…”
The flames hissed, and everything went black.
At dawn, villagers found one girl by the roadside — wet, shivering, covered in mud and blood.
Eglė.
She didn’t speak.
Not to the police, not to the doctors.
When asked where her friends were, she only stared ahead — her pupils wide, unresponsive to light.
It wasn’t trauma, they said. It was something else.
Like she had left part of herself in the Tauragnai forest.
During a psychiatric session, she was placed under hypnosis.
And then, finally, she spoke.
Slowly. Clearly.
Her voice flat, empty, almost mechanical.
Investigators could barely keep up writing down her words.
She ended with a whisper:
> “He’s not in the forest anymore.
He’s inside me now.
And when you turn off the lights…
you’ll see him too.”