There are places in the world that maps have long abandoned. Islands swallowed by time, hidden in fog, and erased from memory. Sailors tell stories of these places in hushed voices, warning others never to seek them. One such place is a forgotten island, a patch of land lost in endless waters, where the trees themselves scream in the night. Few who step on its shores ever return, and those who do are never the same again.
This is the story of Marcus, a traveler who made the mistake of finding the island.
Marcus had always been drawn to the sea. He loved sailing, exploring, and going where few dared to travel. His boat was small, but sturdy, and he often took long trips to visit lonely coves and hidden bays. One summer, he came across an old sailor at a harbor tavern who whispered to him about a forgotten island. The sailor’s voice was low, his hands shaking as he described an unmarked place where trees wailed like dying souls and the air was filled with ghostly whispers.
Marcus thought it was just a story meant to frighten strangers, but the old man’s hollow eyes told him otherwise. Curiosity began to burn in him. Against all advice, Marcus set sail in search of the island.
The sea was calm at first. The sun dipped below the horizon, and the sky turned dark with heavy clouds. Days passed, and Marcus saw nothing but endless water. Then one night, fog rose around him so thick that he could barely see the bow of his boat. The sound of waves grew strange, as though echoing back at him from unseen cliffs. And then he saw it: a dark shape rising from the water, trees reaching upward like twisted hands, an island shrouded in mist.
He docked his boat on a narrow, rocky shore. The air was cold, the silence heavy. Marcus felt a chill creep down his spine as he stepped onto the island. Immediately, he knew something was wrong. The forest loomed ahead, its trees gnarled and blackened as though scarred by fire. No birds sang, no insects stirred, no life moved in the undergrowth. The only sound was the faint rustling of branches in the wind.
Then he heard it—the first scream.
It came from deep within the forest, a high, human-like wail that echoed across the trees. Marcus froze. It was unlike any sound he had ever heard, a cry filled with pain, despair, and anger. The horror of the sound cut through him, making his skin crawl. It did not sound natural. It sounded alive.
Gathering his courage, Marcus pushed forward into the woods. Each step he took seemed to pull him deeper into a nightmare. The trees twisted unnaturally, their branches forming shapes that looked like faces, their trunks scarred with patterns that resembled open mouths. As the wind blew, the trees groaned, their sounds rising into eerie screams.
The deeper he went, the louder the screams became. Some were low, like groans of the dying. Others were sharp, shrill cries that pierced the night. It was as if the forest itself was alive with suffering souls.
Marcus tried to reason with himself. Perhaps it was just the wind. Perhaps the shape of the trees created these awful noises. But the more he listened, the more he realized these were not tricks of nature. These were voices. Human voices.
The horror deepened when he began to recognize words among the screams. Faint, broken cries for help echoed through the trees. He heard whispers calling his name, though he had never told anyone on the island who he was. The forest knew him. It was alive with ghostly presences, and it was watching.
He stumbled upon a clearing where the trees were larger, older, and more twisted than the rest. Their roots tangled together like grasping hands, and their branches stretched high into the black sky. Here the screaming was deafening. The sound shook him to his bones, filled his head until he thought his mind would break.
Suddenly, Marcus saw movement among the trees. Ghostly figures drifted between the trunks, pale shapes with hollow eyes and twisted forms. They reached out to him with hands that were not fully solid, whispering his name in voices that made his skin crawl. These were not living people. These were souls, trapped in the forest, bound to the screaming trees.
The realization hit him with chilling clarity: the trees were not merely alive, they were prisons. Each scream he heard was a soul, bound into the wood, forever trapped in torment. The horror of it was overwhelming. The island was not forgotten by accident—it was abandoned, cursed, a place where the living and dead blended into one endless nightmare.
Marcus turned to run, but the forest seemed to shift around him. Paths closed. Branches moved like arms, reaching down to block his way. Every turn he took only led him deeper. The screaming grew louder, closer, until it felt as though the voices were inside his own head.
He stumbled upon an old stone structure hidden in the woods, crumbling and covered in moss. It looked like a shrine, with strange carvings on its walls. The symbols were old and unfamiliar, but their meaning was clear—they were warnings. The shrine told the story of people who once lived on the island, a tribe that had angered something beyond human understanding. In punishment, their souls were bound into the trees, condemned to scream for eternity.
Marcus realized too late that by setting foot on the island, he had awakened their hunger. The ghosts did not just scream—they wanted more souls to join them.
The trees leaned closer as he ran, their hollow faces opening wider. The ghostly figures followed, whispering, reaching, calling his name in broken voices. His horror was beyond words now. Every step felt heavier, as though the island itself was trying to drag him down. He reached the shore, his boat still waiting, but the air was filled with screams so loud they shook the ground.
He pushed the boat into the water and leapt inside, rowing with all the strength he had left. Behind him, the island seemed to roar with fury. The trees bent toward the water, their voices echoing across the waves. Ghostly hands stretched from the mist, but the sea carried him away.
When Marcus finally reached the mainland, days later, he was not the same man. His eyes were hollow, his voice shaking as he spoke of what he had seen. He told others of the forgotten island, of the trees that screamed with the voices of trapped souls, of the horror, the creepy whispers, the ghostly figures that haunted every step.
No one believed him. They thought him mad, a sailor broken by too many lonely voyages. But Marcus never sailed again. He knew the truth—the island was real, its horror eternal, its screaming trees waiting for the next soul foolish enough to step ashore.
And so the forgotten island remains, shrouded in fog, its forest alive with the cries of the damned. The horror of its trees echoes across the sea on stormy nights, a warning to those who listen. But there will always be the curious, the bold, or the foolish, and when they come, the island will be waiting, its screaming trees ready to claim another soul.