Phosphine: A Scientist’s Last Night in the Sundarbans’ Forbidden Creek

1. The Expedition of Reason
The drone of the boat’s diesel engine sliced through the primeval silence of the Sundarbans like a knife. Dr. Ambar Chakraborty pressed his expensive headphones over his ears. He wasn’t listening to the outside world, but to the heartbeat of his machines. The green graph of the spectrometer, the vibrant pulse of the geo-positioning system, and the endless data feed from the thermal camera—this was his world. A world of a staunch materialist, a rationalist, where there was no room for ghosts, ghouls, or miracles.
His reason for being in this forbidden creek of the Sundarbans was just as pragmatic. A team of international researchers—two American, one German—had come here to study the pockets of methane gas. Then, they had all gone silent. The broken message that came from their satellite phone still echoed in Ambar’s ears: “Anomalous Methane-Phosphine Signature… Spectral analysis inconclusive… Light… Strong Auditory Phenomenon Mimicking Human Speech… Repeat, Not Human.”
“Not Human.” A wry smile touched the corner of Ambar’s lips. His local guide, sixty-four-year-old Jalil Miah, had just been whispering frantically, “Sir, we mustn’t speak the name of that creek. It’s the haunt of the Baghbhoot—the tiger-demon.”
Ambar looked at Jalil and said in a calm, measured voice, “Jalil Sahib, the Aleya, or will-o’-the-wisp, is the spontaneous combustion of phosphine and methane gas. In science, it’s called ‘Ignis Fatuus’.”
Jalil Miah said no more. He only muttered once, “Not all the forest’s mysteries are written in books, sir.”
When the boat stopped at the mouth of the forbidden creek, it felt as if they were entering another world. Even during the day, the sunlight seemed afraid to penetrate the thick canopy. The mangrove roots, or pneumatophores, rose from the murky water like skeletal fingers clawing their way out of a grave. The air was heavy, damp, and the smell of rotting leaves was mixed with another strange, faintly sweet, fishy odor. The smell of phosphine. A glint of triumph appeared in Ambar’s eyes. He was in the right place.

2. Hallucination?

As night fell, the creek revealed its true nature. Ambar had set up a small, sophisticated lab on the boat’s deck. At the other end of the boat, Jalil Miah sat huddled, murmuring prayers under his breath.
Around ten o’clock, Ambar’s sensors began to spike. The concentration of phosphine was nearly seventeen times higher than normal. Ambar noted excitedly in his diary: “High concentration of PH₃ confirmed. Decomposition of organic material in this anaerobic environment is the cause. This explains the ‘unusual signal’.”
Just then, deep in the forest, about a hundred meters away, a light flickered to life. A bluish-green, ethereal glow. It wasn’t steady; it trembled slightly, like a lantern held by an invisible hand.
“Aleya…” Jalil’s trembling voice drifted over.
“Ignis Fatuus,” Ambar corrected, more to himself than to the guide. He focused his high-definition camera on the light. As he zoomed in, the image became clearer. Particles of gas swirled in a ghostly dance. What a magnificent display of science! He became absorbed in capturing the phenomenon.
Everything was under his control. His theory was proving to be correct, letter by letter. But then, something happened that shook his forty-year-old scientific ego to its core for the very first time.
His parabolic microphone, designed to capture the faintest of sounds, suddenly picked up an audio signal. It was not the call of an animal, nor any sound of nature. It was a human voice.
The voice of a young girl.
“Papa…”
The notebook slipped from Ambar’s hand. His entire body felt like ice. He knew that voice. It was the voice of his only daughter, Mithi, who had died of blood cancer ten years ago. Lying in her hospital bed, she had called out to him just like that before she passed.
Impossible! It had to be impossible. He ripped the headphones off and put them back on. No, there was no mistake. A clear, melodic voice, as if someone was whispering right next to his ear.
“Papa… come here…”
Ambar stared wildly at his equipment. The audio spectrogram showed a clear human vocal pattern. But there were no people here. This was a hallucination. High concentrations of phosphine are a powerful neurotoxin. It can induce illusions in the brain. He explained it to himself. ‘It’s the gas… The gas is affecting my temporal lobe.’
He called out to Jalil, “Can you hear anything?”
Jalil looked up, his face pale. “What sound, sir? I only hear the chirping of insects.”
So, it was just in his mind? Was his repressed grief, his guilt, manifesting as hallucinations in this isolated, eerie environment?
He tried to calm himself, but he couldn’t. Because the light was no longer stationary. It was slowly moving closer. Towards their boat. And its shape was changing. It was no longer a mere gaseous blob. It had separated into two points. Two burning, green eyes.
At that moment, the silence of the forest was shattered by two sounds merging into one: the deep, bone-chilling roar of a tiger, intertwined with the wailing of a child. The roar and the cry created a single, unbearable shriek of agony, as if all the pain on Earth was crying out at once.
Jalil Miah clamped his hands over his ears and collapsed to the deck, screaming, “The Baghbhoot! The Baghbhoot is coming…!”
Ambar’s body was shaking uncontrollably, but the scientist in him was still making a desperate last stand. With trembling hands, he aimed his night-vision camera towards the approaching light.

3. Where Science Fails

Peering through the camera’s viewfinder, Ambar’s heart stopped for a moment. His breath caught in his throat. No, this wasn’t gas. This was not an illusion.
On the green screen of his camera was no earthly creature. It was a massive entity, its body a nightmarish fusion of man and tiger. Its claws were larger than a human hand, tipped with razor-sharp nails. Its form seemed woven from black smoke and the shadows of the forest. But the most terrifying part was its face. There was no nose, no lips—only two burning green cavities. That strange light… it was the creature’s eyes.
And those eyes were staring directly at him.
The entity itself was still, yet the mangrove branches around it trembled violently. Then, from that monstrous mouth, came the sweet voice of his daughter.
“Don’t be afraid, Papa… Come to me. There’s no pain here.”
All of Ambar’s knowledge, his logic, his arrogance, shattered in an instant. The camera shook in his grasp. He was seeing it, but he couldn’t believe it. What was this? A bio-chemical curse? An unknown evolution of the forest that preys on its victim’s weakest memories? Was the phosphine gas merely a catalyst? Did this entity use the gas cloud as its physical form?
The questions flooded his mind, but he no longer had the strength to seek answers. His rational mind, once a fortress, now had a thousand cracks in its walls.
“What… what are you?” a broken, hoarse whisper escaped Ambar’s lips.
The entity, the ghost, offered a gentle smile. The sound of that smile was just like his daughter’s. But within it lay a primitive, cold cruelty.
“I am this forest, Papa. I am its law.”
The girlish voice spoke again. “You wanted to understand everything. Come, into the water. I will explain it all to you, just as I did for those foreign gentlemen.”
Glancing down at the water, Ambar saw three murky shadows swaying beneath the surface. The three missing researchers. Their eyes glowed with the same dead, green light of the Aleya. They were waving at him, beckoning him.
Ambar could take no more. A raw, primal scream tore from his throat—a scream of terror, of helplessness, of a reality collapsing in an instant. He threw the camera aside and tried to scramble to the other end of the boat, but his feet felt fused to the deck.
The half-man, half-tiger entity began to glide slowly forward, its burning eyes the only clear thing in the oppressive darkness.
For the last time, Ambar heard his daughter’s voice. This time, it held no emotion, only the cold, final judgment of the forest.
“When you break the rules of the forest, science cannot save you, Papa.”

Conclusion

A week later, when the rescue team reached the mouth of the creek, they found Dr. Ambar Chakraborty’s boat floating aimlessly. Everything inside was in disarray. The body of Jalil Miah was found in a corner, a look of pure terror frozen on his face.
Dr. Ambar Chakraborty was missing.
After a thorough search, his broken camera was recovered from the mangrove mud. The memory card, miraculously, was intact.
The final recording was never released to the public. It contained only a few seconds of footage: two burning green eyes, staring directly into the lens. And there was the audio track. First, Dr. Ambar Chakraborty’s agonized, gurgling screams… and then, the cold, clear voice of a little girl, stating a simple fact:
“When you break the rules of the forest, science cannot save you, Papa.”