The swamp met him with the indifference of an executioner. As soon as Dmitry stepped off the running board, the quagmire squelched and hugged his legs mid-calf. The duct tape held, water didn't pour into the boots yet, but the cold instantly punched through the rubber, reminding him who was boss here.

  Dmitry didn't waste time on curses. He had a plan and daylight that was melting by the minute. In his hands, he held a Stihl MS 661 chainsaw. A powerful, professional tool weighing over seven kilos. On his shoulder hung a coil of steel cable and a heavy bag with shackles and blocks. Every step was a battle. The leg had to be yanked from the vacuum trap, moved forward, and submerged into the unknown again.

  Target one: building material. Dmitry chose a group of dead trees ten meters from the vehicle's nose. Their trunks, covered in whitish bark resembling bone, looked strong enough. He pulled the saw's starter. The sharp, screaming sound of the two-stroke motor tore the silence of the dead world. An echo darted across the bogs, scaring ghosts, but not birds—there were still no birds here.

  Dmitry put the bar to the trunk. VRR-R-R-ZZT! The chain bit into the wood. Instead of yellow sawdust, a moist, gray dust sprayed out. The tree was strange—hard as stone on the outside, but fibrous and viscous inside. The saw went tight, choking. Dmitry pressed on the handle, feeling vibration echo in his shoulders. Cut. Crack. The trunk collapsed into the sludge, raising a fountain of dirty spray.

  The chainsaw stalled for the fifth time. The chain got pinched in the viscous, damp wood. Dmitry yanked the saw toward himself. It wouldn't budge. He stood waist-deep in icy sludge, covered in a gray crust of silt, staring at this cursed log. It weighed about eighty kilograms. Wet, slippery, unliftable. He had to drag it under the wheel.

  His hands shook with a fine tremor. Fingers in gloves lost sensitivity and wouldn't bend, turning into hooks. Every movement caused pain. His back burned with fire, as if a red-hot nail had been driven into his spine. He knew this sensation. It was the limit. If he continued, muscles would spasm so hard he wouldn't be able to straighten up. He would lie down again. Like eight years ago.

  Drop it, the inner voice whispered again. You're not a lumberjack. You're an office boy. You're a rich kid. Sit in the cabin, get warm, finish the wine, and die in comfort when the diesel runs out. Why do you need this pain?

  Dmitry wiped sweat from his forehead, smearing mud across his face. He hated this swamp. Hated these trees. Hated the engineers who built this heavy machine. But most of all, he hated his weakness.

  He approached the log. Grabbed the slippery butt end. “A-a-and... HEAVE!”

  His feet slid in the mud. He fell to his knees, hitting a hidden root. Pain. Pain to the point of tears. Dmitry jumped up, growling with rage. “You bitch!” he screamed at the log. “You think you're heavy?! I spent eight years learning to lift a spoon! Think I can't lift you?!”

  He wrapped his arms around the trunk, pressing it to his chest, staining his jacket with rotten bark. Tensed his back, risking everything. Veins on his neck bulged. His vision darkened from the strain. The log squelched and tore from the earth. He took a step. Another. Legs trembled, ready to buckle. He dragged this tree like a cross to Golgotha. Not for the salvation of his soul. To prove to this dead, indifferent nature that a man with an iron back was harder than it.

  He threw the log under the wheel. A fountain of spray. Dmitry stood, breathing heavily, resting his hands on his knees. He felt nauseous from overexertion. Colored circles danced before his eyes. But the log lay where it needed to be. “Next,” he rasped. “Bring the next one.”

  He needed at least ten logs to lay a path under the front wheels. The work turned into monotonous hell. Fell. Limb. Hook with grapple. And drag. Dragging a log waist-deep in mud isn't an exercise for the gym. It was torture. Feet slipped. Boots stuck. His back, held together by titanium, whined, sending alarm signals to the brain: Stop! You'll break! Dmitry ignored them. He growled, cursed, fell to his knees in the mud, got up, and dragged again.

  By the end of the second hour, he looked like a swamp monster. The coverall was caked in a crust of silt. Sweat poured into his eyes under the helmet shield, mixing with mud on his face. But in front of the machine's "muzzle" lay a neat (as much as possible) road of logs. A corduroy road.

  Now—physics. Dmitry took the tree-saver straps—wide textile bands that don't cut bark. He chose the three most powerful trees in the movement sector. One straight ahead, two slightly to the sides. Wrapped the trunks. Connected the loops with steel shackles, running an equalizer cable through them. A "triangle" was formed—a system that would distribute the load. If he pulled on the triangle's apex, the force would go to all three roots simultaneously.

  “Anchor ready,” Dmitry rasped, wiping his nose with a dirty glove. “Now the fun part. Block and tackle.”

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  He went to the front bumper of the Ark. Opened the protective winch cover. Inside hid a hydraulic Rotzler Treibmatic. A beast of a machine. Unlike electric winches that overheat in five minutes, this one ran off the main engine's hydraulic pump. It could pull for days as long as there was diesel. Dmitry switched the lever to "free spool." Grabbed the forged hook. And walked to the trees.

  The steel cable, 26 millimeters in diameter, was heavy, stiff, and greasy with lubricant. It resisted like an anaconda. Dragging it through the swamp, threading it through heavy snatch blocks, was hard labor. Dmitry ran the cable through the first block on the "anchor"...

  Dmitry slipped. His foot in the heavy, mud-caked boot slipped off a root. He fell flat into the sludge, face first. The heavy steel cable he was dragging on his shoulder pinned him down, pressing him into the swamp. Icy water poured down his collar, burning his back. Mud clogged his nose and mouth.

  Dmitry lay sprawled in this stinking substance and didn't try to get up. His strength was gone. Just switched off, like a dead battery. In his head, pulsing from tension, a clear, treacherous thought was born. Leave it.

  The thought was sweet and sticky, like this swamp. Why are you killing yourself? You won't move 26 tons. It's physics, idiot. You lost. Look at the drone. Solid ground is only ten kilometers away. You have legs. You can walk. Take a backpack, take food, a gun, and walk. By evening you'll be at the castle. There are people there. Warmth. And leave this iron tomb here. Let it sink. It's just metal.

  Dmitry closed his eyes. He imagined how easy it would be to walk without this burden. Just walk. Save himself. Uncle Igor could buy a new car. Money is trash. Life is all that matters. He almost agreed. He almost unclenched his fingers gripping the cable.

  And then came another thought. Angry. If he leaves the Ark, who is he then? Without this machine, he is just a cripple with a titanium back, lost in an alien world. The Ark is his legs. It is his freedom. It is proof that he is no longer a helpless piece of meat on a hospital bed. Abandoning the machine means giving up. Admitting the swamp is stronger than his will.

  Dmitry growled, muffled, into the water. “Screw you!” he spat out along with the mud. “Not happening!”

  He pushed his hands against the bottom. His back responded with a flash of pain—the titanium structure creaked, reminding him of his body's fragility. I'll break, but I won't leave. He got up on all fours, shaking off the slime. Grabbed the greasy, slippery cable. “I'll get you out,” he hissed to the machine staring at him with dark headlights. “I'll get you out even if I die here. Because you are mine.”

  He yanked the cable with such fury that the steel strands cut into his shoulder through the jacket. He dragged it not with muscle strength, but with the strength of pure, distilled stubbornness.

  Returned to the vehicle. Hooked the cable to the second block on the bumper. Walked to the trees again. Secured the cable end to a shackle. Double compound pulley. Force advantage—2x. Speed loss—2x. “Perfect,” he whispered, looking at the web of steel ropes stretched over the swamp.

  One last thing remained. The dirtiest. Dmitry took the Hi-Lift jack and a pneumatic bag. He needed to lift the front wheels to shove the start of the log path under them. He dove his hands into the icy sludge, feeling for the axle. Set the bag. Connected the hose from the truck's compressor. “Heave!”

  The bag inflated, squelching as it lifted the multi-ton carcass a couple of centimeters. It was enough. Dmitry kicked and shoved the first logs under the tires with his hands.

  When he finished, the sun was already setting, hidden behind leaden clouds. Twilight thickened. Dmitry stood before the machine, hands resting on his knees. He was shaking from overexertion. Muscles burned with fire, his back was wooden. But he did it.

  He struggled into the cabin. Didn't even take off the dirty coverall—no strength, and no point if he might have to jump into the mud again. Just threw a polyethylene cover over the seat. Sat behind the wheel. Started the engine. The Ark came alive, the vibration of the powerful diesel passing through his body in a pleasant wave.

  Dmitry turned on the surround view camera monitors. On the front camera, the taut string of the cable going to the trees was visible. “Well, godspeed. Or whoever is in charge here.”

  He engaged the winch pump. Pressed the button on the remote: "Winching In."

  The cable went taut, ringing like a guitar string. The anchor trees creaked and leaned slightly. The machine shuddered. It groaned with the metal of the frame. The mud didn't want to let go of its prey. The suction effect held 26 tons in a death grip.

  The winch hydraulic pressure gauge crept into the red zone. 200 bar... 250 bar... “Come on, baby, come on...” Dmitry whispered, gripping the steering wheel. “Don't snap.”

  He pressed the gas lightly, making the wheels turn. Giant Michelin tires caught the logs of the track with their grousers. CR-R-R-R-ACK! A log under the left wheel broke with the sound of a gunshot. The vehicle rocked. But at that moment, a loud, wet sound echoed: THWOCK!

  The vacuum under the belly gave up. Air rushed under the Ark's underbelly.

  The machine jerked forward. Half a meter. A meter. The winch howled, spooling the cable. Wheels churned the logs, pressing them into the mud, but finding grip. “It’s moving! It’s moving, bitch!” Dmitry yelled.

  He crawled. Slowly, like a snail. But he crawled. The Ark climbed out of the pit, rising to the level of the hummocks. Five more meters. The front wheels reached a relatively solid patch woven with roots. The rears, squelching, climbed out of the deep hole and stood on the logs the fronts had already ground up.

  Dmitry stopped winching. The vehicle stood level. It no longer looked like a sinking ship. It stood on its wheels, albeit hub-deep in mud, but not on its belly. “All stop.”

  He leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. Sweat mixed with mud streamed down his face. His hands shook so hard he could barely unclench his fingers on the remote. Five meters. He overcame only five meters in six hours of hard labor. But those were the most important five meters. He proved to this swamp that he wasn't food. He was an engineer.

  Dmitry looked at the rear-view screen. There, in the twilight, a pit filled with water blackened—the trace of his fall. His grave, which remained empty. “1:0 for me,” he rasped. “But the match will be long.”

  1:0 for Dmitry. But the swamp was just the warm-up. Honestly, writing this part was exhausting. It made me wonder: in his place, would I have the strength to fight for the truck, or would I just grab a backpack and walk away? What would YOU do? Stick with the machine or save yourself?

  Follow so you don't miss what happens when night falls.