The Black Shadow

The Black Shadow

The village of Snezina rarely made the news. Tucked away in the hills of Provadia, its gray road ran past abandoned houses, sagging grapevines, and children’s swings that hadn’t moved in years. But on the night of July 10th, something happened.

A hunting camera set up by old Kolyo — a former forester and now an avid observer of wildlife — captured something unusual. At first, he didn’t notice. He was scrolling through the footage out of habit when a flicker in one frame made him lean in closer. Shadows. The outline of a large animal — low to the ground, agile, moving in a way no dog or wolf would. Its coat seemed to absorb light.

"A panther?" he whispered to himself, then chuckled at the thought.

But he wasn’t the only one who would see it.

On July 16th, in the village of Karamanite, about fifty kilometers to the northeast, Ivan and his wife Reni were driving home from the fields when their headlights caught something black and motionless in the middle of the road. The brakes screeched. The animal stared at them calmly, unafraid, with eyes that reflected greenish-yellow in the light. Then it turned and slipped into the underbrush — so fast it seemed to melt into the night.

Despite his trembling hands, Ivan managed to record a few seconds on his phone. Reni crossed herself. And the video — blurry, but eerie — spread across social media that same evening.

"A black panther in Bulgaria?!"

The next day, July 17th, two more sightings were reported. This time, near the Shumen Plateau. Two hikers, walking the path to the Old Town, claimed to have seen a large black animal cross the trail about fifty meters ahead.

“Bigger than a dog, lower than a wolf, but it moved like a cat,” one of them told a news crew. “It… watched us.”

Soon, villages and towns from Varna to Shumen buzzed with one word — the panther. Or “the black beast,” as the elders called it. There was no mass panic, but the tension was palpable. In Provadia, Valchi Dol, and Shumen, local authorities began organizing patrols. Hunting teams went out with cameras and rifles. Livestock owners started counting their animals every morning, anxious that a goat or calf might disappear overnight.

But even after weeks of searching — no evidence. No pawprints, no torn-up animals, not even trampled grass. Just stories. And shadows. And poorly filmed clips that everyone interpreted differently.

Theories emerged and clashed. Some insisted it was an exotic animal that had escaped from a private zoo or illegal collector. While such predators are banned under Bulgarian law, who’s to say what hides behind tall fences in remote villas? Others argued it was a case of mistaken identity — maybe a large black dog, or a wildcat native to the Balkans. The oldest folks in Karamanite spoke of “something from the other world” — ancient, elusive, arriving with the forest fog.

Twelve-year-old Rumen, son of a shepherd in Karamanite, was the only one who wasn’t afraid. Every evening, he left a small bowl of milk at the edge of the forest. “For her,” he said. He called her “The Mistress of the Dark.” He claimed he’d seen her in dreams. That she was smart. That she meant no harm, as long as no one provoked her.

One morning, his father found a paw print — perfect, unmistakable — nearly the size of a dinner plate. But before he could photograph it, rain washed it away.

By the end of July, the panther — if that’s what it was — remained uncaught. And maybe it never would be. The cameras kept picking up shadows. Patrols still combed the woods. And the people kept wondering.

Was it real? Were there two? Or just a shared illusion in a community yearning for legend?

Someday, when all of this is forgotten and the footage fades into digital archives, someone in a village tavern will raise a glass and whisper:

– “Remember the summer when the darkness had eyes?”

And another will nod solemnly.

– “The Black Shadow… No, we won’t forget her.”