09/29/2025
The year was 1984. A group of seven young tourists—four men and three women from different corners of the globe—convened in Salalah, Oman. Drawn by a shared hunger for adventure, they sought the untamed beauty of the Dhofar forest, a place of legend and mystery. Their guide was a man named Ragheb al-Mundhir, a figure as enigmatic as the forest itself. With a rugged face, a deep voice, and a promise of leading them to hidden ruins and secret waterfalls, he was the perfect embodiment of a dangerous but thrilling journey. They didn't know his smile hid a dark secret—a past marred by the disappearance of two other trekkers just three years prior. In a city where laws were slow and files often vanished, his reputation was nothing more than a whisper among locals. Unaware of the danger, the seven adventurers paid in cash, climbed into an old truck, and vanished into the green, suffocating embrace of the forest. Only Ragheb returned.
For 28 years, the story of the missing tourists remained a cold case, a tragic tale of misadventure and bad luck. The official report blamed a sudden, violent storm, and the names of the seven were relegated to the "missing" file. Their families returned home empty-handed, heartbroken, and without answers. Ragheb al-Mundhir, the sole survivor, was seen just days later, calmly leading search parties into the very woods where his companions had disappeared, his hands clean of any suspicion. But the Dhofar forest, a silent witness to a brutal truth, had its own timeline. It would not remain silent forever.