For hours, I lay there, motionless, the chill setting into my bones as the sun dipped below the horizon. My mind raced, battling the throbbing pain with the terrifying clarity of betrayal. My own son wanted me dead. For money? I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but the truth was as undeniable as the blood crusting on my forehead.

As darkness swallowed the forest, I finally dared to move. Each shift was agony, but the instinct to survive is a powerful thing. I crawled, inch by torturous inch, until I found a fallen branch sturdy enough to support my weight. Somehow, I pulled myself upright and stumbled my way through the shadows, guided by nothing but moonlight and the raw will to live.

I made it to a ranger station by dawn, disoriented and on the brink of collapse. The ranger who found me was a young man, his eyes wide with shock as he saw the mess I was. He called for help, and soon I was whisked away to a hospital, my tale too wild to seem anything but delirium to the doctors and nurses who treated me.