Chapter 9: Will to Survive

Days had passed in that pit, and though the darkness around me never seemed to leave, I was no longer on the brink of death. My wounds, once gaping and bloody, had begun to close. It was a slow, painful process, but my body was adapting. This body—Eliot's body—was not ordinary. Perhaps it was the blood of Sebastian Vettel running through his veins, or perhaps it was simply fate smiling on me. Either way, I was healing. I was surviving.

The rain had been both my curse and my salvation. It came and went, sporadic and unpredictable, but it was enough. The water that dripped into my makeshift mug—a crude creation of sticks and leaves—sustained me. I had fashioned it from the debris that littered the ditch, desperate for a way to capture more than just a few errant droplets. The taste of rainwater was no longer foreign to me; it had become the only thing keeping me alive.

And then there were the insects. Disgusting little creatures that crawled in the dirt beside me, beneath me, and sometimes on me. But they, too, had become part of my survival. I caught them with traps I made from the very same sticks, my hands trembling with weakness but guided by instinct. Each bite of those bitter, crunchy bodies provided me with just enough sustenance to keep going.

My body had grown stronger in small but noticeable ways. I could now move my limbs with greater ease, though they were still far too thin, far too fragile. I could speak, though my voice had changed. It was raspy, like the scraping of sandpaper, and weak, almost ghostly. But it was mine, and I reveled in the sound of it.

"Water," I muttered, testing my voice as I stared up at the cloudy sky, hoping for rain once more. The word came out as a hoarse whisper, barely audible, but it was there. My lips cracked into a small, bitter smile.

At least I wasn't completely lost yet.

The situation, however, was still dire. The ditch—I had measured it to be roughly twenty feet deep—was a prison I couldn't escape, at least not yet. I figured it out by throwing a few stones to the top and counting the seconds it took to hear them hit the bottom. A rudimentary calculation, but it did the job.

Twenty feet.

Too high to climb with my current strength, too deep for anyone to hear my cries for help. I had tried to climb out once, testing the jagged, rocky walls with my bare hands. My fingers slipped, my legs buckled, and I collapsed to the ground in a heap, panting and exhausted. I wasn't ready—not yet.

But I wasn't going to give up.

I had been given a second life, and I wasn't about to let it slip away so easily. This body, though weak, was physically gifted. I could feel it—muscles that would respond if properly trained, reflexes that, even in this miserable state, were quicker than most. Sebastian Vettel had passed something on to his son, and I would use it.

Every day, I exercised. Small, simple movements at first. I started with push-ups, forcing my trembling arms to lift my body from the dirt. It hurt—oh, how it hurt—but pain was familiar to me. I embraced it, knowing that every ounce of effort brought me closer to freedom. I began with twenty of each exercise I could manage: push-ups, sit-ups, squats, anything that I could fit into the small space of the ditch.

At first, it was agonizing. My muscles screamed, my bones ached, and I collapsed more times than I could count. But I pushed through it, day after day. I wasn't about to let a simple hole in the ground be the end of me. Each morning, after I finished my routine, I would attempt to scale the rocky walls again.

The first time, I barely made it a foot before slipping back down. But each day, I climbed a little higher, my hands gripping the sharp edges of the rock, my legs straining to push me upward. My progress was slow, agonizingly so, but it was progress nonetheless. I would not remain trapped here forever.

I set small goals for myself—climb one foot higher today, add one more push-up tomorrow. My body, though weak from malnutrition, began to adapt. Each day, I grew just a bit stronger, just a bit more capable.

I wasn't just surviving. I was getting ready.

I crafted better traps for catching insects, using the sticks and rocks around me. Each bug I caught became a source of fuel for my body, disgusting though it was. I stopped caring about the taste, stopped caring about the dirt that caked my skin. What mattered was the fight—the fight to stay alive, the fight to become strong enough to escape this hell.

And all the while, I kept my mind sharp. I thought of the future, of what I would do once I escaped. The irony of it all wasn't lost on me. I, Leon Winter, had been reincarnated as the son of the man who had killed me. Was this some cosmic joke? Some punishment for my sins? I didn't care.

Reincarnation wasn't a gift to waste. It was a second chance—a chance to return, to reclaim what was once mine.

I laughed softly to myself, the sound rasping through my throat like dry wind. "Not yet," I whispered to the sky above. "I'm not done yet."

The rain had come again that night, providing me with more water. As I lay there, drinking from my crude mug, I stared up at the sliver of moonlight that filtered through the trees above. I was not a man who believed in fate, but perhaps this was all meant to be.

Eliot Blackthorn was weak, but Leon Winter had never been one to let weakness dictate his life. This body would become strong. I would escape, and when I did, the world would remember the name Leon Winter once more.

For now, though, I would keep fighting.

One day at a time.