I went on “a hike” with “a friend” (big quotation marks here because they’re no longer a friend obviously) that quickly turned into an unanchored free climb with no way back down with one another friend who was baked.
Our chance of significant injury or death was 90% at 2200 feet up, and we managed to get out of the climb and back down without so much as a twisted ankle. A literal fucking miracle.
When we went for food later, all I could talk about was how close we were to death, and how I’m never doing that again, but they seemed completely unfazed.
My best assumption? Brain worms.
Toxoplasmosis Gondii destroys the fear impulse in humans and causes them to engage in increasingly risky behavior, until it eventually kills them. It’s how the parasite procreates in mice (leading them to predators and wild cats).