Synopsis/Details
Rose (20), competent and driven, drags her snack-obsessed, city-soft boyfriend Ross (25) into the woods on a six-month-planned trek for a patch of extremely valuable bioluminescent mushrooms. After a tense first night (bear encounter, incomplete tent, a cryptic Tracker who warns them of “ancient grief” and tells them to turn back at sunrise), they push deeper into a dead, skeletal valley where the mushrooms grow in a glowing ring.
Harvesting them triggers a trap. Two animal-masked figures — Stag and Wolf — drop a net and drag the pair toward a crude campsite. Rose and Ross escape after a brutal fight, but Ross is recaptured. At the hunters’ camp, the unmasked Stag calmly severs two of Ross’s fingers and adds them to a pot while Rose watches in horror. She stages a rescue using distraction and violence; they flee, climb a tree to hide, and believe they are safe.
They are not. The Stag returns silently and kills Ross in front of Rose. Grief turns to cold fury. Rose uses the remaining hallucinogenic mushrooms, a rigged bear trap, and a spiked log to disable the Stag, then limps toward the edge of the valley. The Wolf (still alive after a fall) corners her one final time; she burns his face with a flare and escapes to her truck.
As she drives away, a black SUV arrives. Two figures from THE ACQUISITION FIRM collect a remaining mushroom. Its glow shifts from blue to violent violet. They designate the survivor “Unbound.” Something scratches inside the sealed container as the script cuts to black.
