That morning I went out onto the balcony and noticed something strange moving inside the wall. At that moment I was overcome with pure terror, especially when I realized what it was.

I tried to reason with myself. Maybe it was something large, trapped, with only its tail visible. My imagination ran wild, feeding the fear. A wave of anxiety rolled through me, mixed with a deep instinctive disgust. It felt as though I had witnessed something I was never meant to see. I wanted to scream, to turn away, to escape the scene entirely.

Yet curiosity held me in place.

Trembling, I took a cautious step closer. That was when the truth became clear. The creature was stuck in a narrow crack in the wall. It could not move forward. It could not retreat.

And suddenly I understood what I was looking at.

It was not a snake at all. It was a skink. A small lizard. Very much alive.

From terror to compassion

In an instant, everything shifted. The terror that had gripped me dissolved, replaced by something unexpected. Pity.

The skink struggled weakly, scratching at the wall with tiny legs, its tail twitching with each failed attempt to escape. It looked exhausted and frightened. No longer a threat, it was simply a living creature in distress.

Something softened inside me.