Annoyance warred with a strange pulse of unease.
“Why is he acting like this?” I wondered. “Is it some game?”
Yet his stare carried something more urgent—an insistence, a war:ning. It was as if he were trying to say: “Don’t climb.”
I shooed him off again, raising my voice:
“Go on! Stop it! Let me finish these branches in peace!”
But the moment I stepped higher, his jaws clamped my leg once more, jerking me downward. My grip slipped, and my chest tightened with dread—one wrong move and I could fall.
I froze, breathing hard. A thought cut through me: if this continued, I truly would crash and injure myself badly. I needed to make a choice.
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