The woman raised a python named Saffron at home. The yellow python had been with her for three years and quickly became a pet.
Her family winced: “Be careful, it’s a predator.” But the girl only smiled: “It’s tame. It loves me and would never harm me.”
However, after some time, the snake began to behave strangely.
The first alarming oddities began unnoticed.
Saffron stopped eating. At night, it would crawl out of its cage and stretch out alongside the woman — its head at its shoulder, its tail at its ankles. Sometimes, it would wrap itself loosely around her waist and freeze, as if counting its ribs.
During the day, she’d choose the cool floor near her bed, where she walked barefoot, and lie there for hours, the tip of her tail barely moving, her gaze fixed precisely on the rise and fall of a person’s chest.