In a quiet suburb of Portland, Oregon, lived a young woman named Miranda Fawcett. She had always been fascinated by unusual animals, and when a breeder offered her a golden python, she felt as though fate had placed something extraordinary in her hands. She named the snake Ambrose.

For three years Ambrose grew steadily, his smooth yellow coils gleaming like polished metal. Miranda adored him and spoke about him as though he were a companion rather than a reptile. When friends visited, they often stepped back nervously as she let Ambrose slide around her shoulders like a living scarf. Her parents voiced the same concern each time they came over.

“Be careful, Miranda,” her father warned. “That isn’t a kitten. It’s a predator.”

She would laugh softly. “Don’t be dramatic. He’s gentle, he knows me. Look, he doesn’t even hiss when I handle him. Ambrose loves me.”

But in the fourth year something shifted. It was subtle at first. The python refused the meals she offered, ignoring the thawed rabbits that used to vanish within seconds. Miranda assumed he was in a seasonal lull. She tried again and again, but Ambrose turned his head away.

Then came stranger habits. At night he pushed open the sliding lid of his enclosure and slithered onto her bed. Instead of coiling up in one spot, he stretched his body out in a long line beside hers, his head nearly level with her shoulder, his tail brushing against her ankles. Sometimes he looped loosely around her waist and remained completely still. Miranda, half amused, half touched, whispered that he must be giving her a hug.

During the day, Ambrose often sprawled on the cool floor tiles near her bedroom. He would lie there for hours, motionless except for the slight flicker of his tongue. His eyes never strayed far from Miranda’s breathing chest. She thought nothing of it, taking it as evidence that he enjoyed her presence.

Yet the moments grew unsettling. More than once she woke in the dark, her chest pinned down by weight. Ambrose would be draped across her, his heavy body rising and falling with each breath she struggled to take. When he occasionally pressed his head under her collarbone, tongue darting against her skin, she forced a laugh and called it a kiss. Still, an unease began to bloom.

One night she was startled awake by a sharp hiss right beside her ear. Ambrose’s body shifted against her ribs, powerful and tense. Her heart pounded as she pushed him away. For the first time she could not brush off her fear.

The next morning she carried him, bundled awkwardly in her arms, to a reptile veterinarian in the city. The clinic smelled faintly of disinfectant and cedar chips. A gray-haired doctor named Dr. Ellison examined the python carefully, weighing him, running his hands along the muscular coils. Miranda explained how the snake had stopped eating, how he stretched himself beside her at night, how he wound loosely around her middle. She expected reassurance.

Dr. Ellison finally folded his glasses and spoke with deliberate calm. “Miranda, what you’re describing is not affection. Large constrictors sometimes go on fasts while preparing to attempt larger prey. Stretching out next to you is not cuddling. It’s a way of measuring your body length. And when he coils around your waist, that’s a rehearsal of constriction.”

Miranda stared at him, her mouth dry. “You mean… he was practicing?”

“Yes. You have a mature female python with extraordinary strength. She is perfectly capable of suffocating a human adult before swallowing. Cases like this are rare but documented. The refusal of food is because she’s saving space, waiting for the chance to consume something larger. My advice is simple: she must be isolated immediately and rehomed in a facility that specializes in large reptiles. This is not safe for you.”

The words landed like ice water poured down her spine. On the drive home Miranda could barely think. Every image of Ambrose coiled lovingly around her waist replayed in a darker light.

That evening she sat on her bed while the python moved slowly across the sheets, his body sliding with that eerie silence only snakes possess. At one point he positioned himself exactly as he had so many nights before, a living rope spiraling around her. But now Miranda understood the intent. She lifted him gently, avoiding sudden motion, and returned him to his terrarium. When the latch clicked shut she remained on the floor, staring at the glass while he pressed his smooth head against it.

At dawn she called the Northwest Reptile Rescue Center. A truck arrived that same afternoon. The handlers, calm and efficient, transferred Ambrose into a large crate and explained that he would live in a spacious enclosure with other pythons, properly fed and monitored.

Miranda watched from her porch as the vehicle pulled away. A strange emptiness filled the house, but so did a current of relief. For the first time in weeks she slept soundly, no weight pressing against her lungs, no silent creature measuring the span of her body in the dark.