Trembling, I forced my feet to move. I walked toward the “monster,” my heart drumming against my ribs. And then, the perspective shifted. The “huge creature” shrunk. The “horror” crystallized into a very small, very desperate reality.
It was a Skink. A real, living lizard. It hadn’t invaded the wall to haunt me; it had fallen into a crack in the masonry. It was wedged tight—no way in, and certainly no way out. The “terror” I felt was actually the lizard’s own death throes. It was thrashing, its tiny claws scraping uselessly against the concrete, its sides heaving with an exhaustion I could now feel in my own chest.
In 2026, as we build more “concrete jungles,” the natural habitats of small reptiles like skinks are shrinking. They often end up in our walls not as pests, but as refugees.
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