The definition of fear

On the fourth of July, a group of young boys thought that climbing to the top of dead-mans cliff would be a thrill they would never forget. The climb was full of narrow paths and dagger-like rocks. They had precluded that the trek up to the cliff would be their only difficulty. The eldest and most courage’s boy of the group reached the summit first. As the boy peeked over the edge into the water his heart sank. “ Is this the same cliff we had looked at from the water,” he thought to himself. Fear came over him as the other boys ran up behind him. “Jump, jump!” They shouted. He tried to speak but nothing came out. Not wanting them to think of him as a coward, he stepped toward the edge. He had jumped from a small cliff in the past and new all to well what the consequences were if he landed wrong in the water. Heart throbbing, legs shaking, skin sweating, and lungs gasping, he prepared to take the plunge.
What the boy is experiencing is called fear. Fear is an...