It was easier to live the life of an animal rather than that of a human.
Animals didn't have the burdens humans did. They didn't have to struggle to pay rent, keep the electricity paid to cook food and have a hot shower, or have to worry about the same springs in the old mattress stabbing them in the back every sleepless night. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPSKzhBPGAW
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC34g3Flj3Y
Things were better as a wild creature.371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPE4bdOV4sB
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmIhHPD1iiV
So, one day, I just went missing. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbul22AqyHD
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The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYFgCizkEG1
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFyEPAZFR4k
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3IlqOGPAPU
With my disappearance came speculation about what could have happened to the young man who lived in such a small tight-knit town with only one road in, one road out, and a train track cutting through the middle. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpVPbUXquXu
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtxq9d2iq6v
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡioZhCT68hP
Others gossiped that I had drowned in the water below the train track that stretched to the East, so that's why no-one could find me. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyG8uM8YC1c
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL2BGv3TM3i
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8PbL9rRacb
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8qxWKUE2Qh
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp8pfSVJZNu
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN9LwT1WscW
When I was old enough to leave my parents and venture on my own, I chose this tiny town surrounded by forestry and waterways so there wouldn't be anyone to bother me or pry into my strange appearance. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4bzx0KLUUK
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsEq3GiCOAb
To them, my black stained hands and speckled arms were from an old injury in an oil company I imagined. I don't know if they believed that, but they didn't pry into it. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ09qxuUYaEy
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkvDnFp7uau
My skin, usually as white as the moon itself, was masked with foundation where it was visible to give it a more natural tone. It was still pale, but not enough to raise alarm of a monster in their midst. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZst2YYDot
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWo0sBPBzwD
I wore blue contacts over my dark red eyes and burned them with solution every few hours I had to remoisten and refit them. I even considered wearing glasses to try and pull focus from my blue eyes whose shade kept changing every few months to something a little too light or dark from the last.371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgEmdKrHfO
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyLUZAlZZSJ
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEJElyDxyli
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtvFSmPWspN
But, when I could just peel away that mask and truly be myself, I was free. I didn't have to worry about money or how I looked or each little thing I did that might seem 'odd' or 'impossible'; I could just be me. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡanQHYHcq01
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH2K7rYbHF8
The decision was an easy one, but one that alarmed the town when a strange creature suddenly started being spotted near the train tracks or tree lines.371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4dniuVfi35
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs9yi7cBSu2
My true self wasn't what they were used to. It was a bright white creature covered in skin rather than fur and sporting the same speckled limbs as black as the night. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE529iI8A2A
My red eyes, untainted by chemicals, were the colour of blood. My teeth, broken and sharpened in the shift from my human self, were nowhere as useless as the blunt one’s humans had. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa2rxubVhzO
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTQnaNn6Dnd
I had long ears usually pointed upright to take in all the sounds of nature and its calls to warn me of any of the townspeople getting too brave. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtLphfqjO6o
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Q2Svheaug
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuGmpWwMXnJ
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnMi21CSiIb
My slender body reminded the townspeople of a werewolf, others of a wendigo. Despite the lack of hair, people wanted a logical explanation that didn't trip into delusions they refused to accept.371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡplRyVUyGZB
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWO0aFjDng1
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7PpuK1iSW4
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4NxTa5wIP
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUt0GKYFkPF
With the sun behind me, I trailed the train tracks on my way for the house I knew that bordered it on the way out of town. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡufBDj0I8lO
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAs7XKsV9o6
I kept to the East side where the road peeled away and the train track ran on suspended beams towering in the air. No-one could get me if they didn't have access. Between me and the town was a river that the beams pierced through. I stayed on one side until every afternoon when I knew the house on the West side of the tracks and the town would be calling out for me. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcc81GCqdmK
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuLo3Ziencb
A young woman lived there by herself. She was loved by the town she frequented often on her little powder-blue scooter with the cutest yellow milk-crate bolted to the back. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWqccuD5L5h
Her orange hair waved out the bottom of her matching helmet whenever I saw her, and her brown eyes had a way of smiling at me when she bumped over the grass alongside the tracks so she could run errands in town. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2lMEf6qr3W
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfh2nHAzE3x
Sometimes, I'd glimpse her as she was parking her scooter by the platform beside town so she could cradle bundles of parcels in her arms from the milk crate and board the train to disappear along the West line. I'd chase after her for only a few meters until the train sped away and I was left to make a shameful walk back. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJwSfCPFUSO
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXFaxzdfcPm
Because of her schedule, people took to hanging near where the tracks met the land of the town so they could watch me make my way to that little house on the other side each afternoon. It was the only time I allowed them to get so close to me in my moment of desperate desire. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXdl62o6QBO
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRfvfGmyePT
Despite knowing some of the people and their routines, I didn't trust the newcomers who made their homes here and didn't know the unspoken rules we had set between ourselves. 371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRS1AWTImT3
371Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7iJn36uxuf
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
