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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQEjTArtia
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMVbh6tYvTf
Things were better as a wild creature.467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0ECrXXjXha
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUqd5tGKcj8
So, one day, I just went missing. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZEtfmIOce
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTmuH9pJTT3
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYMfdYutD42
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGlBwppq2ce
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4LnIMp9l6Y
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBYf0YUUdK
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfCkyXvmrFc
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTaUQ3pn8bk
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJkwRWYHuK
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6xfpLxOHyF
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT4g01QJyNL
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkJE2o7PUQq
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDSO8Ul2yCo
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHIWqEtiEwo
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKX23uzmRof
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbgPzUo87dl
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVHoegKHtTd
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvD5daYB7ik
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmFy2O5pS1U
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOHJAVEGB9C
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.467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGPcvMEDgD5
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0dzU48tw2N
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIa5bmL2E53
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6SKrbVXkDA
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2DsoPcr8a1
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrdKH2J4ve
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.467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOlLCigl76m
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsAtTxqwCHA
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeiY5cKRlT4
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6PUHpfwJGa
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡysvKtQ7LZS
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6IQLW7zvBC
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuK6kMNdCLh
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVN8rXqvWWc
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXyvpAX03AO
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.467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivS48i8gdI
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91MS5soPrE
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsY26iGQW0
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcQWE59zILK
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV41kCFpeyb
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5VlAS08L6i
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoVi9c8zJj9
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCWqQDgdZdX
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2cuRuaV0bO
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMvQAuaAzAz
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp0FORn69CN
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSfQw6VFYER
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjHDw90JjSL
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoWMFnps7PU
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡirJYDOGuvT
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTC4rgnQoL3
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. 467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNzRShmQX7W
467Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFZkRa8kUQ1
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
