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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyKzp6hvKbm
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5LTRM0M16l
Things were better as a wild creature.595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3LGjAUFLHL
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAtC3HFjnI9
So, one day, I just went missing. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8B8r7b8BJB
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQZoxrwFSMs
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAxaruCXmZw
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhLacCc0fRH
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXjU1CzKTS
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGVOepkHJL
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv88ofcnC1b
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcGdFAozXkc
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbTHNHi8Egt
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ80gGoQ8me8
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu9h0HPMHx3
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSaL1vpIzs7
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgwNnAWOVna
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡustbiGNiZ2
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLRoxee2ast
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf84idgysBw
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1TeK45nyad
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO0P7M7bTgC
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEQMjWFSktT
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkJoh0ZRg2T
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.595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5GpuMeeGYh
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdiGiqX9EWq
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeZFwXByIpz
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB1BydQxo6W
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTzcRQdC9RX
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZxPtmf208
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.595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8JFcUGKCev
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjv997aTacZ
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6S7NDPr2wG
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsVLnSuz6X
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK4AifSpnsd
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL8Pl3HqXZg
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGA6vyzhd7O
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSk2YLclDge
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp31XoCMBiW
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.595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLhBwLKLJP4
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyzrzAweNQG
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5rR5N99YCa
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPotAlBf83U
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRgDOVqj0mL
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNo5ErmHFzQ
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMSIYNUGdK2
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhqGSDZpr7b
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡytc6k9dG6x
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5ock9yIz3R
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ68sGZ3luUZ
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTBVvVevCh9
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOmqTZXSqCg
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8ulnu5hW9L
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiq8rUvpA22
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd36ZkFltPj
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. 595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhPDhjUEP4Q
595Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76FfonW3oV
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
