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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkRtFW2gZpI
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRnJtHweeK
Things were better as a wild creature.516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVkWJgj5A1e
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxkJJFw0yV4
So, one day, I just went missing. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY0GAUX2e1R
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbNtYbse33d
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI3tJ6vgjdg
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlIOf0VoqQp
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvf3p7GkFCR
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo8k5As5kAm
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEQJkbZB9jo
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2nQHG8as6n
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcT7VN0BhGD
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUdHkLaIMEZ
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJ1bZcQ1pI
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj3w3qSJps4
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFjsQbKd99l
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZtSIHoUc6M
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLBpvG7J6jR
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡparHYaMs7M
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyggCIQznvU
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgcTPCqkpLj
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡECVLI4z2WO
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgDIm9n3Oty
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.516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrMObaIEUxN
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡteLPCPgs3n
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvNjGT4Ekxn
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGPk2zaZNB6
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjL5LVmcGVm
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgPQGjTy3LZ
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.516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8n9F9olYeB
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkuLYa4q1zW
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw4GTjRuw5t
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjtkJc8DPEL
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX2I6dBE5Ef
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6KYmtBuHcf
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ03s164uNBh
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxyW7KP8oI5
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXJNxFPMNzE
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.516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGpNwgToiUY
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRGS33R9xYq
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡACXaKxt6VK
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡADPcRLocQm
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwtttNXjM0w
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP7VNisQOIL
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcl8HLLqGZB
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpxXs8RUQB1
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7L6X1MhtK6
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRC0onS5W0F
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJGFcAfr2ei
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtGdSKXTS0k
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrqhLusIJtu
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡatTuj6pl6H
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKGRTKJqa4S
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNAD5wvbRNI
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. 516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaJqUmFaGiw
516Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ66yJ7OxzrM
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
