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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK24vrfBADQ
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHVfvcjBIpP
Things were better as a wild creature.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9CgIrxprxS
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡurTXKWPS8s
So, one day, I just went missing. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdAkTKc5BI6
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡktYEftFOcG
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVxtUELrWFT
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡywaGEJ6wTx
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFLqo0gTPIt
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHsXCQFJtIV
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMPsds2jltJ
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnLFltXt64X
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG90SsjlHD8
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPPGh6ck7LB
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKljEAcPes2
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz7hO8o0PO5
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6Giyk5H0WX
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Xe7KqqJqf
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAUAnpV2kRs
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL3O9nUuW0N
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbhylhUtI7S
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqtRYyAWe4G
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVCn3PB1nVq
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfzCIEZeji
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.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOCB4dZsvAm
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7ziaCtVOE2
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlHkHANVkWi
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAQ67cvrERl
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTkFmRlaoC9
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ30DsGdMnHa
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.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIw4qZicBCN
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSszVUEBu3U
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ3AQCufAwB
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8e5vNJYvi
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzkf9UFk82s
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXKHmm50HO2
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡADaUk0jux9
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQUtmaqnIqg
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIT7aUtAB3V
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.591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv1yVGeejBd
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6uhaXRLNRi
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIT6PvzrXZ4
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgAPdFbzv30
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU7vfvrkawm
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZBFfG7RZx5
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdrv5o28Ktp
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7vpnpsOFEE
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2AANHWlBkk
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrK5w2bMbbk
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhX206hM4pP
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZZ3SwXXCCl
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeyGoycrMcI
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcCbpr1J7H
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡleAgZChi3L
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ10oQ9sZB9
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. 591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJcOJXO46hH
591Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqXfLP4P5z
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
