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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAbY2zBU469E
181Please respect copyright.PENANALHuny4bsku
Things were better as a wild creature.181Please respect copyright.PENANAqsVTtZdGru
181Please respect copyright.PENANAGDfFCY8Nqy
So, one day, I just went missing. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAekyjM4D1rG
181Please respect copyright.PENANAlmINtjepH0
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAPTGYy1pPjf
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAaBCCgnEMOJ
181Please respect copyright.PENANARejefXpy4v
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAgtDysw2zKr
181Please respect copyright.PENANA890mzyHnDl
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAh96Hyh1iuf
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAjGMGxRHpay
181Please respect copyright.PENANAK5fpPAXq5G
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 181Please respect copyright.PENANA0l8mPYbosO
181Please respect copyright.PENANArC9SYdCpiv
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAUVbXBq9zQ1
181Please respect copyright.PENANAQD9QmrQRYn
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAB1aTaXkq0V
181Please respect copyright.PENANAKWbRDXry0R
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANALiijjxDNfT
181Please respect copyright.PENANA0NEzD2W7gS
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAMaB5EpMKmc
181Please respect copyright.PENANA6dIwQwoHom
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.181Please respect copyright.PENANAFKgMsHKb1x
181Please respect copyright.PENANA8IF5Orx7WV
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAvINDxi8M7g
181Please respect copyright.PENANAfCa3oehYeq
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAdx4B2ic5CZ
181Please respect copyright.PENANAbpM7iluE62
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.181Please respect copyright.PENANAJTv4l23KLQ
181Please respect copyright.PENANAgPSzOIHKPn
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANACfMRRM3XDa
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAcRaz71dcVi
181Please respect copyright.PENANAMduNpMgpDf
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAR5rSx1gXMg
181Please respect copyright.PENANAGznOiXQAzl
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAJCs4P0AWsR
181Please respect copyright.PENANAqZeWm6M36r
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.181Please respect copyright.PENANA4SKGPfqV0P
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAMDd3jSmqtJ
181Please respect copyright.PENANAmVNcZEJsOb
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAe0Hyw8dZul
181Please respect copyright.PENANA9dfxqfKhNN
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANA9FFOF4NS51
181Please respect copyright.PENANAlYEXnkgftF
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAiBHkMuPhJ1
181Please respect copyright.PENANAB1w7dgUt2C
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAibU1ajQTx9
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAEGttiMhB1T
181Please respect copyright.PENANAM5z80YVgOS
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAYZOlmB8sUF
181Please respect copyright.PENANARfZWoNiicJ
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAwNbA9yaqg7
181Please respect copyright.PENANAAJ54WK3yyi
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. 181Please respect copyright.PENANAgNMvP8WRcM
181Please respect copyright.PENANA2JPPoQd5UA
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.