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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5UFFJ5Bf5o
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy75fGf3jNo
Things were better as a wild creature.506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4rAIP75LN0
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ50DoMe17cz
So, one day, I just went missing. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF75pci7Vu1
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUw7qYoY9ad
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvrZyGbJNh1
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8FjwGYWbpG
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1VY1nfoDc2
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVV3FV83TEy
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYgudJNtG9
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7zvrlHu4J0
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZdb3BPphwu
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOiXladZsCq
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ549zzxNx8T
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWqXTOzoJqe
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1XCIA2kMqb
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8SbPltUKO
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUXFg1UFuL
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhV2qW855O0
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLDMurpAHMA
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡouZom29Rdu
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviVxmJ8L2N
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSXjIqUW6mC
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.506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZemnskARkm
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ7cB2zzVte
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3IZAtqKZdE
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxlSzxzphr
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJgjitzcRyE
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCJE4dog9Le
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.506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuwESeCvQx6
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4iPB5Dqfu
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡER74HpVnEG
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VowbNSuLK
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4u9mccj3lE
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOnWYBehF8L
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGev12FEdY
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxYaDr8ce5
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9BJXIv3EM
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.506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoDcwTP1CFP
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDIeYXoFZWZ
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtwuCh6bMK5
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZL6EOpk6Of
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ68xjhqhJrs
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrLecMfMIgx
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7pgIvEYF9
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHBfvCUQjod
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlBtZXdhktf
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8O76dEQhN
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0TcN391oXo
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNLjHco3BGh
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuve5v4Ybrf
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQKVF6VbHAa
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfEL4hDk58a
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHEtQuuwnhS
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. 506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPEeeHKq36d
506Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVCK4EYU8hS
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
