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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6VtBIw8yjB
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcc55DwEQGa
Things were better as a wild creature.466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3E1IxiVcQJ
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSIZAy4pdXh
So, one day, I just went missing. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEq0wJnibwQ
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The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi3Za8ZIxN5
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ21j4yCTRYX
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOs0F4TFlSK
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWoEyfOq8n
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPylzXgVbjc
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQdLUADQPm2
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIgOXCo5nyN
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They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdH7ZaFrnEi
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdKldxqITDW
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZHuYHdUmhn
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrfT0VjChwy
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6BpEagRe8
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZIhdXNKnps
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLG5UxTzEl
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyfqbL3uAud
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGcmtJrSepn
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWXshLmTVfq
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.466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZWg2rMkHLG
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAUhJCxRexy
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnV0NNuyXQ8
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8PUhXDoOX
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZKHPsEGIyf
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY5rNjUufbl
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.466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtw0Y3oI6p0
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6neJPcjzux
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4xyFK7egS5
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJUrychpPIM
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo2hlh3GVcA
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8xdBZfxaWc
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwdNMrVZsrm
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzWw3qUTpUs
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4CtR3VDe6A
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.466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTmSgmf23F6
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGWvemwanZn
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOscvcTPqts
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPqsYWNhNDy
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx8a6BCRqpZ
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb9iyR5SvEU
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRHUT6zK08J
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjLeB9oFP2t
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQe1RIHdiIi
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfoKbVRVipO
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLWiS1WUjOV
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUeaTM5Ju7p
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRJ8SCoTqB0
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd4qCkDzPJg
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNO4N6zmxrR
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ9G2yG924L
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. 466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAgCGaIlzgG
466Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbu55wwBrJr
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
