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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJZHDVIvBt
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNERkfYGq0A
Things were better as a wild creature.628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡygfokmSRkM
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUB1q8KfH3T
So, one day, I just went missing. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡthH2goxs1i
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwsjFIdvfBX
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsgjZtlVKa9
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5BJOufqK8o
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyJphz8q4TD
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHb4Phc5DtF
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDvo3tynLXb
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhh0XjC76e3
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA9ZtRhcQwC
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2BlQ8JrtPE
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAZ7naTJrVR
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWbwifJvNql
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm8xlAN7Syd
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsHQkItPvJu
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBQodQ3O4D
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUa0VUduROb
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFTCTwTb8Il
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1gtBzWn35H
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr1drvN7Evs
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2fggnF0oy8
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.628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlSQHFis8Kj
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBG4fx4c7J
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2v3uDUV7FU
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡozAqvQ75cu
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYjqTKMqkpd
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTzdJkKpzvr
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.628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP301c4iTfk
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ37UMdAs7ij
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF6lfpPjrGv
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUurB0MEhlc
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYKmDa0BpXG
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFxsP7dWaVI
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ01ZD3irlj3
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxgfCzg8Bwh
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyVgWfO78PX
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.628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs4ZRfQxZDI
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9M62Du4bJj
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Q4b88D6gy
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8FQ0jNrEkY
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUSGo5h8uqK
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJdNAtQX8y
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ46ZfjWie8d
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmsvy5Ja9M4
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gxx8498Il
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYIgLPTSHC3
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HG5kmuYnW
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxomJlicDc0
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXjABrnzBCI
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpf3ZCjOI86
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm608jMCKx8
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYZSFdZ4U2b
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. 628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtRlD0iYNkY
628Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFCgUQqcttn
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
