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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuwBLZsPg0M
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtyhwEooksZ
Things were better as a wild creature.547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpE62nJtls3
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYMxPGg9hdE
So, one day, I just went missing. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwTQDba35zs
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE4zZm9VcfE
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGc8n8ysQ0L
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqyYNBCnnps
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIpwpCa9gva
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn9dNjwYIVO
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLp4iu9x7No
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKpA4yDvCQ
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8aJk9FymGh
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyC3EB42enV
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq3ha1M7vD4
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQo7Emknfqg
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnchCbk0TwL
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzw1Mfbbt4L
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjCtT9DjmCA
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzHMST9ZBBJ
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiZXvJLIJX1
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1KQRLA1hcp
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoLJOy0HV6m
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYLaVQv2Lnd
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.547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUjDO8BxxZO
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI86070eY1g
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhmgNlVb4zE
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFuTGefYfRF
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ08iZf7mFO7
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrMUJkfqFrj
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.547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8QxAsF2zZz
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1LWrEJfgT8
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrxAEebuOQX
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBn0ei8WJXS
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbs1AbVanxg
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsUUEDu8FGN
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW8pUkeukGa
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVit3zod6Qe
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡszXZJSHehe
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.547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUxa9G8FowW
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWMigRdoswc
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf3BFi9la62
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ15bmOEEyDn
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtOQwfqb2fY
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3GMDc8NUb2
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiZUbIDNcGR
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcf7OwQUbzc
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcayrnPfWo
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjbtOccUEpL
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqRQY9nYCaa
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqhwymhThDa
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGPomQZ81AC
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡln3XnSOx5c
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Dc0qRVPZt
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeIKoBOF6pY
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. 547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo034sJm3HD
547Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCuYNoe5Pcc
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
