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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm7FhZ7U3S9
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡueBMMv1rfM
Things were better as a wild creature.630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8tN6c0esbL
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNFoIsmmiv6
So, one day, I just went missing. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI50bI6fLwQ
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaBC03lzErx
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡePQ81U0L4q
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnKnRk5Rhnb
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgQivkyIf8
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa8Wd6QtSJ0
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYA78xkRbZO
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWzoOfzOz7c
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFP1ADi4nwA
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp8v8QZhbi7
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBIRGSFe77
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnrB9XNfWvx
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4XYbZeWXWB
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZCCBJCJmU
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1EjFIH6mhA
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7iXpZUMrK
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCNWlbQSU6S
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUA9vv1BXAK
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5lFiZJcuLX
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYrFjmmdf3b
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.630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmUcAXFlYdf
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPXVwgpOt0L
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYozVViCJkS
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvWrd8yMInu
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6OJauYvhIw
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4E45RCVTfV
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.630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnn2LamMZfY
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbJoQDAsmir
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx5uzbcZ6h1
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ybG3piAlP
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBqEf4d21ks
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLf0Ayyl8I
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnzbvDnmVMo
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSy1WLkGaAu
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbvptygU4RL
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.630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbiyfZrRgWf
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEdXttw5MP4
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7hC2KNTCC
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6fz2nyGVg2
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp3zQXAKksO
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1vnW0XN4I
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ23UYc4GZx9
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoy57W2IHcT
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2uUpxqhnE
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCUMtzOLnlY
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkeqRuWdwOn
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIGZGkoy0dZ
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKqSMTb0L2O
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdjDssiYxBe
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYGqZtlTIuw
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZJa9WSbVgc
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. 630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj0SLv0JKV6
630Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjsBSKElF5k
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
