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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxI3zPzs9yr
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIrRetyJavN
Things were better as a wild creature.470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt6E8gU7RNK
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfNAs4ZzSCM
So, one day, I just went missing. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7fbURWVlMt
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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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzBzRoko94C
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj72BXBHIdZ
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmrulrWJs4z
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk1YB9VcO5Y
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ26pCMWw4GE
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbedxV0ebKh
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAIdwoCZtOm
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They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZxOlwT0Zo4
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJtIuYYfZWd
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPtsxWsVpca
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDCW421X0z2
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaVp1p8LXV5
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoOkRdOrD6e
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUSeTiCtXcn
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB0pLSn9o5u
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91AwIWbfOm
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMfZFkczqVL
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.470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgTygBowv52
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡacAk5xBs1e
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcq8Q95txQj
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMwTwSSB3rf
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQduPFhaV6p
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2gA48ONHJD
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.470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUq2SBE7xE5
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd85O1xaaKy
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF16cFDQHH3
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuDseyd6z6Y
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvytDbEm5hl
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9PCnV3fr1P
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYDfKNN3eM
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡERLGtRufHK
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGjE2Rsp2fo
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.470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡggokdSgFfa
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1Fw9dyihZn
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoPugE3kex2
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqmImmoFWmd
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvc8CKlKhIF
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEG7rmr3yko
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7WxiwJdEEY
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNAaDCqI3mC
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJCA2qTIPrc
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ93u3wG3KtR
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgabhDoXgop
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu3OHg22ZF2
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfauTbw5KWU
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKCvqUr0pjn
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaSXaW4FuuR
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCNJGVhwuU1
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. 470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rM67ClWfo
470Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7n2G6jk50
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
