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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqbyjqsRmTB
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCI0xAoyhAj
Things were better as a wild creature.676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYzhyoVZaCP
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsiMAm9ge9g
So, one day, I just went missing. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ41jQl4JSpe
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAbeXwD1I8
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAQhbpNnIOD
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxksqrZbR81
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcScdc3duwP
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQclO54N4Tp
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLdZ3xkOYmE
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv9WPPiSvl1
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHATa39wloo
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnStUT20fPo
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMc9UrYsx5j
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWi6p5k0X9u
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGdPrMCPSGC
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvyjmCTSEMp
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP3GfS8V0fe
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRKgboeFxDH
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZrhf4xvRTK
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa5PpsnQjet
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD6RF0pQoLb
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzzClJkcQoj
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.676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk65zoyGzJR
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC54q3L26vv
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhQf5wnfrdy
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTcBIV4fcIq
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYSInmZ8qsL
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXxnPXwwE2H
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.676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡttZcwuxnNK
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNAHLn67jX3
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZlXt4JoVAC
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡENprfRTLWh
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnuxG0B2PdT
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmohL8VHNbD
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUWaMNtSgZw
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNeaKDVyA0X
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4C8bKyJXi9
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.676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ608UXVY72X
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxkUi2ae9gq
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEzfOQ8LHhs
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡn41Onq16ce
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Fobfn1ODj
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6CAcxXeCZ4
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ndbZ65uOf
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBXHk1eqIK
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVY5ljvup6v
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKQOzEQBkVr
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk4ofhPRbyy
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtvgojS4MjC
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMlnQQTFvEb
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡclXyUEM3MX
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc9VK7ioPCx
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnZSVVF5DHK
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. 676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbsLKCmd85D
676Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqACPRluB3W
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
