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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHeHm8LcKol
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5Mp7JINNj
Things were better as a wild creature.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZagzodWhFW
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqlKdYl4OZ
So, one day, I just went missing. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLZKeqg3LuM
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzTVAZteaT2
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhd1L1BQ1i2
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡktNcIEQg1b
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpRaQTdgLQB
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdLrKiWHlBf
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwg9gfIiLaR
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQpLcPd7aVy
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPUOBQlYn0i
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkbE9McT6qZ
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡus5rMhdb2l
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeEQdzwmf6S
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ppishxFjK
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhlmsQpAlkZ
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjUkSsiHlK8
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaKM7mcswEK
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZGL1JKji8v
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxrggXTUSJj
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlSV1ykMNmS
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBwsAq6YgrD
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.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5gNDPuJm4k
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSc1iN2iJ39
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwWT3anHBlC
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaDJMAOAVva
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOQrWByj7IJ
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0XLK77lgiX
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.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDtQrmQgxaM
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGHpYHS22xS
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlra0Q6qCSE
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡskKozIE19C
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUcDSTcNloT
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa29SjEJPqZ
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvJVvEoNZ7
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiL6vvyD609
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsJ95hTAml9
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.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpqGijCPhFB
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEz5mnT62jd
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCpByc3xhab
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ410CqU9hgl
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Vu7ux4qZ4
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO3cEUTg7b6
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXVjR9IY2At
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpRHPbrYZUu
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB9fqUx4grL
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUzgjJ3IvcS
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUxJlRO5Xhe
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWxnlGLZ2Pi
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG5RepM1A01
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjIhcAMIShN
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLKbRYP8N6O
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGXZvGpnmlO
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. 680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6p1tmFJtOG
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9fUbJKWq4N
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
