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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3DOLohzd62
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKS29jyaBLg
Things were better as a wild creature.624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5VOTL0JZss
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd33v5qKBFr
So, one day, I just went missing. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgKHZGkqaEG
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSdBXK5F26v
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuzMogyAHNO
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVPUgPRjLHZ
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrrhv9NjxdH
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKPae7GgPoZ
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0Ckb5Kgrxk
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOARIK3Snt2
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNj1YOj95vk
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiFlWw4Nqcm
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPtP0F8LRfe
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9Q01R0zQvE
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsQ6fHQSGIg
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKEhfrb0ng0
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ54CC8yPCnM
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGaEq7Z8YW
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjli3LUeawp
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUgcRbVIu6A
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡROi5mBHVJs
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡORyFCl8CGN
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.624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEkDufd22Ad
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKFkuCd7yaK
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ21ylpIaLfm
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4CbXFnOSJW
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNFp0JqYCXk
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCd0mPkAJH9
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.624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdz85BbMfiC
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBYNxdE9by
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvxyfDkTzNQ
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvbtPrMG3KE
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH39hGL1m8H
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzr2eIrw8B3
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQYse2zc1qz
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGgRZTkAuci
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPCrxRvr00g
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.624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDEYuX8qVy4
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoXH9EzQ9qf
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiAiO8Kg2kC
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWxNvlbYQOj
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡboZEf2VgR4
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7x5Py0F9pg
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyr6tZTFaKU
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIidN2hghGV
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIDFXbXzhH
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzT67bMeoPW
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKuAjKVWTr1
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm33rmypAQk
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyHwLg1Ysnm
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdr5mwaEp7T
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxjrC74aqjN
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcVmOYTl9ry
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. 624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL750c29X65
624Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvQ2jQW3GKn
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
