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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFXO4V9Ixx
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwaIif6TTV3
Things were better as a wild creature.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡflhN1y6YEO
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9zwZ2UbxuA
So, one day, I just went missing. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpLNWz7Cyj7
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlQpxtsFKNi
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVbC42Cbx5t
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE3N9pzrJGc
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7w72FHYHRl
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPQkt6VEskY
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr1hqWfDc8D
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPNAjdTuMBV
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5wJQf7TXrT
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOi8IliaxT
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxq4A4GMwmN
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWKamWeRTts
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmuQAbvCn5q
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuRSLKtKGtO
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXaghHQKvND
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ56nBSXdM79
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKfVzFF6ob0
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuub2PjqZKj
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQbGcsFjcHT
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5QPVs0AW9h
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.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNBzwwuclq4
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUpxPMqZYgx
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUCxNrInuqo
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs7P8ndUSrL
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbQwfeBegGa
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3SqU5DgMOD
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.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX9c866TPfI
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsbkH170WM1
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaxfGIuxjWs
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaokZZxnN0C
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡczrkStc4Dm
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnEeKDQVGUM
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYMfEluhLVX
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPNcZZ6loWZ
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhhmDocHVNY
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.571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLG9ec0EC6z
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlgr96CDuKi
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDHtZr3EwQh
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBfjhSfIQxo
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2CI37OFg82
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDkTYIgg7pT
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZHN0vB0MI6
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUOdAPh5xDP
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCO2h2NOncE
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj7pO5QgDfl
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGWbWx5cVM
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqX8BfDk9vh
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf4KRJXzp9z
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe9O33TvZE0
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vIEToQquH
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡitZ7b7E8Bo
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. 571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8QlnHYOGOD
571Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKY15aPrORu
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
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