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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjB2PsqKmd6
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL7lZ8kYVPH
Things were better as a wild creature.986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUJylNNkgUz
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9HJgdjEdNv
So, one day, I just went missing. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHmYX9wheGO
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi3UiTdrRUT
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOZnP1YZT5d
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡonPYSId6bf
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI0Xoff50LC
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEevopQlG66
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNj3drcHvMr
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwNkKYUvcZD
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWclkXh0VPD
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNyGr6qhiqH
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡegf44qaFTp
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyxft55fPOh
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoriQuTkGMW
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD3OCsYr1Et
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjO2mJbPfpE
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq2tUh0O2b2
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlTTEdFtvBy
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqD3Y7f4024
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa9Bg059UIc
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsBLngSyqDA
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.986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnyF9DGK89l
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLa8VOlUH2V
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡldImtPYvrd
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5dR6rrTKAc
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkvmSrkX54A
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOsvFvNo9k4
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.986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLf0WWhxi4V
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzDHSeMNA6T
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuMKVzJNZrY
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqOwA8o2Lk
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGF3BkJMqtv
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFfhT0uIuhT
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9UfazYH8Ps
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡchiL0OR8G8
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUGqITJTmp7
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.986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqTEE9OBKLg
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpRIw4YzKcA
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ZZ3KuSjlk
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoK2ZlEupkF
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYbnOmgAYf8
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ63hx0PQ37W
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLpPBlloluY
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUytb5437wW
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3KHDEaP2Ey
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2B5CobYRbm
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8Yksx0ixCQ
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhCqrfWYuq9
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpKR5vU0YpI
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBWJBDcszly
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG6TSke9kHg
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdGY5aD0Ncz
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. 986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFXywwEXeES
986Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzjbe2oanwz
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
and then Add to home screen.