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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8EEUhhH6D
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb91avkfr4g
Things were better as a wild creature.640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Xhq1g4ZyH
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNUrObGDzGk
So, one day, I just went missing. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHll8xmTHAD
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0ZsPwbiaDu
The posters with my face on them from concerned townspeople plastered phone poles and were attached to links on social media. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8ox9wZOGD
There was even a news broadcast for my search and safe return, along with one of my last photos; not my most flattering. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsmM8aO6JPF
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdodYl8RJr8
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx1HeWMb6Vj
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHXRkZK0vAF
Whispers envisioned that I had been kidnapped and stuffed into the water tower that looked over the town from its heart. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4m9ZSLCNiZ
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuE7YRhp4nm
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡveO2Mrdk5z
They were logical reasons. My truth was from a place that danced with fantasy. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdwB4dzCc7C
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP6yPWoKfaJ
I could peel from my skin into a monster; could do it ever since I was born. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbhyZsgsgtu
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWknYTpT8Ha
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbbNuOzLbi2
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡklac3sLdi9
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiJXX5X4Jqy
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPu602W6weo
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBO0P44tvXt
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcjIT7fQ5G9
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.640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2DYhYj4k3
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzIPiysejhD
It was costing me a fortune to keep up appearances and make sure mouths stayed shut. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9oaLrn31NU
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsm9uerlfeQ
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsoQU1rSQh3
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2NtrdXjB8w
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.640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoPcOOfaplt
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHrC7IELrAw
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZUcPQlXVEk
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNCB2Xgstw7
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQtetBIR0De
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9nvGjH0XZS
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJgeGkytRrt
My tail, long and slender, easily was the length of my own body hunched down on all-fours. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeMlja9tpM6
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9KmvF4urva
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.640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPugheRBkoo
It was too humanoid to be a wild animal, but too feral to be a human playing pranks. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFoSZDuj0aM
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPhcmY77HIY
I kept my distance. They always saw me no matter where I was. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡydUxaabTjR
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd5HWf4MuZZ
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz961JN39BE
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFd7zBYV97J
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7RzOfuA5y7
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLc8wqcwvEA
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ98fLH9upIP
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfGuzlx0Fko
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkeVaSe0nXd
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisaY3pUlDv
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHGB1BV0EKy
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOFQKCZvZE
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtiUItPvpTW
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. 640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtnSSy2qLgF
640Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMgtbnJrsP0
It had worked for three months since I disappeared and I was going to keep it that way, for her.
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