Soundless Animals

The Midnight Article "Soundless Animals of the City" was created by u/EpicIzAwesom and posted on r/MidnightPaper.

The text for the Article was as follows:

SOUNDLESS ANIMALS OF THE CITY If you live in a city, then you've seen one of these creatures. Maybe only out of the corner of your eye, but you've still seen them. For those of you who don't know who what, these creatures are, well they are just Animals, like the ones you would see at a zoo. Except they make no noise, and most people only ever glance glances of them in the corner of their vision.

However, those who don't, those who can fully see the animal and not just glimpse it? Well, one day you get to make a choice.

One man, who will go unnamed (though his name has no purpose anymore) was down on his luck, he had lost his job, his girlfriend broke up with him and he was practically homeless. He had lost it all after trying to tell everyone that there was an elephant sitting on someones car, or that a cobra was coming out of a drain pipe, when everyone else saw nothing. One night, after drinking his problems away and stumbling through the city, an odd man wearing an animal mask of a tiger approached him. This man offered immortality, in a different form, with none of life's usual problems, jobs, money, a house.

The man, being as drunk as he was, didn't see anything odd about this and was happy to accept the mans offer. So the man gave him a single orange pill and walked down the nearest alley, disappearing in the darkness. The man hesitated for a split second before downing the pill.

No one ever saw him after that night at the bar, although some of this friends got glimpses of a tiger in odd places in the glimpses of their vision, climbing on a brick wall, laying in the street, sitting in a dumpster. You may have seen him before without realizing it.

However if you have seen them, fully not just a glimpse. than that means that you could get an offer from the man with an animal mask. However you will only receive an offer when you are most likely to accept it, when your the most desperate in your life. No one knows what its like for the people who become the animals, whether they are happy, or if they even have the same mind as they once did.

Description:

"Soundless Animals" are Biological-Type Oddities. They appear to be exotic animals, like those you'd find at a zoo. However, the possess the anomalous quality of being completely unable to make a sound. Other anomalous qualities these Oddities possess are related to sight, most people will only be able to spot these animals in their peripheral vision. There are some people, however who will be able to look at them for long periods of time. If these people were to try to point these animals out to others, like the man in the article did, they wouldn't be able to see anything.

Soundless Animals seem to treat urban environments the same way they would treat their natural habitats, finding suitable replacements for the foliage and landscape they would traverse in the concrete jungle of the city.

Choice:

The Article mentions that, should a person be able to look at Soundless Animals for more than a few seconds at a time (that is, if they do not vanish after being seen in their peripheral vision) they will meet a strange man. This man will make them an offer: to be immortal, but in a different form, and enjoy life without the trappings of modern civilization (paying rent, having a job, worrying about money, etc). Should a person accept this offer, the man will hand them a pill, the color of which varies depending on the type of animal the person will become.

Upon taking one of these pills, a person will be transformed into a Soundless Animal, and will live forever, but only on the outskirts of reality, as most people will only see them out of the corner of their eye.

It is unknown who this man is, how he gets these pills, and how he chooses what Soundless Animal a person will become upon taking them.