She was perfect. She was, truly, at least before she left me. It's all because of this shithole town. I hate it here. Everything was perfect, I almost got to leave, but then she met my family. I told her we could cut them off once we got married and I moved out of Marquel, but she didn't care.

Sorry, fuck, I always do this. Drone on and on, maybe I should just start from the beginning.

I live in a terrible place called Marquel. It's always been terrible but being born there seemed to mask some of the horror from me. We have everything anybody could want. A water park, a museum, even a Seven Flags, but the one thing that always unsettles me is the Insane Asylum. On my way home from school I'll walk past it and see someone trying to leave, or a guard in a gold uniform beating someone to death, but the thing that unsettles me the most is I swear sometimes the building shakes. It's not like there's an earthquake, we live in the midwestern US.

I'm rambling again, aren't I? No? Well, let's move on.

There are strange properties about Marquel's border. Very strange, yes. When you leave it there's a forest. A nice forest. It's very peaceful, despite all the weird horror stories that stem from it, but I'll tell you those another time. The forest stretches on for miles, endless trees and little streams. But after you go about ten miles in, no matter where you left from or which direction you went, you always end up at the water tower at the edge of town. If you try to go back into the forest, you just end up right back where you started. The only way it doesn't happen is if you're in a 1996 Toyota Corolla, or if you don't currently live there. But you can't just buy a house, declared you've moved out of your current house, and leave. No, no, no, my friend, you have to get married.

So maybe I shouldn't have invited her over, I do take the blame for that, but I don't see anything wrong with my family. Maybe they just aren't normal in her eyes. After all, the horrors of this town were masked while I lived there, but not anymore. After sacrificing myself to protect her, I can see now that those people are not normal. I was a human born in a monster family. Dad has 17 legs, every one of them different lengths, Mom has a knife in her chest and head and is still walking, Sister has hair coming out of all of her fingers, Brother has his nose where his eye should be, ears where is mouth should be, eyes where is ears should be, and a mouth where his nose should be. But none of them compare to the dog, who is everything but a dog. He has no face, just a mouth, no tail, just a rope, and no normal teeth that a dog should have. He has sharp teeth everywhere. Sharp enough to break through steel, let alone human flesh. She took one look at Dad and said the dreaded words, "Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't think that things human." You should never utter those words in our house. I took her by the hand and pulled her out the front door. All 3,000 townspeople were after us. "Why is nobody here an actual human except you?" That was the last straw, she had overstayed her welcome. We ran into the forest, but after a while, I lost her. It was the strange properties of the border; I was back at the water tower.

The townsfolk captured me, tortured me, mutilated me, but it made me feel normal for the first time ever. I could now see everyone's flaws, their unhuman characteristics. Except all the children. They were normal. I know what happens now. We are all mutilated, all deformed, but that's not by genetics, it's by hand. You get one chance to marry someone out of town, but if they leave you, you get mutilated and have to marry someone from the town and hope your child escapes. That's what happened to my uncle, he didn't date anyone until he was 40 and then married the person he dated. His disappearance was explained by death.

Maybe you don't believe me, but that's okay. I'm perfectly happy here. I hope our son is able to get married to the person he's dating right now. It would certainly be great to have someone escape. Our daughter already failed. Shes been changed. If you live here, now you know the truth. Show that special someone this, they'll marry you on the spot. If not, come, save someone. There are plenty of non-mutilated people. I don't want to mutilate any more bodies.

Sincerely, The Mayor