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Postcard

Brian loved taking photos of his hometown. It was a small quirky little town, but it had a lot of beauty. It was also on a pretty major route to a national park, so they also got a fair few tourists stopping by. Eventually, the town caught on that it should exploit the tourist industry and start making some town merchandise.

The mayor called a town meeting to discuss the matter (as they did with most things). They agreed that probably the most popular items would be shot glasses (because collecting these is apparently a thing) and postcards (people loved to have a ready to go snapshot of where they've been). The shot glasses, they decided, would have the town crest on them (as would some of the postcards). Considering the town crest had a grizzly bear on its hind legs on it, Brian thought that they would do very well with tourists.

But then came the matter of the postcards. The town agreed there should be a variety so that people would consider buying more than one. After some debate, it was decided that the towns local shutterbugs would each submit a few photos and one of each of theirs would be chosen as a design. Brian was happy to be known as one of the town's most prolific shutterbugs, so he was ecstatic about the challenge he'd been tasked with.

He started out the next morning, DSLR in hand. He hopped into the middle of Main Street when it was clear to snap a shot (he was planning on lining it up with an historic photo of the town's Main Street). Brian continued his walk around town and was sure to get some photos of the plants that were common in the area (people love postcards of flowers, right?).

Brian continued his photo walk all day long, stopping at a local diner to recharge his camera's battery (and snap pictures of the homemade pies). He decided to keep going even after the sunset as some night shots of the town could end up playing well. Brian walked along a major trail in the woods next to the town, making his way to a famous vista point.

That's when he saw it. There were large, glowing near-neon yellow eyes staring down at him. At first, Brian blinked, thinking they must surely just belong to an owl. But they were too large, they were nearly the size of saucers. As Brian stood frozen, he continued to stare at the eyes. Slowly, Brian's eyes adjusted more to the dark and he saw a lumbering and bristling fur-covered body. It was moving diagonally across his path, staring at him, but making no move towards him.

A switch flicked in his head and he remembered that he had his camera with him. As he raised the camera, the creature began to sprint at terrific speed. Brian snapped as many photos as he could anyways. Reviewing the shots, he did manage to capture a few with the haunting yellow eyes.

He submitted one to the postcard committee (along with a few other photos he'd taken) and began to talk to people in town, asking if they had seen the creature in the woods. The mayor, upon seeing the photo, called another town meeting.

Brian hoped the town meeting would be about the existence of this creature, the pooling of knowledge about it, and perhaps even organizing a search party to go find it. But he was a bit disappointed. The topic was actually on if they wanted to brand the town a cryptid destination. Did they have enough local stories to sustain it? Would Brian consider leading a tour? What would they call the creature?

In the end, the town of Little Fork decided that yes, they would became the town with the Yellow-eyed Wolfman and watch as the tourists rolled in.

(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)

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