Ari's Story
"Happy Birthday, Ari!" That was my father, waking me up. Jeb Bactchelder. "Wow, two years old already! You're growing up fast, son." My second birthday is where my memory starts for real. Before then, I remember very little, just fuzzy pictures that may or may not have been real. That day was perfect; we did everything that a normal kid would do. Like Max and The Flock would never do. We ate cake until we could eat no more and then we went for a walk in the forest, just me and my father. Just my father and me.
I remember when I was little, I used to follow my father around his workplace: the lab where Max grew up in a dog crate, experimented on day after day, hour upon hour. Until she passed out, vomited, collapsed, exhausted and unable to continue, yet still they pushed her further. She would have been nine when I was two.
I used to have nightmares (and I still do) about all the human-animal combos that went wrong. Their moaning, squawking, growling, howling... and sobbing. That must have been Max, or maybe Nudge or it was most likely Angel. She would have been roughly two or three. The same age as me.
Jeb loved them all. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gazzy and Angel. I felt like he loved them more than me at times. That was confirmed when... when Jeb... stole them away from the lab and left me, a three-year-old toddler, his own SON behind.
This part is hard to think about. But as my life slips away, I feel I must remember this part, this part of who I am now.
When Jeb left, the whitecoats where free to do what they wanted to me. They tried to make me an Eraser, by splicing my DNA with that of a wolf, causing me to be forever trapped in a state of being never fully human, never fully wolf. I was a failure. An experiment gone wrong.
I can't remember much of my early days as an Eraser, like my first two years of my life. I vaguely recall doing some sort of training, but that memory is so hazy, nothing is definite. The thing that makes me such a failure is that my DNA was "modified" when I was three years old, rather than when I was in the womb, like all the others.
It is incredibly painful to be an Eraser, when you were made one rather than born one. It hurts so much. Painkillers help, but wear out before too long. At least soon the pain will stop and I will be forever at peace.
When I was ordered to hunt Max down, it felt like I could finally get my revenge for taking my father away from me and everything that happened to me as a result.
The rest you already know if you've been following the adventures of Max up to this point. Max, my sister, holds me in my arms as I breathe my last breath. A single tear rolls down my cheek. My last thought as my life slips away, hoping that Angel might pick it up and pass my message on, is this: Max, I love you; I love you so very much. I never meant to hurt you...