5It was June, I think, six months ago, when this all started. I still remember that Tuesday," the bitter boy said into the tape recorder. "Mom was acting weird - weirder than usual, anyway - all absent-minded, and jumpy, like listening devices were in the teabags, stuff like that.
"I kept asking what was wrong. She wouldn't say. Still hiding it, still running, even then. Hours before . . . ". The boy breathed heavily, shakily. "She refused to admit they were coming until the last hour. She let me go to school, at least for a while, three hours tops, I think. I remember I was worried about a test we had that day . . . I wish that's all that was wrong, now.
"Anyway . . . the school nurse called me out of class. I thought I was in trouble. But Mom had called, told me Dad was coming to pick me up, something urgent. I waited in Mrs Delwigger's - the nurse's - office for half an hour until my dad came screeching to a stop out the front of the school to come and get me. We drove home 10mph over the speed limit.
"I kept asking what was wrong, but Dad wouldn't say. Just kept saying, 'They're coming!' I'd ask who, and all I got was, 'The scientists!' I thought he'd gone mad. Scientists? We had nothing to do with any . . . back then.
"We got home, no thanks to my dad's driving. I walked in and found the house in disarray. Mom was throwing piles of clothes into suitcases. 'Ready yet?' my dad'd ask. Mom'd always reply calmly, 'Fifteen minutes, Adrian, you can wait.' All through this weird, ceremonial-like packing, I'd ask what was wrong. Eventually, my mom told me to get the letter off my bed, and 'don't open it till we get in the car'.
"Finally, after I'd got the letter that would ruin my image of my parents' past in my mind forever, we were ready. For what, I didn't know.
"But before we'd even moved to leave the house, the door had been broken down and three men were standing in our cosy little living room, holding cold, big guns. My dad let out a half-growl, half-yell of anger. I could see his fists clench.
"'Hello, Specimens One, Two. Have you enjoyed the "regular" life?' That man - I could tell I hated him. He had some kind of Russian accent and his cronies had loud, booming laughs. Those laughs made my mom tremble. My dad kept glaring at them. As soon as their laughter stopped, they raised their guns.
"'You, you are too far gone,' one of them said to my dad. My mom let out a sob and started crying - "No! Adrian! Nooo!" she screamed. I was frozen in shock."
The boy broke off and looked down, tears filling his eyes at the memories that were flashing across his mind's eye. A raspy breath, and he started recording again.
"The man shot my dad. Some weird transformation followed. My dad flash- changed into a tiger. Tiger! I couldn't believe it. I fainted. Next thing I knew, I woke up and - and my mom and dad were my mom and dad again. Except for - for - they were dead."
His throat closed up and tears dripped down his face. "I didn't know what to do. I became angry. So, so angry. I wanted to kill those men. Make them suffer. I did the thing my parents had tried to stop for my entire life.
"I became an Anisapien.
"I change into an animal at will. It started when I got angry staring at my parents' bodies. I turned into a dog, and ran. I ran until I fell asleep with exhaustion in a forest, the forest in which I've been living for what seems like years but is only months."
"I've had to adapt to so much, especially having no parents because they were what I am, an Anisapien. I know that's what we're called, and I know how to become one, because it was all there in the letter. I know it off by heart now. It says, and I quote;
Dear Christian,
We're writing this on your first night home from the hospital. You're finally here! But this isn't about our first impressions of you as a baby. Although, I must say, you are quite cute.
We're writing this to protect you, to maybe explain if we're suddenly forced into hiding. We know that this measly letter will never make up for us not telling you what or who we really are, but at least it's a start.
The truth is, Christian, that we were brought up for 16 years in a scientific complex, a giant laboratory, if you will. We were like lab rats, brought up from the day we were born in that stupid lab. We were genetically altered in our "mothers'" wombs - both mothers were girls who had unwanted pregnancies - to be made into "Anisapiens", as the scientists dubbed us, humans who could convert their bodies into those of animals at will. At first, we had to be injected with some kind of serum to induce the changes, but by the time we were 10, we could do it ourselves. The scientists were overjoyed. Who could have believed it to be in the realm of possibility? They were going to try and get themselves selected for a Nobel Prize. Problem was, this operation had been done in secret for eleven years - no councils or anything had officially condoned it. Now the scientists were starting to realise their mistake, only it was so late nothing less than killing your father and I would erase the proof and make the claims that the information they had collected, was actually fabricated, believable.
Obviously, we couldn't let that happen. One night, when the scientists were monitoring us having some exercise in the fenced-in fields they had for us, we transformed into ants and actually managed to get away - now they had decided to kill us, they were quite lax on security, thinking we'd just stay and be killed like good little lab experiments, or something. We survived by hiding in forests and occasionally campgrounds and then going into cities in the middle of the night and raiding shops in animal form - by the time 3 or so months was up, we had a veritable luxury camp set up from stolen goods. Then, as time slowly passed, we procured fake passports, birth certificates, every thing we would need to start a new life. This was 5 years on, and we were 21. At 29, we've had you.
But we've been on the run because the scientists - or Regulators, as they joked - would kill us if they found us. Except for you. They never believed that the gene that was in us would pass on to a child. But pre- natal scans showed that it had; even though the doctors thought it was their machines, we knew.
If you do decide, even with this information, to become an Anisapien, you need to know how. It's ridiculous, really. Press your belly button in, thinking about it, and the changes will happen. Concentrate hard, though.
I know you probably feel angry at us for involving you in this, and we are sorry. But maybe you'll forgive us someday.
You probably want to know much more, but you're starting to wake up, and we'll have to calm you.
Love,
Mom and Dad "
First couple of times I read that, I couldn't believe it. I thought it was some kind of sick joke that they never really meant for me to see. By the eighteenth time, I was ready to try to change, though I don't know how I turned into a dog that first time. It's been hard, but now, any animal I look at is something I can be.
"I've recently been thinking what I was going to do with this - like it's some kind of twisted superpower needs to be put to use. Maybe I'll go after the guys that did this to me. Maybe I'll just stop using it, like my mom and dad, and live a normal, though orphaned, life. For now, I'm not exactly happy, but I'm okay, with what I'm doing."
"I've been raiding the cities at night, in animal form. I've got a veritable luxury camp set up from stolen goods. Maybe I'll work on a fake passport next. Who knows? My new motto is; Make each day an adventure, because, for me, it might very well be my last."