Another Off-Key Anthem

Biography:

Look, everyone has regrets, right?

Ares wishes he could tell you where everything went wrong. But his upbringing was normal. His parents were loving, high school sweethearts, living the nuclear family, apple-pie life. Three children (with Ares being the youngest), a nice house, financially well-off, mother a housewife - what could someone want more? 

He had been a good kid. Not the smartest, but good at sports, to the point that he probably could have had a career in it - if he had continued. Ares has no idea how it happened, how he slipped. He knows it’s no one’s fault but his own, even when his parents blamed themselves. But at some point in high school, he sought out a bad crowd. The ones hanging out behind the school. At first, it was nothing. Some petty theft here, a break-in there. Making quick cash, money that he didn’t need, but that gave him a thrill when he counted it late at night on his bed. Then it got to drugs.

Small stuff, nothing even a cop would bat an eye at. Then it got worse. He dopped out of high school, spending time with his new friends. His parents kicked him out after they found his personal stash, but at that point, that felt okay too. He didn’t need his family, his family could never understand him. 

Ares got into it, deeper, further, selling more and more. Until he got caught. And where he lived, they didn’t take things lightly. It was a clean case. As Ares refused to give up any information in exchange for a lighter sentence, the judge didn’t hesitate. At age 25, Ares got a 20-year sentence.

Ares doesn’t enjoy talking about his time in prison. It was a time of violence, with Ares quickly getting in on it, feeling that he needed to prove himself if he wanted to survive. He survived, getting taken in by one of the gangs, working his way up. And then things got worse. With the outbreak, prisons seemed to be of the least concern to anyone. Conditions got worse and worse, guards less and less, until there wasn’t even a chance of keeping order. It started small, but escalated - at the end of the riot, the guards were dead, prisoners were dead, with Ares’ gang barely intact.

Ares stumbled into a world of chaos, barely surviving on his own. Until he found a group of raiders. Desperate for a place to belong, he joined them. This time is the time he is the least proud of. The things he doesn’t want to talk about. He tried to keep some semblance of morality, showing mercy where he could. It was one thing to beat up a guy who was in for shanking someone, it was another to do that to a couple who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. That does not change that he did kill. Not everyone he could have, but there is blood on his hands, and that is something he can’t change.

In the end, the violence tore his new group apart. Another meaner, more ruthless group of survivors, a violent battle, that hardly left any of them alive. Ares escaped - barely. Wounded, he escaped into the wild, stumbling in the dark until he collapsed. At that moment, he believed he would die. And part of him knew that he was at fault and that he deserved it. How many had he killed? How many had he left for dead? Robbed people of everything they had, because he was told or because he thought he needed to, to survive?

He stayed there for hours, waiting for his death. When morning came, he was still alive. Ares didn’t believe in god, in fate, but he took it as a sign - that he was meant to live, to survive this, for some reason. After that, he swore he would turn his life around. Be a better person. Even if his past was the past, he would try his best to make up for it, in some way.

And that was what he did. He killed walkers, he saved others, shared his food and supplies with those who needed them. At some point, he stumbled across Redwood. Part of him feels like he doesn’t deserve a new beginning, but part of him wanted it, so he made an attempt to join the sanctuary.