Young and Unafraid

Randy was born as Harrison Rutherford to R. and Z. Rutherford. He was the oldest of a set of triplets, even if by minutes. As a child, Harry was always shy; he could be found clinging to his brother, Rory, and his sister, Blaire. The three were as thick as thieves, and they always got into harmless trouble together. Despite the siblings all being close, Harry found a particular inspiration in Rory; not only was he seemingly the leader of the Rutherford triplets, and seemingly fearless, but their mother treasured Rory’s natural green thumb and tried to nurture it. Harry, who desired the attention, was never able to garden or care for plants as well as his brother could. Harry unconsciously held his shortcomings against his mother, and gravitated towards his father when he wasn’t with his siblings. Harry was generally a child that stuck close to his family when he could.

During the summers of their early lives, the Rutherfords stayed in their summer home next door to the Graves family. While Harry’s parents were close friends with Nero and Cornelia, the triplets were close friends with Melony Graves, the daughter of the family. The four would spend late summer nights exploring the woods and playing games together. They stayed close friends through the years, especially when the Rutherfords moved into their summer home after R. and Z. retired from their jobs. Harry grew very close to Melony during this time, even developing a crush on her for a long while.

Traumatic Friendships

A phenomenon that always interested Harry was Melony’s unique genetic ability - whenever the girl became upset, she would transform into a giant, glowing raven. It was an ability passed down through her family, and Harry was fascinated with the genetics of it. There was so little known about it… and he wanted to be the one to answer Melony’s unanswered questions! The two would talk about her ability after class in high school, trying to find a way to study such an interesting trait.

Harrison, now 16, decided he needed to dig deeper into the Graves’ family mystery. He suggested the idea to Melony, who was skeptical, but eventually agreed. On one fateful night, Harry and Melony snuck from their homes to a makeshift lab Harry had prepared so he could extract blood from Melony. Although he thought he was well prepared and had everything handled, Harry was still an inexperienced researcher; while trying to take samples from Melony and conduct experiments, things started to go south, and Melony, frightened, fought against Harry’s insistence that everything was okay. The ending result was horrific; Harry had accidentally killed his best friend, Melony Graves. The teenager’s blood ran cold, and he wasn’t sure what he should do. His survival instincts kicked in, and Harry buried Melony under a tree with a tire swing on a hill overlooking a nearby pond. He panicked and returned to Melony’s home to return some of her belongings. However, Nero and Cornelia confronted him, unaware of Harry’s identity. Harry, frightened, fought against the parents and scarred Nero three times, and Cornelia once, before running off again. There was no way he could return to his own home with what he had done, so Harry ran away to lose himself for a few days.

While Harry was gone, he contemplated what he had done and attempted to grieve the loss, but the guilt hammered into him at every moment. He didn’t deserve to go home to his family, or see Nero or Cornelia. If he told the truth, he’d lose everything. It was an accident- it was a stupid, horrific accident!- but Harrison knew deep down it wouldn’t be taken as such. The boy spent a few days in the woods before finally returning home to his family, vacant of all emotion.

The Rutherfords were relieved when their son returned, though they noticed his very empty demeanor. When questioned about what happened, and why Melony was still missing, Harry explained emptily that he and Melony had been kidnapped. Harrison became a victim and was showered with attention and love to try and heal the wounds, although those wounds were far deeper than the family could fathom.

Harrison completely avoided the Graves family, depriving them of their needed closure concerning their daughter, and closed himself off from the world. In addition, he also started to close himself off from his family, suddenly not speaking to either of his siblings or parents. Harrison would vanish for days at a time, then reappear without a word. He was depressed, and even became suicidal, but refused to open up about his problems. The second he turned 18, Harrison packed his bags and left home, moving out.

Let's Start Over!

Harrison made a habit of couch surfing as he attempted to adapt to his life alone. Always a family person by nature, the sudden change and need to isolate himself was foreign and hard to adjust to. To avoid the reality of his life, Harry nosedived into science, as geology and genetics were always things that interested him. While he was openly a famous geologist, his genetic work was quieter and mainly performed on himself, causing him to become something of a genetic disaster. These side effects were hidden from others, however, and he kept his public work about rocks. He succeeded easily; he was picked up by researchers and funded by grants to further his groundbreaking discoveries. With success under his belt, Harrison changed his name and reinvented his image as Randy Rutherford, world-renowned scientist, a man that oozed confidence and had nothing to hide.

After years of no contact, the Rutherfords recognized the famous Randy Rutherford as their son and reached out to him. Randy was wary of reconnecting with people from his ‘old life’, but decided to give it a try with his new persona. When Randy was finally face to face with his family again, they were meeting someone new. Unlike Harry, Randy Rutherford was loud, obnoxious, antagonistic, and constantly berating his family at every chance he had. If there was a moment of weakness among the family, Randy ran with it into the ground. His family did not recognize him, and even had a hard time trying to get along with this new Randy, but Randy found this to be ideal. He rather his family hate Randy and push that persona away, than hate Harry.

Making Do In Hell

Despite Randy having troubles with his family, he was a charismatic genius with the public. While working, he met a man by the name of Tyler Parlington, an older biological engineer. The two quickly grew to despise each other, butting heads at every academic turn. While Tyler was cold and harsh, Randy loved to play pranks and poke fun, playing into his antagonistic role. The two would remain rivals well into the present, as Randy finds it fun to steal from Tyler every once in a while, whether it be experiments or ideas. Their rivalry deepened when Randy dated Tyler’s assistant, Evelyn, and when the relationship went sour after Randy messed up an experiment that resulted in Evelyn turning into a monster randomly (that sounds familiar!).

Randy’s forced loneliness and difficulty dealing with his past kept him in a constant state of deep depression that he had an extremely hard time climbing from. He had remained suicidal since high school and had trouble escaping his own thoughts when he was alone. His troubles eased when he met a woman in his garden by the name of Lucy. She was a sweet woman that Randy fell head over heels in love with. He was, and is, unaware she is the literal devil in disguise, but even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. She is the light of his life, and though Randy still struggles with his mental health and family issues, Lucy is able to help him through a lot of his dark times. He doesn’t know what he’d do without her.

Randy lives in his home with Lucy and her dog, Gable. He is constantly experimenting on himself to rid himself of a self-inflicted condition he gained after injecting himself with some of Melony’s genetic material, but a lot of his experiments end with Randy gaining another strange side effect. He only wants peace, even if that means driving away his family so they cannot be hurt by him and his mistakes from the past.