The idea for the Virals series actually came from my dog, Turk. He caught Parvo, and we weren’t sure if he would pull through. In researching the nasty little bug, I got the notion of a person somehow catching it, and the story was born from there. There characters were pulled from thin air. I just imagined a group of kids living on desert island, and they just came to me. I think Hi is my favorite. Of the group, he’s definitely the most like me, personality-wise.