Ernest Decarteret

From Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Ernest Decarteret

Gender: Male.

Age: Age 16, 10th grade,

School: Hobbsborough, Mrs. Saranna's Home Room

Hobbies and Interests: Chess Club, Occult, Scottish reinactment.

Appearance: Ernest is fairly tall and scrawny, clocking in at six feet, 159 lbs. He's kind of horse-faced, with a long nose, thin lips, and large eyes, and a bird's nest for hair. The most defining feature of his life, and his features is his Albinism. He always has to have dark sunglasses on, and generally has a wide brimmed hat on outside. Ernest's eyes are unique, his eyes are a natural crimson, his whites are white but the iris is red. He dislikes all the attention his eyes grant him, and thus he wears the sunglasses a bit more than he needs to. They're another barrier between him and the wrold. His diction alternates between slow and precise and manic speed bordering on incomprehensible.

Biography: Ernest Decarteret has lived in Hobbsborough, NJ for all his life, with his nuclear family of his mom, Eliza Decarteret , and his father, Ben Decarteret. His older brother died in a car accident when Ernest was three and a half, and Ernest doesn't really remember his brother at all. He does try to live up to the impossible standard of his brother. Ernest's parents have tried not to glorify the dead brother, Clark, but it's kind of difficult not to. He did well in school and athletics, was the captain of the lacross team 13 years ago, narrowly missing the state championship. The bus lost control on the way back to the school, and Clark was thrown through a window, landing on a broken tree and breaking his spine in three places.

Since then, Ernest has grown up fairly ostracized because of his abnormality, and his extremely abnormal personality. Ernest is a psychopath in the most precise sense of the word. However, he does take medication for his condition, which allows him to live an almost normal life. His parents discovered his condition when he was six. The gradeschool teacher found Ernest flaying a squirrel alive behind the school. His father was serving on the USS Roosevelt at the time, an was horrified that on leave he'd just taught Ernest basic marksmanship. Therapy and medication has almost effectively cured Ernest. By middleschool he was almost well-adjusted. He found out about the occult in eigth grade, and has since dropped most of it, except for Tarot. Ernest finds Tarot useful as a gauge of his mental state. He has used them as a divination tool on several occasions, with mixed results. Since he's fairly analytical, he thinks of his successes as coincidences.

Once, Erenst refused to take his medication for a week, in eighth grade. His parents tried to sneak the pills into his food, so he didn't eat. He spent most of the time in his room, going over several of the paranormal texts he had bought a month or so before. Nothing happened, because when he came out of the room, the social services restrained him and institutionalised him for a month. He claimed to be attempting to summon a demon, and came out to search for a suitable sacrifice. Now he knows the whole thing was just a psychotic episode, but is still plagued by occasional nightmares and hallucinations of the creature he believed he could call forth. Ernest does understand his lot in life is to never be able to completely trust his own mind. He also understands the ramifications of this. Few will be around him, because he's unpredictable in their eyes, and he can't even seek refuge in his own imagination.

Ernest excelled in school, with an IQ of 143, but failed miserably at any real physical activities other than archery in gym and he was passable at track. He has been doing well in the chess club and is one of the contenders for the next captain. Ironically, he finds modern technology to be mystifying; he's never sent an email in his life and finds the phone difficult to operate. Ernest rarely types anything in school. He's the bane of the newspaper staff's lives, sending in twelve page hand written articles. This wouldn't be as much of a problem if his handwriting was anywhere near legible. He never uses a computer if he can get away with it. He's also immensely interested in military history, focussing mostly on WWII and the more expansionist era of the Chinese empire. Ernest has read Sun Tzu's "Art of War" cover to cover several times and enjoys it immensely, feeling that the distilled tactical knowledge is immensely useful in Flames of War, a table top strategy game based around WWII. His other hero is Erwin Rommel, whom he feels was a tactical genius and could have stalemated the war for the Nazis. Ernest studies the battle of El Alamain especially. He finds the tactics brilliant on many levels, and the situation a stimulating excercise.

Unfortunately, Ernest's social skills could be better. He just comes off as solemnly regarding you like you would regard an alien species; fascinating, but kind of gross. His parents were glad that he took up reinacting, as it would get him out of the house more, but they forbid him to handle any guns. He's nice enough and has a couple of close friends who are willing to look beyond his unblanced personality. Because of how he was teased for his skin, he tends to be distant to people he doesn't know, and isn't very comfortable around women and girls in general. They were some the most vicious towords him, and still are.

He keeps two cats, Rommel and Monty.

Advantages: Ernest can shoot a gun or a bow well; his father was in the military and taught Ernest how to shoot at about 6 years of age. He's also got a decent running speed and an immense tactical ability. Ernest has excellent night vision and his ability for controlled violence when psychotic is impressive.

Disadvantages: Ernest is about as strong as a wet paper hanky and has a suprising glass jaw. He also doesn't see all that well during the daytime hours without his sunglasses, thanks to his albinism; he doesn't have enough pigmentation in his retna to absorb excess ambient sunlight. He doesn't have great stamina and really tires out in the heat of the day. He is insane and may do stupid things for no apparent reason.

Number: 33

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Designated Weapon: Twine

Conclusions: I wonder what's in the cards for Ernest? Surprise, it's death! I think a lot of Ernest's chances are going to determine on two things - who he meets up with, and the weather. If it's bright and sunny, and the boy loses his shades, he's done for; and the forecast is calling for blue skies!