2 Ernst Haeckel

Unlike most of the kids his age, Ernst was different. When he was just a few months old, he was orphaned. The only thing that he had from his parents was a necklace which, later on in his life he had found that it contained coordinates to a mineral deposit.

His parents died in an airplane accident. The engine of the airplane they were riding exploded. News reports say that the plane had a malfunction but people speculate that it was sabotaged.

Before his parents flew off to Japan, the physicist couple produced a study that could improve the technology of the world by leaps and bounds. They had published something that had amazed the whole scientific community. However, this study was mysteriously taken down prior to their deaths. All copies were burned down and no news of the finding had ever surfaced.

Some speculated that powerful people fought just to get research and that the couple were killed in a clash between the powerful parties but young Ernst was not aware of this. He was just a few months old back then. He only managed to learn about it when he searched about his parent's whereabouts after he graduated from college.

He never really cared though. What's done is done. He just wanted to satisfy his curiosity about what really happened. Ever since he was growing up, he had a cold personality, many thought this was weird and that he needed love but Ernst never really cared. He preferred to stay with himself, immersing himself with books. Some kids would approach him and invite him to play but he would always turn them down.

"Hey kid, you're gonna need some friends when you grow up." The orphanage manager sat next to him while patting Ernst's head.

The boy just looked him in the eye and then continued to read his book. This book was actually so advanced for someone who was only 7 years old. The book was about Chemistry. Last month, he had just finished a Biology book and the other month, a Physics book. People at the orphanage were surprised to see him read those kind of books. When they asked Ernst whether he understood what he read or not, he just stared at them.

Due to this, the people thought that he was just looking at the pictures and was not really reading. However, Ernst understood every bit of the laws and theories and even remembered all of what he read. Sometimes, he even wrote a few theories about the theories and try to improve the theories. If scientists were to look at this notebook, they would be shocked at his theories.

The Theory of Recapitulation also called embryological parallelism, which is said to represent the evolution of an animal's ancestors was rebuked by him. Instead, he theorized that the formation of an embryo is affected by which organ could support most life to the organism!

Another theory he boldly rebuked was Einstein's Special Relativity. In this theory, Einstein said that that time moves relative to the observer. An object in motion experiences time dilation, meaning that time moves more slowly when one is moving, than when one is standing still. Therefore, a person moving ages more slowly than a person at rest.

However, to Ernst, time is a separate entity, unaffected by anything. Likewise, space is also a separate entity such that when Time and Space are mixed together, it results to a different concept just like how Green is produced from combining Blue and Yellow. Although time may seem different to people living in earth and beings light years away from earth, from an omnipotent being's view, time flows just the same.

The bald man sighed, stood up, patted the boy's head more, and then left him. He still sat there, reading his book.

When the bald man left, a young girl approached Ernst. She had eyes like a doe and her hair was cut short. Aside from missing a few teeth and a runny nose, she looked cute for a little kid.

"Hey Ernst, don't you want to play like just once? Please?" The little girl swayed side to side. Ernst just stared at her, closed the book and placed it down on the table. "This will be the first and the last time so please do your best."

"Yes!" The little girl had a big smile on her face as Ernst accepted her request. For some reason, the mysterious and quiet boy had attracted him since he was unlike any boy in the orphanage -rowdy and boisterous. "Let's play Hide & Seek!"

This is the first time Ernst had played with any of the kids. Before he was able to read, he played only with himself. When he learned to read, he spent his leisure time reading all the books that he can. By the age of 4, he was already reading books for 8 year old kids. At 5 he was reading books for 12 year old kids. When he was 6, he could already read books meant for High School students.

"Okay." Ernst accepted the girl's request."

"Yay! I would count from 1 to 10 and you will hide alright?" The girl instructed.

"Alright."

"One, Two..."

Ernst went to the place he knew no one knew. He discovered it by accident when he was getting some books in their library. The library at the orphanage was big since it housed not only the orphans but also students who availed the orphanage as an apartment. The library was divided into two parts, one for Math and Science and the other was for Literature.

Without a doubt, the hiding place he discovered was in the Math and Science area. There was a small secret door that led to the outside of the orphanage where only small kids can fit. At first, he wondered why there was such a thing but he erased it off his mind since it did not really matter.

"Ten!" The girl with a pigtails and runny nose started looking for Ernst.

When he was already outside the orphanage he felt dizzy. His chest started to hurt and his heart beat faster. It wasn't his heart that was hurting but his birth mark - the birthmark that looked like a tattoo of a tiger. It felt like it was burning and the last thing he saw before he collapsed was the girl staring at him from the window of the library, crying.

He dreamed of a monster. This monster was black in color and it looked like a mix of a tiger and an octopus. It had neon blue stripes on its black body and at certain intervals, more stripes would appear and more so at certain intervals.

He found himself inside a ruined vehicle. Dead bodies of humans and weird looking creatures were everywhere. His gaze was attracted to a spot near the neon creature. There was a beautiful girl lying on the floor. Then, he felt something weird in his chest. When he looked down, he saw that his chest was stabbed by one of the tentacles of the tiger. He felt a strange sense of familarity and anger at this sight. Then, he woke up.

It was just a dream but it looked so real. When he stood up, he found himself in the orphanage's clinic. There was no one there except for the nurse.

"Nothing seems to be wrong with you. Maybe because it's the first time you walked in the sunshine in a long time. We've been telling you to run around some time and play with others but you are too hardheaded."

The bald man smiled at Ernst and sighed. "Okay run along now."

Ernst sat up, stretched his body a bit and left the clinic.

"What was that?"

However, as a boy who forgets things that aren't useful, he pushed this dream to the back of his head. Ten years later, at the young age of 17, he became a renowned scientist specializing in Chemistry.

He had a tall and lean stature with a height of 5'11. He wore an eyeglass that enhanced his sharp nose. His hair was cut clean at the sides and he sported a clean facial hair as well. He was busy working on an important test subject of his: a traditional Japanese Katana.