Madness

The inmates started to retrieve several steps backward at that disturbing sight in front of them. Even people from Alfar's faction were looking to him as if they didn't know that man.

He was just standing there silently, his skin dyed in gray, his nails were darkened and longer than before, looking like the ones of a beast. His eyes were completely darkened, just as a puddle of black paint, and they barely could be distinguished from his black mask. Veins were popped up through his body.

Alfar kept quiet, without moving an inch. However, Casper could feel that these darkened eyes were looking at the crowd of prisoners standing around the canteen.

His expectations got confirmed once he slowly started to turn his head to the sides. For a millisecond, Casper felt his gaze upon him, which left him disgusted and petrified at the same time. It was such a dreadful look, that he could do nothing but avoid his eyes for a moment.

The Dark elf stopped his inspection once he looked at a man standing behind him. It was Ragnar, and although he was the one who triggered that situation, the man seemed to be the more disturbed of all other people.

With inaccurate and clumsy steps, poor posture, Alfar approached him. His walking manner, the way he acted, everything remembered a character produced in a nightmare.

Even someone who did not know him very well would think that Alfar wasn't there anymore. It was a different person.

"That's a difficult sight to believe. Alfar, the man who doesn't even know how to fight properly and was totally disgusted by the decision of fights and deaths, turned into this type of monster?" Casper gritted his teeth, frustrated. "What these people did with that man?"

As soon as he questioned it to himself, Alfar suddenly boosted his body forward, at such high speed that it was difficult for the eyes to see. Differently from that Barbarian, his speed didn't come from strength. He was purely agile as if he was light as a feather.

He closed the distance between him and Ragnar in a blink of an eye, and his arm made a quick swing. His black claws ripped his target's arm. Four deep cuts appeared there.

The man tried to run away in despair, turning his back to the Dark elf.

Soon, another attack came. His back got torn from top to bottom, and he fell to the ground.

"No! He can't kill him! If he does so, it's all over." Casper brushed off the intense fear that was paralyzing his legs and started to hastily pass through the crowd.

Nevertheless, he knew that his attempt to stop him could be in vain. With such speed, Alfar surely would end that battle in just some seconds. His enemy was laid on the floor after all.

However… It never happened. Alfar didn't give the final blow. Instead, he waited patiently for Ragnar to get up. Nobody could see, but imagine at least, the grin that he had on his face, looking at his prey trying to survive from the inevitable.

"I-Is he playing with him!?" Casper was perplexed by that situation.

Just as the man finally could stand up, Alfar began to walk slowly, but with loud steps, towards him.

It was another way to startle his prey. He could run at such speed but even so don't do any noise. He was making those sounds on purpose because he wanted that man to hope he could survive and continued trying to do so.

That was his new nature. This show he made in front of everyone was so fun for him that Alfar barely could stop his urge to laugh.

Inside his head, was nothing, except a music. He remembered vaguely that music. Maybe he heard it every time they had brought him to the laboratory.

Memories of his time in the experiment room started to appear inside his head. All the things they did with him, the suffering, the agony, the disgusting feeling of being used as an object for their own objectives. He felt he was worthless, that maybe it was his only fate. A man that had nothing to offer to the world, and that just had the potential to be used as a lab rat to inhuman research.

Maybe this feeling of impotence made him try his best to bear everything and never gave up. Although they were transforming him into a monster, he needed to prove his value into something.

After years of living in the poverty of District 42 and passing through each day without any hope for the future, then losing hope in his only office that pleased him, he got to finally think that he was contributing with something.

Alfar was just a desperate, poor man before, but now he had value. He was a powerful weapon, he had strength, he had influence, his name was on the mouth of each scientist and prisoner. And if District 42 won the war, it would be because of him.

While these thoughts invaded his mind and the music got even louder, Alfar's consciousness was fading quickly and being substituted by the Dark Elf inside him, which, he remembered well, they used to address as Deamhan.

His vision was already darkened but, as if it was even possible, he felt like sinking even more into the shadows. The pitch-black around him turned to be denser each second that passed, the pressure around was unbearable.

The music got louder, and voices started to talk inside his mind, advising him; telling Alfar to do the cruelest things in this world. And… he felt that he needed to follow each advice. It was a necessity now. He had an urge for it.

His body continued moving towards Ragnar, playing with him, watching him suffer. Each strike was more harmful than the previous one. Deamhan let him have the certainty of escape but then ended it with a single blow that knocked him to the ground again.

"That's funny…" He thought, casually, like a kid would rate an attraction at an amusement park.

Alfar kept running to all sides, cornering that man, making him scream with pain, fear, and despair. That torture seemed to last for hours, but it had been barely two minutes.

The prisoners had faces behind their masks of a person about to puke, and some of them got the time to do it, indeed. However, none of them exited from the canteen. They lost the courage to do so. Nobody wanted to draw the attention of that murderer.

The show would continue, but Casper couldn't wait for it to end. He could not afford that one of his keys to get out of the prison vanished just when he was about to put his hands on him.

He finally could pass through all of that people and then charged towards Alfar. The last was about to land another attack in Ragnar's back, who was already all covered in cuts and blood.

Casper was intending to bump into Alfar and make some distance between him and the tattoed man, however, he underestimated the high perception of the Dark elf, who turned to him the exact moment he was approaching from his left side.

With a fluid and rapid movement, he avoided Casper's bump, retaliating with his claws. The attack was so unexpected and agile that the White warrior could do nothing but receive it. His claws pierced the flesh of his right arm; still, at the same time, Casper rotated his body and kicked him in his belly. It was more a kick to push than to hurt, and landed perfectly, even though Alfar in that mode had incredible agility and reflexes. As his body was skinny and had less weight than Casper's, it was not so difficult to push him away.

The soldier made Ragnar retrieve long steps back, never avoiding his gaze from Alfar. The man looked pissed off because of the interruption. The prisoners around held their breaths looking to that scene.

They had now about 8 meters of distance from each other. Casper was staring at Alfar as if he didn't know that man. His new cellmate had bloodthirsty in his pitch-black eyes, also looking intently at Casper.

"H-Hey, man, what are you doing…?" Ragnar asked behind him. His voice was trembling, so weak that he probably was about to faint at any moment. "T-That… Mon-Mon… That monster will kill you… I-It will k… kill… all of us…"

Casper didn't reply to him. He just gave another step back, making Ragnar retreat as well.

"This man is over now. He will never be able to fight again in the future. He is deeply traumatized. The way he is stammering and faltering isn't normal, even for a person as weak as he is now. After the cruel best he got from Alfar, his future as a warrior is in check. I hope that he doesn't lose his influence among his faction. If it happens, all my efforts will be a waste of time." Casper reasoned.

He stopped to pay attention to his thoughts and switch all his focus to the Dark elf. His hands were shaking slightly, but he would never let the enemy know about it. He needed to keep showing to be strong and calm, even though his opponent seemed to smell his fear.

Alfar gave a step forward, raising both hands and preparing his bloody claws.

"C'mon, man… We just met these days, don't make me have to beat you here." Casper said, raising his guard as well.