The first berserkers were the Vikings. They were feared in battle because they had no fear of death. Their afterlife, the Valhalla, was filled with delights for a man who died in battle; fighting all day, eating, drinking and womanising all night. If you were killed in Valhalla, no matter; you were reborn the next dawn. For a Viking, the worst way to die was peacefully in your sleep.

This belief caused them to let go of their inhibitions in battle, allowed them to fight without fear of death and thus let loose their true potential. A red haze would come down and the recipient would fight on after receiving injuries that would debilitate another man, having lost the ability to feel pain. Berserkers were formidable opponents, as they would use attacks that no other would, leaving themselves open to painful or lethal wounds in order to cut their opponent down. Many times their opponent would not move to strike, knowing it would not halt the fatal blow, and so the berserker fought on.

But always, the berserker would come out of his killing haze, sometimes to find himself close to death, but more often to find himself without a scratch on him. It was for this that the Vikings were feared. But they had to come out of their berserker rage, no matter what: the human mind cannot sustain sanity in such a state without serious mental side effects. Perhaps this means the human mind cannot sustain sanity in a berserker rage at all.

Estet was right to call me 'Berserker'.

It takes strong emotion to trigger a berserker rage, and usually a history of it in your family. Mine were Irish, and Ireland was never conquered by the Vikings, but some of my ancestors came from Britain. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Celts (the natives of Britain and Ireland) were overrun again, this time by the Vikings. They interbred with the Celts, leaving the current descendants of those long-ago men with a curious mix in their blood. A true English Rose has dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin. A true Viking has blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin. I am neither, and perhaps both.

I am perhaps the most unusual berserker ever. In the years since the rage overtook my mind, it is only moments like this, when the world is still and I lie in my padded cell alone, that it retreats somewhat. It never leaves completely. I suppose I am the reason the berserker trait in the people of this world died out; it damages the mind, leaves them incapable of surviving alone. Mine more than most - but then, I have never truly been given the choice of allowing the rage to leave. I am too precious to Estet, and to Schwarz, as I am.

I have said, it takes strong emotion to trigger a berserker rage. In my case, it was anger, and perhaps disappointment also. I was lied to. All my life I had been told that nothing was more sacred than the sanctity of marriage, and that physical relations out of wedlock were disgusting and immoral. I believed it with all my heart; I knew no better. I looked down on those misguided people who were free to do as they pleased, not living with the flawed doctrine of an unmerciful god.

And then I found I had been lied to. My entire existence was based on a lie. The years I had suffered under my 'father's' belt for the slightest of infractions, the times I had sat in confession and related every tiny thing that could possibly be used as a way of humiliating me, all I had done and said and suffered for the love of a god who did not reply to my prayers, all a lie. And I was angry.

That was the first time I entered a berserker rage. It was the only time I awoke fully from it.

I left the bodies of my 'parents'. I left the weeping, bleeding nun who was my mother. No, no, not my mother - simply the woman who gave birth to me. I left them there, knowing it was god's doctrine and his flaws that had brought it to this. If he had not decreed that physical relations outside of wedlock were unlawful, I would not have spent my childhood years living with parents who hated me. I would have stayed with a woman who cared. . . . I would have stayed with the whore who spread her legs for some passing man and decided to bring my miserable life into this world that caused nothing but pain.

It was then that I realised how attractive the berserker state was. All my 'family' had ever brought me was pain. All my god had ever brought me was pain. A berserker is too gone in his rage to feel such pain.

I do not remember when I was brought to Estet and given to Schwarz. After the deaths of my 'parents' all is a red haze. However, I do remember becoming entranced with the simple idea of pain. I could not feel it, emotionally, when I was berserker. Physically, I gained a brief stab of agony that never lasted more than a second before the rage ate it up. That brief moment became all I lived for, all that let me know, in the back of my clouded mind, that I was still alive.

I despise the church and all it stands for. I despise these 'Houses of God' - god does not live there. He sits on his throne in heaven and laughs at the struggles of mankind, laughs when those like me are given pain and suffering, and he tells them through his prophets that it is necessary for the furthering of their souls. He is a false god. He tells lies.

I chose to punish those who followed his word. They are fools, all of them. I cannot abide fools.

I have had my brief moments of lucidity around the rest of Schwarz, on occasion. They are not fools. They know what I know, they are as bitter and as angry as I am.

In some ways, I pity them. They cannot know the relief of the berserker. I feel no emotions, feel no pain. It is bliss.

And yet, in some ways I envy them. Because they are not alone.

Another truth about the berserker is their inability to follow orders. Berserkers will charge an army on their own, they will break formation and either win or die. They are unaware of their comrades and will attack anything that looks slightly like a threat.

They are always alone.

I have seen myself in a mirror a few rare times, and I know how I appear. A scarred angel, hair bled from red to white with all the blood he has spilled. His own, and others'. Over the years, I have found I prefer the berserker state. Because then . . . I cannot see myself.

I cannot be humiliated.

I cannot be hurt.

But most of all. . . .

As a berserker, I do not care.

And I like it.