“Where’s your money?” the pauper demanded, tightening his grip.

“I…Don’t… Have any…” she responded while trying to gasp for air.

The man lifted her figure off the ground and slid her against the wall. Ethan walked into the alley, his shadow eclipsing the pauper attacking Sarah. Ethan had the blood of the murdered pauper splattered across his face. It dripped like a leaking tap onto the dusty pavement in the alley.

“Let her go!” Ethan shouted as Sarah’s eyes dart over to the shadow emerging from the dust.

“Not until I get what I want!” the assailant yelled back.

Sarah’s struggle for air became twice as difficult when she began to panic. Desperately gasping for air, she tried to reach her attacker with her legs, but he was too far away for her to make him budge.

“I said…Let her go, and I’ll let you live…” hissed Ethan in a voice so sinister it took both Sarah and her attacker by surprise.

The man felt an aura of hatred and anger emanate from Ethan. He released his grip, and her feet found the ground. She collapsed, grabbing her throat and taking several deep breaths to refill her lungs with oxygen.

“That’s some threat…coming from a rich bastard like you…Your kind never needed to fight for anything,” the man chuckled.

“I’m not one of those vermin…” Ethan responded. “I don’t kill innocents.”

The man’s eyes flicker to Sarah’s wallet that fell out of her pocket as she fell. He reached down and picked it up, emptying the money from it and ripping her necklace off her neck. Ethan snapped as his fists clenched.

He dashed towards the man, his eyes flaring with rage. He isn’t innocent, Ethan thought. He tried to kill Sarah and I’ll beat him to a pulp for that!

The man caught a glimpse of Ethan’s fist. It struck him clean across the jaw. His lip burst open, and his mouth began to bleed. He wiped the blood off his mouth as Ethan gave him a chance to recover.

“Get up, you wretched animal! I’m going to beat you to a pulp and I’m to enjoy every second of it!” he said almost whispering. Ethan raised his voice when he was angry, but his voice softened when he was truly furious. When he was so infuriated that he was afraid, had he said it any louder, it would have hurt someone.

“Listen, I just need some money for my family! Just let me go. One hundred or so is all I’m asking for!” he pleaded, noticing Ethan’s change in demeanor. He knew just as well as Ethan did, he was in trouble.

Ethan hesitated for a moment. His shadow had grown larger. It had plunged almost the entire alley into darkness as the streetlight shone behind him. It was for his family. That was the reason. The means didn’t matter, Ethan’s mind reasoned. But his conscience and his heart told him the opposite. Just kill him. He tried to steal everything Sarah had and might have killed her for it. But his mind refuted it. The means didn’t matter. It never mattered, right?

Ethan’s mouth spoke on its own accord blurting out the words he felt in his heart. They were layered with hatred. A hatred he only felt once before…

“I…Don’t… Care!”

Ethan pounced on the man like a cat. He threw his weight onto him. The man buckled to his knees. He tried to block Ethan’s blow. His hand crumbled and Ethan’s fingers burrowed into the eye socket of the man. Ethan knew he had to pull it out. This wasn’t him. He wasn’t violent. Not anymore. But for some reason unknown to him, his hands only pushed further. The blood rushed against his finger like he was blocking water coming out of a hosepipe.

The man screeched in pain. He, out of instinct, attempted to free himself and punched Ethan in his side. Ethan dragged the eyeball out of the socket as he was pushed off the man. Ethan rose to his feet, barely affected by the punch.

He kicked the man into the wall behind him. The man’s head knocked against the brick wall. He became dizzy. Ethan punched him in his gut. He delivered a second blow to his jaw. The man slid down the wall. His knees buckled. He was about to fall to the floor, but Ethan held him upright. The man’s remaining eye was nearly closed. Ethan opened it by force.

“Look at me,” he hissed. The man tried to move his eyeball to meet Ethan’s gaze.

Ethan turned the man around and threw him to the floor. He slammed his fists into his face repeatedly. Ethan then felt the most peculiar emotion he could feel in this situation. One that gave him both deep satisfaction and great fear. Euphoria.

The man’s face became more disfigured with each blow. A bone crunched. There was a loud crack as his nose twisted slightly. Ethan paused and shook his head pulling himself off the man.

“Asher?” he asked.

Ethan looked at his hands regaining his senses. He could barely see any of his skin amongst all the blood. His black shirt was stained with it. His face dripped of it.

The man crawled away from Ethan with whatever strength he had left. He felt an aftershock of guilt hit him in the gut. He thought he was done with that life. He thought he was done with him. The blood on his face began to run from his forehead. He looked into the unforgiving night sky as if asking for help from the full moon. It flowed over his eyes and down his cheek, dripping from his chin. The crimson red tears felt warm on his face bringing back hidden memories.

“Ethan?”

Sarah pushed herself to her feet and looked from her attacker to Ethan and then to the attacker again. Piecing together what had happened, she rushed over to Ethan.

“Shit, shit, shit. Ethan, did you…relapse?”

The look in Ethan’s eyes was all she needed for an answer. She felt around the ground for her communication link and dialed the ambulance.

“Hello…Yes… There’s a man in need of medical attention urgently… Main Street 3rd alley from the construction site…Thank you, please hurry.”

Sarah cut the call and took off her jacket. She placed it around him to cover his body. “Come on. Let’s go. The ambulance will be here for him.”

Ethan nodded and the two rushed to Sarah’s house. Sarah fumbled and dropped the keys in her frenzy. Her shaky hands unlocked the door and she barged into the living room. She sat Ethan down on the couch and removed the jacket from him.

“What the hell happened there?”

Ethan looked at his hands, “I-I-I don’t know… He was strangling you and he dropped you. Y-y-you didn’t wake up. He almost killed you.”

“Not that. I want to know what made you stop,” she clarified.

Ethan’s brows furrowed, “What?”

“Usually, when you used to have these violent outbursts, only a handful of people could break you out of it. One of them was me. But I didn’t stop you. So, who did?”

Ethan’s face drained of color. He wished he didn’t know the answer to that question. He thought he’d left all of it behind and started anew. The words slipped from his mouth unintentionally.

“Asher.”

“Your old rival from the underground ring you were in a few years back? He wasn’t there, though.”

“No. But when I was beating that man’s face. I felt what Asher used to feel when he beat me. Satisfaction, happiness, adrenaline. I used to feel that too when I used to fight. I quit because of that feeling. Because I used to get carried away.”

“Oh…” was all Sarah could manage.

“I should clean myself up,” Ethan said trying to break the silence that filled the room.

Picking himself up, he walked through the living room and into the guest bathroom. It had only a sink, a toilet, and a mirror. Ethan looked into the mirror at the image of his face. The blood had dried and began to make his face feel uncomfortable. It began to stain even as he washed them. He cleaned his hands of it and then threw water over his face. A face covered in the blood of two paupers looking for food to survive. One innocent and the other, guilty.