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Gunman carved eerie sayings into his gun before rampage

Mass murderer Aaron Alexis carved the words “Better off this way” and “My ELF weapon” on the shotgun he used during his rampage at the Washington Navy Yard.

The homicidal maniac cut the phrases into the stock of the pump-action Remington 870 he bought a day before Monday’s shooting, The Washington Post reported.

Investigators were unsure what the etched messages mean but hoped the information would provide clues behind the bloodbath. ELF is often used an abbreviation for “extremely low frequency” in reference to radio waves that are emitted by power lines and electrical equipment and can also be used for communication.

In August, Alexis told cops in Rhode Island he was hearing voices and being followed by people using “some sort of microwave machine” to bombard his body with vibrations.

The Associated Press also reported Wednesday that Alexis was prescribed with unspecified sleeping medication on Aug. 23 at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Providence, RI.

Alexis — who complained of insomnia but denied anxiety, depression or thoughts of harming anyone — sought a refill five days later at the VA Medical Center in Washington, according to a congressional summary obtained by The AP.

Meanwhile, chilling new details emerged about the shooting spree in which the Navy veteran-turned-contractor killed 12 victims before being gunned down by cops.

Eyewitnesses told the paper that the deranged shooter fired at everyone he saw as terrified workers hid under their desks or desperately barricaded themselves inside offices.

Navy Capt. Mark Vandroff was meeting with his staff when the gunfire erupted.

“I heard the gunshots,” he told the paper. “Someone screamed and said there was a shooter on the loose and to ‘Lock the doors! Lock the doors!’ ”

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A person triggered the fire alarm and some workers began running while others tried to hide, Vandroff said.

“People were fleeing into offices,” he said, and trying “to get another layer of protection” by barricading their doors with office furniture.

Teams of AR-15-toting DC cops were already swarming the building and would ultimately engage in repeated firefights with Alexis, who would pick up two semiautomatic handguns from security guards during the assault.

The madman had concealed himself behind a wall on a fourth-floor atrium that looked down on a common area crowded with workers and opened fire.

“He had the advantage, and no one knew where he was,” an official told the paper. “He was moving. It was fish in a barrel.”

Another worker sent Vandroff a text saying he was hiding with colleagues in an office cubicle.

But Vandroff heard nothing from another office where his friend Mike Arnold was working.

Capt. Christopher Mercer heard screaming, and the gunfire was getting closer as Alexis methodically made his way through the building.

The gunman approached Arnold’s office and blasted the veteran shipbuilder in the chest with the shotgun without uttering a single word. “He set up camp right in front of my office,” Mercer told the paper. “He kept reloading and firing at cubicles. Later, when he came back, I could see his shadow through the glass pane in my door.”

Alexis then went to the building’s lobby, where he shot a security guard dead, grabbed the victim’s 9mm handgun and dumped the shotgun on the floor.

He peeked around a partition on the third floor and was gunned down by cops.

Alexis’ mom on Wednesday offered an emotional apology for her son’s deadly shooting spree.

“I don’t know why he did what he did, and I’ll never be able to ask him why,” she said in a trembling voice as she read from a prepared statement.

“Aaron is now in a place where he can no longer do any harm to anyone, and for that I am glad.”

She added, “To the families of the victims, I am so, so very sorry that this has happened. My heart is broken.”