The falling didn't stop.
There was no up or down, just endless tumbling through colors that weren't really colors. Kieran's body felt like it was coming apart and being put back together all at once. He couldn't tell if he was screaming or if the scream was just in his head.
When he finally hit something solid, it wasn't like landing. More like the world decided to be ground again.
He came to on his hands and knees, breathing hard. The air tasted like static and burnt metal. Everything hurt.
He pushed himself up slowly, his head spinning. "What the hell..."
The place around him was wrong. Dark stone ground, but it shimmered like wet code. Giant shards of glass stuck up everywhere, each one showing frozen moments—Arianna's face mid-shout, Jack swinging his blades, the Aegis Dome with smoke rising. All of them perfectly still, like someone had paused the world.
