The pulse hit her like a Mac truck made of pressure.
It slammed into Sera's chest with a dense, invisible weight that compressed her ribs and punched the air out of her lungs without pain. The table under her shrieked. Metal bolts ground deeper into concrete with a horrible grinding sound.
And still, she didn't move.
She let her body sway with the force instead of resisting it, the way she'd learned to ride impacts long before the world fell apart. Her shoulders rolled, her spine absorbed the shock, and the pressure washed through her like water around a rock.
Most people didn't know that the more tense you were when something hit you, the more likely you were to be seriously injured.
The chamber, on the other hand, was not so lucky.
Something deep beneath the platform seemed to kick out. A heavy thump rolled under her feet, followed by a chain of smaller, more frantic impacts. It was the sound of parts slamming into each other at the wrong speed.
