What Rayder felt wasn't immediate pain, because pain was something he'd learned to domesticate over the years, using it as a tool, as warning, as method of correction, but rather something much more disturbing, a progressive absence of response, an emptiness that insinuated itself where before there'd been absolute certainty, as if the world had stopped obeying rules he'd believed immutable.

He was alone when the impact became impossible to ignore, body rigid, breathing irregular, cold ...