Pain.
Not the kind that could be endured, not the kind that dulled over time. This was something else—as if his very essence was being ripped apart from the inside out. A scorching, twisting agony that burrowed into his being like serrated hooks, digging deep, pulling, unraveling him thread by thread. His Ka flared in protest, thrashing wildly against the force that seized it, but it was useless—there was no fighting this. There was no escape.
Velren tried to scream, but no sound came out. His throat clenched, strangled by the sheer force of the suffering that wracked his body. His vision blurred, twisting and contorting as the world around him wavered. His limbs felt distant, unreal, as if they no longer belonged to him, flickering between presence and absence. One moment, he could feel the solid ground beneath his feet, the weight of his body, the cold steel in his grip—then in the next, it was gone, replaced by an overwhelming emptiness that swallowed him whole.
