The fall started the moment the bead swallowed me.
There was no warning. No pull. No shift in weight. One heartbeat I was standing in Elijah's cottage, bead raised to my eyes. The next heartbeat I dropped straight out of the world.
An overwhelming deluge of pure, incandescent light rushed at me from every conceivable direction. It was not gentle, cohesive light, but thick, violent bands of color that streamed past like torn ribbons of existence.
