In every nightmare, every moment he spent studying the blueprints, every time he's stared at that drawing, he never expected this moment to be quiet. The machine heaved and buckled and groaned as he approached it, but now that he's standing on the platform with his arms upraised and his hands locked into the metal, the silence is like a harsh splash of cold water in his face.
And then he realizes there's nothing silent about this moment. Concrete is crumbling all around him, twisting and breaking. Ruptured pipes bleed water into the sky. Windows are shattering, buildings are toppling. Everywhere the world is screaming, but he hears none of it. He's deafened by the silent pulsing of the machine.
It obliterates his senses one by one, brutal in its conquest. Numbness spreads from his hands, buried in the machine, until it has cloaked his entire body. The choking taste and smell of the blood covering the lower half of his face fades. And he knows what's going to happen next, hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since he first saw it in those stark, unyielding lines of black and white.
The flames seem to bubble up from within him, pumped into his body through the veins of the metal monster. And all he sees is fire. The skin around his eyes blisters and blackens into a cracked mask, but still he feels nothing. Soon his vision fades to blackness as well.
And when the process is complete, when he's completely sealed off from the outside world, he actually feels at peace. He experiences an endless moment of pure clarity, pure serenity, more powerful than anything he's ever felt before.
And when the machine fulfills its purpose and wipes the world away, he doesn't even know the difference.