Prologue
Blinding white light encased all five of their senses. It pressed into their very being; the explosion seemed to wipe away anything that it touched. The explosion could barely be heard around them, but its immense power could be felt by all of them. The pressure from the blast kept on building and building, it was hard to breath, it was impossible to scream.
Skin felt as if it was being ripped away from bone and then sewn back on in the wrong place. Hair was pulled and clothing was torn. The force of the explosion was pushing at time and space itself, resulting in a terrible tearing noise erupting somewhere, someplace close.
No one could tell what was happening; none of them had ever experienced this before. All they could do was to lose themselves into the overload of painful sensations coursing through their bodies.
Then they were weightless.
And all were pulled away into black space. They felt compressed even more, as if they were being forced down a too small pipe that suctioned them farther away from where they were needed, father away from each other.
They could hear each other sometimes as they were vaulted through this space, crying out to each other to reach someone, anyone.
Suddenly, lights sparked and swirled around each of them; one by one, flinging them further away from each other. Lightning crackled through one figure, and their entire body was illuminated for an instant, every vein, organ, artery, and bone glowed, before black clouds covered the figure and dragged it down, down, down.
The others were gone as well, launched further into the dark abyss.