The worst part about the end of the world wasn't the monsters. It wasn't the fire. It wasn't even the fact that I was currently riding a glowing metal plate up a vertical shaft at speeds that made my stomach try to escape through my ears.
The worst part was that it was smooth.
The platform we were standing on didn't rattle. It didn't shake. It hummed with a low, sickening vibration that felt less like magic and more like a headache given physical form. We were shooting upward through the dark, passing blurs of blue light that looked like stars stretched into screaming lines.
"I hate this," Splitjaw growled. He was sitting with his back against the invisible forcefield that served as a railing, clutching his broken leg. "It's too quiet. We should be climbing. Or falling. Not... sliding up."
