Julian slammed both eyelids shut.
He did not hesitate. He did not squint to see the flash. He jammed his forehead against the icy steel riser and clenched his eyes tight, driving his cheek into his canvas sleeve.
A split second later, the white strobe fired.
Even through clamped eyelids, through wool and thick canvas, the light was blinding. It turned the insides of Julian’s eyelids into a searing, translucent sheet of pure violet-white glare. The capacitors discharged with no sound at all--not a crackle, not a pop, just a dead, terrifying vacuum.
Then the world beneath his boots inverted.
The howling gale was still tearing at his coat. The freezing sleet still lashed his neck. But below his waist, the sound of the Atlantic headland vanished.
There was no sound of wind rushing past the steel struts. There was no roar of waves breaking against the rocks.
Instead, rising from the empty air beneath his soles, came the terrifying, muffled groan of immense hydrostatic pressure.
