There weren't no good way to say Colin, mate, this is shit, you don't deserve it, but we bloody love you and we'll get through it, alright? Cos no matter how you said it his head was too full of angry buzzing to hear it.

Douglas Mortimer strode in from the blizzard like a snowblown angel of death, dressed all in black from his cowboy boots to his gaucho hat. The snow gusted in around him until the mechanism slammed the glass door shut, cutting off the squall. But even with the snow gone, there was still a seething dance of particles all over his face and body. The film grain made him seem as rough as sandpaper against a backdrop of pool tables and beer signs in a dimly-lit bar that was rendered in deep, smooth shades.

This is the sound of the end of the world: a billion voices raised in song, a harmony twisting and ululating around the colossal vibrating bass of the core immolators, twelve shining lances of light from the Yattari ships that pierce the now-dying planet of Korthia at equidistant points and pin it in space like a dissected animal on a metal tray.