Joaquim thought he had it all figured out. Being human, you know the basic cause and effect of things. You know the laws of physics. When a force exerts something on you, you get pushed back—or thrown off, as you would in an explosion. You know how people get killed. When shrapnel hits your body, you bleed. You die. The grenade has certainly sent the eye-patched officer lying flat on his face. Joaquim couldn’t tell whether he was still alive.
But Joaquim quickly realized he was not in a typical earthly plane. Things work differently here. After the dust settled, the nuno towered over him with a tight grimace. He didn’t even budge an inch. Though soot and dust had covered him, he remained unscathed.
“You just made things worse,” said the nuno. “Now look what you did.”
The mound of earth that was home to the nuno had been completely blown off. Now I’ve really dug myself into a hole, Joaquim thought
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