It is, somehow, both arrestingly sudden and agonizingly slow.

Martin feels it all - the sharp piercing ache in his lungs, the burn of strained muscles not used to this much exertion, the blinding terror of his actions, the knowledge that he is going to die, there is no uncertainty, that in a fragment of a second he has made the decision to die so that Regan and her little brother may live. He hears his own shouting at a great distance, the unexpected noise violently puncturing what had become an accustomed silence as he draws the creature away from the children, inevitably toward himself.

The impact hits him hard in the back, reducing him to breathless gasping as it leaps, dragging him up and hurling him back down to the ground at least three meters from where he'd been caught. He feels the rip of teeth or claws or whatever these creatures have as it comes down on top of him and begins to tear him apart. He might still be screaming but he doesn't think so. In a few seconds it doesn't matter anymore.

Then he wakes up.