CHAPTER 36Ping slammed facedown into something white, hard and round. Even with his arms and legs splayed, he slid to his left for reasons he was too confused to understand. Once the stars had faded from his view, he held up his head to assess his situation. For a split second he thought he clung to the side of a giant egg, and, as he dismissed that notion as nonsensical, he heard Sam’s voice call to him from above.
“Ping! Take my hand!”
Ping c****d his head at an uncomfortable angle, twisting it up and backward at the same time. There he saw a large bald man reaching for him, urgency pressed across his features.
Why was Sam’s voice coming out of him?
Sam walked up next to the stranger and yelled, “Grab it! You’re going to fall!”
The slope of the Apex turned inward below Ping, and his
