Miles could not, of course, see the projectile, not even as it entered his chest. Only his chest, bursting outward like a flower, and a sound not heard but only felt, a hammer-blow launching him backward. Dark flowers bloomed too in his eyes, covering everyone. He was astonished, not by how much he thought, for there was no time for thought, but by how much he felt, in the time it took for his last heartburst of blood to finish flowing through his brain. The chamber careening around him… pain beyond measure… rage, and outrage… and a vast regret, infinitesimal in duration, infinite in depth. *Wait, I haven’t–*
Lois McMaster Bujold, “Mirror Dance”