21 – What is the most terrifying sound you’ve ever heard – for example, “the night was like the cry of a wolf”?

I had a religious experience, a holy terror.

Let me explain.

I had been playing multiplayer Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for 15 straight hours. When you are immersed in the game, the constraints in the game become the laws of physics of the world you inhabit. They are inviolable. You come to know the sounds of each gun, the sonic boom of the barrett 50 cal, the purr of the UMP, the patter of footsteps, the click of a claymore trigger, the bass rumble of ordnance and air support. You build up certain expectations, the scream of the predator missiles early on in each game, the rhythmic chug of the chopper gunners and the hellish scream of the AC-130 require many more kills to unlock so they only appear late in the game. As you become more immersed in the world, you become acutely attuned to every aspect of this other world. The slightest thing can give you the edge over your opponents.

We were playing the Rundown map, which is set in a village in the countryside. One team starts up by a villa on a hill, the other by an abandoned petrol station. It always starts the same way. Both teams know roughly where the other team is. It always starts with snipers trading shots across the creek that splits the map. If you're not a sniper, you keep in cover and move to engage at close quarters looking to make it to the exposed B flag on the bridge before the other team. All familiar, almost preordained, like the opening moves of a chess game.

But not this time. This time, I'd barely made the bridge when I heard the scream of the AC130 105mm cannon. That was wrong, badly wrong. I checked the scoreboard - no one had anywhere near enough kills for an AC-130. Then it came again. It sent my mind into an unreasoning panic. Nothing could explain it. The laws of physics hadn't just been broken they'd been shattered. I died time and time again, in a rag doll splay of limbs as the unholy fire rained down from above accompanied by that unholy scream. Then the chug of the chopper gunner started up and that was terror.

Overwrought, I know.

And obviously 15 hours without a break is not good for you.

But, it gave me an inkling of what it might be like to actually witness a miracle, a divine intervention against the laws of physics, a violation of all expectations. Here is something you don't understand, something that you can't anticipate. You have no idea what will happen, because you no longer know what can happen. It pushes down past all rationalisations, gouges the veneer of civilization, bypasses the delicate convolutions of the forebrain and grabs hold of the reptile hindbrain with clawed hands. The most basic survival instincts are jammed full on. Blind panic, holy terror.

If god exists, I hope never to meet it.