Cathedral Beneath Currents

Entry 14: The descent clung to my lungs like frost, though the water smoldered faintly against the plating of the submersible. Beacons pulsed in anxious rhythm, their neon flare carving shafts between coral spires. Every contour of that distant citadel shone like a shrine drowned by centuries, its domes lifting prayers none of us could answer. We slipped through hushed schools, watching for his shell-mark, whispering Vojta’s name as if the tide might respond. I paused near a coffer heavy with coins, sets of bubbles rising like hurried breaths beside it. And there—one pilgrim turtle, solemn, cradling a chipped porcelain cup as if tea could outwarm the abyss. It didn’t speak, only stared toward the spires where light fractured into glacier-cold beams. My charts scatter, my faith trembles, yet the vow binds me forward: through gilded ruins, past reckless glints of treasure, toward a silence that still conceals him. Vojta drifts beyond reach, unaccounted for, lost in the cathedral’s long shadow.