Echoes Beneath Tides

The cavern breathed with a hush older than kingdoms, its stone teeth arching like a cathedral abandoned to the sea. Strange glyphs shimmered where salt kissed the walls—the words *Where Vojta?* pulsed like a beacon of unfinished prayer. I traced the curves with fingers raw from the crossing, feeling warmth linger as though the message still glowed with his certainty. Once, on a storm-lashed deck, he spoke of foxes that swam like shadows, guardians stitched from myth; their shapes now coursed along the rock, mid-leap toward a whirl of silver fish spiraling like a clock wound too tight. Time pressed against my ribs; currents funneled our hope forward as if the water itself kept count. Above, stalactites wore halos of phosphorescence, casting an accidental altar over our search. I believed rescue lay within that spiral’s eye, yet my call drowned beneath endless tide-churn. The drawings held their vow of motion, but the one who inscribed them—Vojta—remains dispersed in the darkening undertow, caught just beyond reach.