Seventy Meters Into Khaybar

The air at the summit of the Sudha range cut like a serrated blade. Despite the sun overhead baking the lava fields into a shimmering, distorted haze, the wind remained bone-dry and biting. Rhys stood at the lip of the new fissure—a jagged rupture in the earth’s crust forced open by the recent storms. It looked less like a geological feature and more like an unstitched wound. A thick, sulphurous odor drifted from the depths, heavy with the scent of ancient, damp silt. His thumb traced the rugged casing of his GPS unit. A rhythmic twitch pulsed in his forearm, a physical echo of a memory he couldn't bury. Four months ago, Sarah had stood exactly where he was standing now. He could still hear her sharp, confident laugh over the desert wind as she adjusted her headlamp. 'Rhys,' she had said, her voice echoing with that relentless curiosity, 'the topography doesn’t lie. There’s a third vein down there. A tunnel the official surveys missed—one even Miller doesn’t know about.' 'Rhys! Snap out of it! Get down here and help Mark secure the lines. We’re losing the light!' Alice’s voice snapped through his reverie like a whip. She stood by the lead Rover, her helmet already clicked into p…