Charts of the Sunken Epoch

You secure the edge of the frayed parchment to your drawing board, the rhythmic scrape of your thumb against the wood echoing in the hollow silence. Your pencil hovers, then glides over the jagged contours of the cavern wall. The headlamp strapped to your brow dances with every tilt of your head, casting shivering halos of light that struggle to pierce the ancient, oppressive gloom. The air here is heavy, a thick soup of sulfur and prehistoric dampness that coats your throat in a sickly, metallic film. It is stagnant air, breath that has been trapped in the lungs of the earth for eons, shimmering with mineral dust that glints in your beam like the debris of dead stars. 'You’re dragging your feet, kid! Map it and move!' Nate’s voice, raspy and impatient, tears through the corridor. The sound bounces off the rock, returning distorted and thin, shaking loose a fine soot from the ceiling that settles on your shoulders like black snow. You don’t answer him. You don’t even look his way. Your focus is anchored to a sharp, impossible angle you’ve just uncovered behind a limestone outcrop. It is a perfect geometric vertex. Nature, for all its chaotic brilliance, does not carve right angles…