The big one, the one that makes my jaw ache just looking at it, is Amber’s entire torso. Aark0 draws these lads with a weight that feels obscene, like the muscles have their own gravity. You get this scene early on, maybe twenty minutes in after swatting at mosquitos along the Colorado, where the canvas tent rips. Just a little tear. But through it, you see Gabriel, the quiet one with the beard, stripped down and using a wet rag to wipe river silt from his chest. The way the water sits in the little dip of his collarbone. I stared at that single frame for maybe five minutes until my phone dimmed. The art doesn’t look finished around the edges, like a rushed pencil test, but that’s the charm? No, scrap that. It’s hot because it looks like a sketch someone drew with one hand.

Mateo is completely useless in a fight, by the way. There’s a moment where a jaguar lunges and he just freezes, which leads to a very prolonged sequence of having to pick thorns out of his backside while he groans into a hammock. The wound cleaning is absurdly detailed. You think you’re going to get a kiss or a heartfelt confession, but no, you just get a six-hour boat ride where they argue about burned beans. I wish there was a button to make the sound of the rapids shut up because it loops funny and I kept checking if my actual faucet was dripping. But then you forget about that because Amber finds this mossy staircase and Gabriel bends him over a ruined altar so fast the “achievement unlocked” pop-up blocks the good angle. Pacing is like a soggy sandwich, all this bread about colonialism and geology, then suddenly a wet, messy filling you didn’t expect on page seventy-four. I still haven't beaten it.