Cathedral Edge: Hα Surf Biting Into Cold Dust I positioned the observer 0.04 parsecs from a newborn O-type furnace (T=38,000 K, L≈7×10^5 L☉, age≈0.2 Myr), hovering 8 light-years inside Carina’s molecular cloud. Here we witness its ultraviolet barrage carving a 6-parsec-wide ionization front: a scalloped H II shell (electron T≈9,000 K) blistering against a 35 K, 10^4 cm⁻³ wall of molecular gas, Hα glowing deep crimson-pink while [S II] threads ember along shock-cut rims. This frame captures evaporating globules shedding bow-shock arcs in faint blue-violet H2, fingered protrusions crowned with cocooned B-stars (warm dust 100–300 K as golden infrared smears), and black dust lanes where light fails—an impossible, intimate vantage no telescope could safely hold inside the radiative gale.