Using the sewers for work-related transfers is an old idea, and one that many Celestrian underground movements use. I'm not afraid to say that in the many times that I've been down there on various jobs I've had more than one gun pressed to my head by shady characters more powerful than the boss, and carrying more money than Dirty Work could make in a decade. It means that the tunnels that snake their way, labyrinthine, underneath the streets, are never quiet. The passages that spider web together are always knocking and banging, groans and moans coming from all directions most of the time. Drips echo for miles, footfalls can be in the next Region and sometimes sound right next to you. It's enough to put anyone on edge at the best of times. Even worse when you've seen things that would be a good enough campfire tale to give the kids nightmares for weeks.

It was a half an hour journey from the drop-off point to where we were to re-surface, and we had had it in mind to head straight for it. We noted several escape options as well to be on the safe side, pulling up the map on the Halo-Core when we were a few minutes away from the site of the body.

We didn't speak as we walked, even less so than we did on the original journey, and I'm sure we were all cocooned a little in our own thoughts. Primarily in my mind, it must be said, was just to get the hell out of there as quick as I could, but Ashrore was the leader, and the leader must be followed at all times. After all, if we didn't we would have anarchy, and if we had anarchy then we would end up with pretty much the same system as we already have but with a lot less of an idea of what is going on and getting a lot less done.

And so I kept my mouth zipped tight as we walked through the passages, guns out, fingers twitchy but being reined in by will alone. I'm sure that a few weeks beforehand I would probably have shot at our own shadows several times, and not been ashamed of it, though Ashrore and little-miss-silent would have probably shot at me out of fright and a second known corpse, probably third, would have been lying in the tunnels.

The shadow of that man haunted me throughout that walk. It's an image which never leaves your mind, and never has done, that of a man hunched over a body of his own species, tearing at his flesh and shovelling his innards into his mouth. These kinds of images are the ones that you stay up at night with, your head projecting them into the wardrobe at the corner of the room. These are the monsters that lurk under your bed, waiting for you to put one foot out of the warmth of the blankets onto the floor, and as soon as your toes touch the cold... BAM!

My heart rate was not steady, I will freely admit, for fifteen minutes walking through the caverns. Whose would be? Not many of those that work in ordinary jobs as accountants or burger-flippers or footballers, I can tell you that. I changed hands on my gun several times in those minutes as my hands were too slippery, slimy with sweat and tasting of fear.

At minute sixteen, shit hit the fan.