Unyielding Stroke

"Well, it's like... No, I don't even know where to start." Sky shook her head and chuckled to herself. "It's a time like no other. Things are weird. No idea how I could elaborate on it."

"I guess I can't say no, huh?" Jam said, peering at Levi. "I didn't think I'd be going through pipes, though."

He took one last glance at the desecrated city around them before stepping into, er, rather down the newly made hole.

This was going to be some kind of adventure, huh?

"If it makes you feel any better," Levi said, a ghost of a smile dancing across his lips, "it's more of a glorified tunnel."

With that, he started down into the darkness down below.

In retrospect, he should have made some kind of torch. He was lucky that he had his phone on him; he was able to turn on its flashlight and cast light onto the parts of the sewer farther away from the hole they had entered through.

The sewer wasn't anything special. Levi hadn't exactly been in any before, but it looked like what he would expect: old, stone tunnels with walkways on both sides of running water.

But something felt...off.

The world up above was covered in plants and greenery, but the water down here looked relatively fresh. Even the walls were clean - he could only make out a few specks of mold here and there.

"What can you see?" Emma called from above. She took a deep breath and glanced at Winthrop.

"Lord knows," the old woman said. "Could be that he's about to be eaten by an army of sewer cats in dire need of a woman to pet them all day."

"I volunteer as tribute," Emma joked.

"I said old," Winthrop huffed.

"...If I think I am something and that makes me something, then I am old. That's what Descartes meant when he said Cogito, ergo sum."

"...you cheated."

"No," Emma chided, "I used my old brain to beat your old brain."

"Young people," Winthrop sighed in response.

"Woah," Jam whispered, more to himself than to really say out loud. This was the cleanest sewer-storm-drain-whatever that he had ever been in.

"Why is this place so weird, seriously?"

He wished he also had his phone on him, and a futile checking of his pockets proved that statement twofold.

"Is it okay if I stay close to you so I can actually see?" Jam asked, looking at Levi.

"I don't have a problem with it," Levi said. He glanced over at the water running through the tunnel. If he had a problem with anything right now, it would be that. His irritation with Jam's comment earlier was almost completely gone at this point - he was more focused on figuring out why, in the wise words of Jam, this area was so weird, honestly.

He looked over his shoulder at the ladder.

"We should get the others," he said. "This place is too clean - someone or something has to be using it."

Pushing his phone into Jam's hands, Levi returned to the ladder and quickly climbed up. Resting at the very top so his body was half out of hole in the ground, he shouted to the others, "We found something!"

"What did you find?" Emma asked. "Bodies of the deceased? Weapons? Anything remotely useful?"

"...since when do young people ask that many questions?" Winthrop snorted.

"Since the dawn of time. Some people just don't hear them."

Levi couldn't help but give a little smile at Emma's response.

Then the smile faltered. Emma's comment was one that he wholeheartedly agreed with, but he needed to be the impromptu leader of this group. He doubted they would agree with that if he brought it up; they'd probably question him. And he was sure it would just be adding more fuel to Emma's earlier guess that he was part of the "video game" that this was like or possibly was.

...Not that he actually thought it was a video game. He hadn't ever seen a place that looked like this one in a game.

"We found a tunnel," he said. "The tunnel itself isn't anything unnatural, but it's clean. Even the water looks fresh."