The re-covered tiles had soil falling down the pitch-black hole.
Shattered, bloodstained clothes fell together with the smartphone, dropping into the dug-out drainage pipe.
The drainage pipes buried deep underground have existed since before the great catastrophe, stretching in a twisted web beneath the city's surface like invisible veins.
Layers of thick moss covered the walls of the pipes, slippery and cold, with rusted cracks faintly visible on the walls, which seemed like a cross between stone and metal. Black liquid oozed from the cracks, like ancient corpses whose dark blood hadn't yet dried.
Thick iron pipes stabbed into the drainage, some blocked and dry, while others still seeped water, resembling capillaries densely packed with corpses.
Rust marks spread outward from the iron pipe openings like tree rings, with years of grime embedded in each line.
