A group of sewer workers are down in the tunnels. They've been sent to clear out a blockage in one of the more far-flung pipelines under the city. The trouble is, they're working from plans that are way out of date. The further they go down, the harder it gets to be sure of where they are. At last, they come to a hatch in the floor of a junction.
"This is it, I think," says the foreman. "Let's head down."
They prepare their gear and open up the hatch, only to find that the tunnel beyond is narrower than they thought, and the ladder is long-since rusted. They can only send down one man to clear the blockage. A young workman volunteers for the job and is roped up and lowered down into the dark. A few minutes pass.
Then the man starts screaming.
Panicking, the others haul back on the rope. The guy down the hole sounds like he's screaming his lungs out. Eventually he comes back into sight, kicking and yelling, and they manage to get him over the lip of the hatch. He's shuddering violently, clutching at his clothes. His hair has turned a deathly white.
"What happened?" cry the other workmen. "What's down there?"
But the guy won't answer. He can't even speak. They shut up the hatch and manage to drag him back up to the surface, where he's carted off to hospital. But whatever the doctors do to him, he will not speak, will not say a word about what it was down there he saw.
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