Chapter 14: Chapter 14 – The Dreamer
Nick and the Inspector walked to the side into an abandoned alleyway.
Nick was highly interested in what the Inspector had to say.
After nearly two weeks, Nick had finally found a clue!
When they arrived in the alleyway, Nick just nodded at the Inspector.
The Inspector looked around.
"I'm not supposed to tell you about this," the Inspector said. "Information regarding Specters is top secret."
"Why are you telling me?" Nick asked.
"Well, there are a couple of reasons."
"First, I feel like I should help you a bit. I kind of feel bad for you when I see you try this desperately to find a Specter."
"Two, the Specter isn't being hunted by the Manufacturers anyway. This means that nobody would really miss it."
"And third, I don't fully agree with my employer's goal," the Inspector explained.
"Their goal?" Nick asked.
The Inspector nodded. "There are many Specters that we know about but don't capture. There are multiple reasons for that."
"Sometimes, it's incredibly difficult to find the actual location of the Specters. The Parasite is a good example. The entire city is after the Parasite, but nobody managed to track it down."
"Another reason is that some of the Specters are incredibly difficult to contain, and it's even more difficult to keep them contained. While there are Containment Units that can keep some Force Specters contained, there are still some of them that can't be contained."
"For example, outside the city is a Specter we call the Swallowing Swamp. It's just a huge swamp that's several kilometers wide. In order to contain that, we would need to commit monumental amounts of resources to it, which wouldn't be worth it."
"Some Specters are also just too powerful. Nurse Alice is a great example."
"And then, there are Specters that are living in places that are too difficult to get to. The one I'm going to tell you about is part of that category."
Nick became quite interested. "Where is it?"
The Inspector pointed at the floor, or more specifically, at the darkness beyond the metal grates everyone was walking on.
"The sewers," the Inspector said.
Nick also looked at the ground.
Since the floor was essentially made of metallic grates, everyone could see and smell the sewers.
In a way, the sewers didn't really look like sewers.
In truth, just a couple of meters below the grates, there was just a sea of horrible and dirty water.
If anyone broke a grate and fell through, they would fall for about ten meters and then plummet into a deep pile of water filled with piss, shit, waste, garbage, and so on.
There were cases where some of the victims were rescued, but most of them died quickly.
In general, the people started to puke violently, which often made them accidentally swallow more of the water. This increased their panic, and they started to rapidly splash around.
Oftentimes, they hit some kind of old and rusty nail, which then cut them open.
Additionally, the Parasite's minions, the rats, often piled onto the victim.
Falling into the sewers was a terrifying death.
Even more, not all of the floor was made of grates. There were also plenty of places with plates instead of grates.
If one had exceptionally bad luck, one might fall into a dark part of the sewers.
At that point, the Nightmare's influence also attacked them.
"In the sewers?" Nick asked.
The Inspector nodded. n(.o(-v-/E)(l-)b.-1-.n
Nick's heart rate increased, and he had to take a deep breath.
"Where is it exactly?" Nick asked.
"Are you really willing to jump into the sewers?" the Inspector asked with concern.
Nick took another deep breath.
Nick imagined himself standing in front of a hole, looking at the murky and dark liquid below.
Just the stench would make a normal person retch.
Jumping into that...
The mental image was horrifying.
To be honest, Nick hesitated a while.
It wasn't easy to jump into something like that.
The only good thing was that nobody would be seeing Nick down there, which would allow him to keep his unique ability active.
This meant that drowning or getting pricked by a sharp piece of metal was no real concern.
Nick's body became five times as powerful when no one was looking. That also meant that the durability of his skin and muscles increased.
As long as he didn't ram into a metallic spike jutting out of a solid wall with all his force, Nick wouldn't get wounded.
The rats also weren't that big of a problem.
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