This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-11-07 17:19:29+00:00.
When my best friend Cal and I started the channel, it was just for fun. Urban exploring in New York City had been our thing for years, and YouTube was just a way to share it. Abandoned buildings, forgotten hotels, that was our brand. But as our channel grew, so did the demands of our audience. They wanted the extreme, the more hidden parts of NYC.
It was Cal’s idea to investigate the “Sewer People” rumor.
“Think about it, man,” he said one night, eyes gleaming. “A whole network of people living under the city. If we’re the first to get that on camera? We’ll blow up.”
I couldn’t deny the appeal. Rumors had circulated for decades about the shadowy figures who lurked below New York, scavenging, surviving off rats and whatever the city discarded. But, like most urban legends, I assumed the stories were exaggerated.
Cal and I spent hours prepping for the sewer dive, making sure we had everything we’d need to face whatever was down there. We packed our bags with essentials: extra water, enough to last us for hours, and spare batteries for the flashlights, since darkness would be our worst enemy. I grabbed a few granola bars too, just in case we got stuck down there longer than planned. To keep any sewer pests at bay, we duct-taped our pant legs and sleeves, sealing off every gap to make sure nothing small and unwelcome could find its way in.
With our gear packed and GoPros ready, we made our way to a manhole cover in a quiet corner of the city. Cal pried it open, the metal scraping against concrete with an echoing screech, and we peered down into the black void below. The stench hit us first, a mix of mold and filth. Cal shot me a quick look, a mix of excitement and nervousness on his face. “Well, I guess this is it” he said before turning on his GoPro. He shot me a grin before he head down first, his flashlight beam slicing into the darkness.
One rung at a time, I followed him, my hands gripping the rusty metal as we descended into the underbelly of the city. The sounds of the street above faded with each step, replaced by the steady movement of water echoing around us and the hum of distant machinery. When our feet hit the wet concrete below, we stood there in the dim beam of our flashlights, our eyes adjusting to the darkness. The walls were slick with grime and patches of mildew growing along the cracked cement. Somewhere in the dark, we heard a faint scuttle, the unmistakable skitter of rats just out of sight.
Among the gear, I’d packed several rolls of reflective tape. In these dark, winding tunnels, getting turned around would be all too easy, and the last thing we wanted was to get lost down here. Every few yards, I peeled off a strip and slapped it on the wall, watching as it shined in the beam of our flashlights like a tiny beacon marking our way back. It felt reassuring, each piece of tape reflecting back to us, a reminder that we had a trail back to the exit, no matter how far in we ventured.
For a while, this routine was all we had, exploring the narrow tunnels, stepping around filth and cockroaches, chatting to our cameras, cracking jokes to mask the tension. We spoke in low voices, our words bouncing off the walls and echoing down the tunnels. Every so often we’d hear scuttering, and faint splashes of water, but nothing more. No signs of human life, no movement. I started to wonder if the stories about the “sewer people” were just nothing more than rumors. I told Cal as much.
“I gotta say man, I’m starting to think the stuff about sewer people is just bullshit”.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. We’ll push a little further, then we’ll head back” Cal replied.
We kept pushing further.
The smell had been bad from the start, but now it was clawing its way into my head, thick and unrelenting. Every breath felt like I was swallowing damp rot mixed with decay, the odor sinking into my lungs. My stomach starting to twist and churn. I gagged, pulling my shirt up over my nose in a useless attempt to filter the air, but it barely helped. The feeling of nausea and claustrophobia began to take hold of me.
I glanced at Cal, who seemed focused, oblivious to my growing panic. I started to feel like the walls of the sewer were inching closer, getting tighter around us. My chest tightened, breaths coming shallower, and the concrete felt like it was pressing down on me. We were far away from our exit now, from fresh air, from daylight, and the reality of how deep we ventured hit me.
I wanted to turn around, to trace our way back to the manhole and climb out into the open air. I forced myself to take another breath, hoping it would steady me, but all it did was fill my lungs with that choking, nauseating stench.
“Cal, I think it’s time we get the hell out of here” I said.
Cal paused a moment, considering what I had said. I knew he was fumbling inside his brain, trying to decide if we had gotten enough footage for a video. “Alright… alright… yeah… let’s go” he finally replied.
Just as we were about to turn back, I felt something crunch beneath my boot. A sharp, brittle sound that sent a shiver up my spine. I froze, the weight of my foot still pressing down on whatever I'd just stepped on.
“Ah gross, what the hell…” I muttered, lifting my foot carefully and instinctively shining my flashlight downward.
The beam caught it instantly, casting a light on a line of severed rat heads stretched out across the floor in front of us. Each one was cleanly cut, like they’d been sliced off with a blade, neat and precise, the way a cook might prepare a fresh chicken. Their dead eyes stared up blankly, fur still glistening with damp, while rows of teeth that gaped out of tiny mouths in frozen agony. And there were dozens of them, arranged in a long trail leading deeper into the sewer, like some type of twisted bread trail.
Cal’s light joined mine, and I heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the scene.
We both stood there, speechless. A faint smell of something else joined us, a dead smell, something like sulfur.
I felt my pulse quicken, a wave of nausea rising in my throat as I stared at the trail of severed heads. My mind screamed at me to turn back, to get out of here before whatever had left this realized we were here. It felt like something we weren’t supposed to see.
“We need to leave, man,” I said, my voice coming out quieter than I meant. I glanced over at Cal, but he was still focused on the trail of rat heads, his flashlight sweeping back and forth. “We’ve seen enough. No video is worth all this.”
Cal didn’t respond right away. He just kept looking at the heads. Then, finally, he turned to me, his eyes intense. “No, we need to go further,” he said, his voice steady but with a fire beneath it. “This is exactly why we’re here. This isn’t just some random mess. Whatever did this, they cut these off clean. A person did this.”
I felt a cold pit form in my stomach. I didn’t want to know who, or what, would do that.
“Cal, that’s... that’s insane. People don’t just—” I cut myself off, my words getting tangled. “We’re in over our heads here man. We don’t need the video that bad.”
But Cal was already shaking his head, his eyes wide, his excitement slowly turning to obsession. “No, we do need to find it. Think about it. We actually found something, right? This is what we came for. We’ve been talking about this for months, and now we have proof, man. This is the real deal.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Cal was already moving, stepping forward.
I hesitated. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to stop him, to pull him back, but I couldn’t. Something about his conviction pulled me in, even though every instinct was telling me to run the hell out of there. I paused for a moment, before following him further into the sewers.
As we ventured deeper into the tunnels, I couldn’t help but notice the appearance of the sewer began to change. The smell, while still overwhelmingly foul, had begun to change in subtle ways; less stagnant. The walls, which had been slick with grime and mildew just moments before, began to appear oddly cleaner. The thick layers of mold were replaced with smooth concrete. It looked as though this area of the sewer was more maintained than the rest of it.
I glanced at Cal, wondering if he was noticing it too. He didn’t say anything, but I saw the way his flashlight flicked over the walls, a growing unease creeping into his expression. We were no longer in the decaying, forgotten part of the sewer system, but in some other area, one that looked cared for and used.
The tunnels felt more structured now, the path straightening, and the walls narrowing just slightly, giving the whole space a more controlled, less abandoned feel. It was unsettling in a way I couldn’t explain.
We kept moving, drawn by the hope of capturing something for the video, but I felt my nerves increasing with every step. The rats had all but disappeared also, like even they knew to avoid this area.
The deeper we went, I started to notice something. At first, it was so faint that I thought I might’ve imagined it. It was a low, rumbling sound, like the hum of machinery, a deep growl vibrating through the walls. I stopped in my tracks, holding up a hand to signal to Cal.
He turned, raising his flashlight in my direction. I could see the question in his eyes before he spoke.
“You hear that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. What the hell is that?”
We stood there for a moment, listening. The soun...
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