As he descended, he left the fog behind him. The red lights were still here, but without the incense to veil them they seemed glaring, like baleful eyes. He opened a door at the foot of the stairs, and found himself in a stone corridor lined with more doors, each daubed in white paint with a number. It was damp, with a cloying, unclean odour. Some of the doors were rotting. They did not block out the sound: the noises of violent, bestial fucking. The shades are up, he thought. Curtains back. Welcome to The Drain.
