I dreamed I was a water main inspector in a city of silence

I was walking through tunnels beneath an empty city, flashlight in hand, listening for the hum of pipes. No one else was there—just the low thrum of water moving through iron veins. Every so often, I’d pause and press my ear to a valve, and for a second, I’d hear someone’s voice: a child laughing, a woman singing, a man arguing over a bus schedule. Then it would vanish. The water kept flowing. I never found the source. Woke up with the taste of rust on my tongue.