This happened not even a month ago.

I'm a senior in high school, and I've lived in Nevada my whole life.

There's not a whole lot to do here, but one thing my friends and I have always been into

is urban exploring.

We'd look for abandoned buildings, old service tunnels, dead malls, anything that felt forgotten.

We'd climb through broken fences, take pictures, sometimes sneak up to the roofs or down

into basements.

It wasn't about breaking stuff or doing anything illegal.

It was just about the vibe. The only guy in our group who always found the weirdest places was Charles.

He was kind of the quiet, mysterious type. He'd show up with locations none of us had heard of.

Half the time, I didn't even ask how he found them. One day he sent us a

screenshot from some sketchy Instagram account, low follower account, blurry photos, all kinds

of creepy comments under the posts. The caption on the post in question just said something like

dozens of abandoned mine shafts in the Mojave desert if you know

where to look. According to Charles, he had been in contact with the account and whoever was

running it had given him some areas to check out. That's all Charles needed. He was instantly

obsessed with the idea. So that Saturday, it was me, Charles, and our other friend James.

I had a wrangler that was perfect for off-road desert driving, so we took that.

We didn't have a specific address or anything, just a general area and a pin drop somewhere

in the middle of the Mojave.

The spot Charles had marked was way off in the desert, like really far from anything.

We turned off the main road almost half an hour earlier, and the dirt path we were on barely

...