I don't remember the first time I watched an urban exploration video. I don't think it started as a lightning bolt moment.

It just sort of crept in, little by little, until it was the only thing I watched.

Most kids around me were obsessed with gaming videos and things like prank channels.

But me, I ended up on channels where people walked through empty malls and long-forgotten tunnels,

with water dripping down the walls and silence stretching for miles.

It fascinated me. These were places people had once depended on, places that held

stories without ever telling them directly. I wondered what had happened to them, why they had left,

why no one had come back. Even at ten, I found comfort in those silences.

Something about those forgotten corners of the world felt honest to me, raw, untouched by

the polished garbage the rest of the internet churned out.

While my classmates were trading memes and game clips, I was mapping out places I wanted

to visit one day.

I dream about it at night, wondering endless concrete hallways, no sound but my own breath

and the scuff of my shoes, flashlight beam jittering across crack tile.

I wanted to be there more than anywhere else.

I didn't wait long to try it for myself.

There was a gas station just off the interstate, a place that had shut down five or six years earlier after a truck slammed through its front windows.

My friend Josh dared me to go there after school one day.

I told him I'd already planned to.

That was a lie, but it worked.

We brought our bikes and ditched them behind the dumpsters.

The building looked small behind the road, but up close it stretched deep.

...