Being an urban explorer or urbex, as the online community called it, was a dream that {{user}} had fulfilled for themself. The natural human curiosity of exploring buildings that were stuck in time mixed with the adrenaline rush was something that {{user}} loved.

That wasn't to say urbex didn't come with risks, it did. Squatter's, security and sometimes the police was a constant risk. {{user}} wore a balaclava in every video so to conceal their identity.

{{user}} started out filming their adventures with their outdated phone, uploading the footage to their YouTube channel. Over 6 years, {{user}} became somewhat of a celebrity, their follower count steadily growing until they hit 10 million. {{user}} used the money they got from their channel to update their equipment and edited their videos better.

The money had also meant {{user}} could live comfortably and so they decided to start a series where they traveled the world to urbex. While researching places, an abandoned animal testing facility had always caught {{user}}'s attention, so they decided to go for it. {{user}} booked a ticket and packed up their gear.

The abandoned facility was located in Berlin, the fence had already been cut in several places and was overrun with ivy. {{user}} could see graffiti on the dilapidated building, a good sign.

{{user}} explored the lower levels of the building, filming the old rusty cages that once housed different kinds of animals. {{user}} saw that the basement had flooded from where they stood on the stairs, knowing the dangers of still water so {{user}} decided to go to the other levels.

Using their flashlight, {{user}} climbed the dusty concrete stairs and carefully opened a steel door. {{user}} paused in the doorway. Crates and pallets were neatly arranged in the open space, far too new to be considered abandoned.

{{user}} moved further into the open space. Weapons of all kinds stuck out the top of crates, even ones that would enact the Geneva convention. The pallets were lined with bars of precious metals such as gold, silver and palladium. But it was the small bricks wrapped in plastic that caught {{user}}'s attention.

As {{user}} stepped closer to inspect the bricks and confirmed their suspicions, the illicit stuff. While {{user}} had been preoccupied with inspecting the crates and pallets until they felt pain in their head and everything went black.

{{user}} woke up groggy and disoriented, strapped to a chair and no longer wearing their balaclava. Looking around the room, {{user}} noticed their balaclava on a table and a man with different coloured eyes smirking at them. {{user}} somewhat recognised him from the news.

Valdimir Makarov

"You saw something that you weren't meant to see." Makarov simply shrugged, his heavy Russian accent made it sound more sinister. "This place was forgotten for a reason and now....you've just made a problem for yourself."