There was blood everywhere.
To begin with, I wasn’t too sure where to put this “story” as it could probably fit into 5 different Reddit communities but I definitely didn’t sleep after this personal experience and it’s kept me wondering what genuinely occurred ever since. I wanted other opinions on what I went through and what they believe could’ve took place.
Me and my friends, roughly a group of 7-10 people depending on who adventurers out on what day, like to “urban explore”. We live in Derbyshire and if you also live around here you know there’s many abandoned hospitals, care homes, schools etc along with many old factories and just the general derelict buildings. We’ve had experiences with squatters, security, dogs and even small paranormal events but nothing is more scary than a real, living and breathing person who intends to cause harm in these situations.
There’s strict rules we follow: you can climb walls, fences and go through open windows/doors but you can NOT break in (smashing windows, ripping of boards, kicking in doors etc). You can’t break, smash or steal anything from inside the buildings and you DO NOT run, not from security or police, if you’ve been caught you’ve got to own it, unless of course you’re in immediate danger such as hostile squatters and security dogs chasing you. Being calm and sticking together is the safest option.
I’m a 20 year old female. Me, my boyfriend and our friends have been doing this since we were 17-18 so I have many different stories but this one is potentially the most scared I’ve ever been. We were in a group of 6 and had found a building a couple days ago just outside of Sheffield after seeing it all over TikTok. I won’t name it here and if you know the building I am referencing I do not recommend naming it for safety reasons. 4 out of the 6 people, including myself, decided to climb the metal gate blocking the building to where a window had been smashed around the side. It had a board still nailed into the wall but someone previously had pulled it off just enough you could still manage through the window. The original exit and fire escape door had been boarded, no other windows on the bottom floor were accessible and the metal stairs maybe a metre away from our entrance window lead to nowhere (keeping these stairs in mind). One of our friends had been inside this building on a couple occasions so we felt pretty confident.
I was first, then the boys followed after. I immediately made a start on checking our surroundings, I had shouted about us entering and that if anyone was in there and wanted us to leave, let us know and we would do so, there was no reply, nothing, dead silence. The building had been exposed on TikTok and because of that it had been trashed (in good old stupid teenager fashion) there was glass and broken objects everywhere which was why the bloody tissue laying around in different various places on the bottom floor didn’t ring as many alarm bells as it typically would. However, when we made it to the staircase we found a used sanitary pad left on the steps. Female squatter perhaps? After talking ourselves up and down for around five minutes we finally decided to make our way to the top floor. I turned to my left and found stripped wires, pretty typical for buildings like this. Everything seemed to be how it should, quiet, trashed and ransacked.
As we turned to the room down the right, a friend had noticed ventilation pipes in the ceilings, similar to ones we have found in shut down and raided illegal weed grows. We had turned on our flashlights to get a better look and that’s when we noticed the insane amount of blood on the floor. I wish I could describe how that room looked without sounding like I’m lying or over exaggerating but it was truly covered in a dark red and dried liquid. It could’ve been paint, it could’ve been teenagers playing a prank, it could’ve been some other form of red liquid that wasn’t blood but the risk was not worth it. Our friend who had been before as I mentioned said it was never there any of the times he had been and he had never seen it. We quietly and calmly made our way back down stairs without exploring any of the other rooms or even making it close to the attic. We didn’t speak. We didn’t run.
When we got to the window, it started. Loud banging, stomping, running coming from the top floor. Right above our heads. Those rules I told you about staying calm? Out the window. Just like us. We had tried shouting, communicating and doing anything we could to calm down whatever we had angered. It didn’t stop. One by one the boys started jumping their way out and holding back the board. I was last to get out and by time I had turned my back to the stair case I thought someone was going to pull me right back into the building. The noise stopped.
I jumped out and we started sprinting towards the gate, we climbed over it.
I turned back and saw our friend, the one who hadn’t come in with us, following us out. We immediately started shouting at him, telling him off. It wasn’t funny, whatever sick joke he thought he was playing just scared us half to death. We have run into squatters before and they aren’t always the nicest people. With all the blood on the floor it wasn’t nice to think maybe we had came across a scene someone NEVER wanted us to see.
He promised us, he had come around the back to try and find a way in, when he found the stairs next to the window. He walked all the way to top and swore he had heard someone from the other side of the metal door but assumed it was us. That’s when he heard a big bang. None of us made a big bang. He didn’t start running down the stairs until he heard us panicking to get out the window. So what i originally thought might’ve been him running down the stairs, creating all the banging that made us panic and start shouting wasn’t what had happened. SUPPOSEDLY he hadn’t run down those stairs until after. Which means the banging we hear came before he even started making his way down the stairs.
When I think back to the series of events, there was a loud bang, which made us all start shouting and squabbling out the window. That bang must’ve been the same bang our friend heard. The RUNNING we heard must’ve been our friend running down the stairs afterwards which created even MORE panic. With that being said, he could’ve lied. I don’t see why he’d have any reason to run down the stairs with that much force unless he was be honest about hearing us. That first bang we all heard, I don’t know what that was. I don’t think I want to know.
The best possible outcome is it was our friend and he’s lying. Which I SURE hope he is.
That doesn’t explain the blood on the floor and I’ve definitely had some REAL face to face encounters with squatters and security if you wanted to hear about them but the uncertainty with this one, it keeps me awake.