I was the lucky member of a group of five friends, who in their spare time, visited abandoned houses in order to record videos to post on the internet. We did this partly for fun and partly because we generated some revenue from our videos. One day, our adventures almost ended in tragedy.

We travelled two hours by bus to reach our destination. We spent another hour finding the location of the place, which turned out to be a shabby-old house in the middle of a vast countryside. There were no other inhabitants in proximity. My friend Gabriel forced the door open. I was filming our every move with my professional camera. The house inside was massive. It was furnished in 19th-century style furniture, all taking dust. I assumed the furniture must be worth a fortune at today's market price. We came across a rat in the living room. Gabriel made himself comfortable on the antique sofa. I filmed him as he made silly jokes about the place. Our online viewers liked humour.

When I went into the kitchen, I caught sight of the oddest of things. On the table was a bowl of fresh fruits and some canned food. I quickly came to the realisation that the house was not uninhabited as we originally thought. Suddenly, I heard a scream. I rushed to the living room and saw that my friends were being ambushed by an ominous group of three middle-aged men. All of them were armed with knives.

'Who sent you!' shouted one man, his face red with anger 'The police? To hell with these reporters!' The men must be squatters. I was shocked at the sight. I quickly regained composure and scanned my mind for a solution. The men had not noticed me yet, consequently, I had the element of surprise. Panicked, I gathered all my strength and threw a chair at the men. They were taken aback and tried to dodge it. My friends needed not to be told that it was time to run. My diversion worked. We successfully escaped the house, at the expense of some of our filming equipment that was left behind. Nobody pursued us. All of us reached home safely.

After a few days, I made the dreadful discovery of who the men were. I read an article about three dangerous men who had escaped from a prison, located in proximity to the abandoned house. I called the police immediately to report our story. I realised we had a true encounter with danger.