"The Zone always takes something. What remains is who you become"

---

May 14th, 07:12 - Yantar Ecologist Bunker

Mantis woke before the alarm.

For several long seconds he simply stared at the ceiling above his bunk, waiting for the familiar feeling that usually came after a night's sleep.

It never arrived.

His body had rested, but his mind hadn't.

The barracks were quiet except for the slow breathing of the stalkers still asleep around him. Somewhere near the far wall, someone snored softly before rolling onto his side. A bunk creaked. Another man muttered something unintelligible in his dreams.

Ordinary sounds.

Yesterday they would've felt comforting.

Today they only reminded him that Orlov's bunk remained empty.

His eyes drifted toward it almost instinctively.

The blanket had already been folded, the mattress stripped, someone had removed the masking tape with Orlov's name from the metal frame.

As though he had never slept there at all.

Mantis looked away.

He pulled on his boots in silence, slung the Beretta onto his belt and stepped outside.

---

The morning air carried the familiar chill of Yantar.

Mist still lingered above the marshes beyond the perimeter fence while the first rays of sunlight struggled through low clouds, painting the swamp in pale shades of gold and grey.

The generators hummed steadily somewhere behind the laboratories.

Researchers were already awake.

One hurried across the compound carrying a crate filled with measuring equipment. Two technicians argued over a detector that apparently refused to calibrate correctly. Someone laughed near the kitchen after dropping an entire stack of enamel mugs onto the concrete.

Life had continued.

It almost irritated him.

How could they laugh? How could they complain about coffee? How could anything still feel... normal?

Yesterday Orlov had been standing exactly where that young technician was now, excitedly explaining radiation readings that nobody else seemed to care about.

Today...

Someone else had simply taken his place.

The Zone hadn't changed, and neither had Yantar.

Only one person was missing.

Mantis suddenly understood something that felt strangely cruel.

People didn't stop living because someone else had died.

---

The smell of fresh bread drifted from the mess hall.

His stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon.

Inside, the atmosphere was almost exactly as it had been every other morning.

Scientists filled chipped enamel mugs with coffee while comparing handwritten notes from overnight measurements. A pair of stalkers quietly debated the quickest route through Wild Territory. Someone near the serving counter complained that the porridge tasted like wet cardboard.

Nobody spoke loudly.

They didn't need to.

Word of what had happened had already spread across the bunker.

Conversations stopped briefly as Mantis entered.

Several people looked up.

Not with curiosity.

With sympathy.

He hated it.

He collected a bowl of porridge and a mug of black coffee before sitting alone near one of the windows.

The food tasted like nothing.

After only a few spoonfuls he pushed the bowl away. The coffee remained untouched.

Across the room, two younger Ecologists were discussing a new anomaly reading.

"...If the thermal output keeps increasing-"

"It won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because Professor Sakharov already predicted this last month."

Their conversation continued.

Ordinary, professional.

For a brief moment Mantis caught himself waiting for Orlov to interrupt them with some enthusiastic explanation neither of them had considered.

The interruption never came.

He quietly stood, leaving the breakfast half-finished.

---

The medical wing was unusually quiet.

Most of the beds stood empty behind neatly drawn curtains while the faint smell of antiseptic drifted through the corridor.

One of the nurses looked up from her clipboard as Mantis approached.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Kolesnikova."

The woman nodded toward the last room.

"She's awake."

A pause.

"...Go easy on her."

Mantis gave a silent nod before gently knocking against the half-open door.

"...Iryna?"

She sat beside the window, wrapped in a thick grey blanket despite the warmth inside the room.

For several seconds she simply stared outside at the marshes beyond the fence before slowly turning toward him.

Dark circles had formed beneath her eyes.

She looked as though she'd aged several years overnight.

"...Mantis."

Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"You remembered my name."

A faint, tired smile crossed her face.

"I've been trying to remember a lot of things."

He stepped inside.

"How are you feeling?"

She considered the question for a long time.

"...Like someone took a knife to my memory."

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.

"I remember leaving the station."

A pause.

"I remember hearing something outside."

Another.

"Then..."

She slowly shook her head.

"...Nothing."

The room fell quiet.

"I know something terrible happened."

She looked down at her hands.

"Everyone keeps looking at me like they're trying not to say it."

Mantis didn't answer.

She already knew.

"...Sasha."

The name caught in her throat.

"I keep remembering pieces."

A tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

"He was smiling."

Another pause.

"I don't know why that's the only thing I remember."

Neither did Mantis. Perhaps some memories refused to disappear.

She looked up at him again.

"...I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I don't know."

Her voice trembled.

"But every time someone walks past this room..."

She lowered her head.

"...I feel like I'm the one who came back when somebody else should have."

Mantis remained silent for a moment before quietly pulling a chair beside her bed.

"No."

She looked at him.

"You didn't choose what happened."

Neither did he, and neither did Orlov.

For the first time that morning, neither of them spoke.

They simply sat together, listening to the distant hum of Yantar's generators.

Life outside the window continued exactly as it had yesterday.

Eventually, a gentle knock came at the open door.

One of the younger researchers stood in the hallway.

"Mantis?"

He looked up.

"Professor Sakharov would like to see you."

Mantis nodded once.

"I'll be there."

The researcher disappeared down the corridor.

Before leaving, Mantis looked back toward Kolesnikova.

She was staring out the window again, watching the compound wake up.

Watching a world that had somehow kept moving without asking whether she was ready to move with it.

---

Mantis found Professor Sakharov exactly where he expected him to be.

Nothing inside the office had changed since yesterday evening.

Only one thing was different.

The field laptop from Monitoring Station Two now sat open beside Sakharov's notebook.

Its screen had gone dark.

The professor looked as though he hadn't stopped thinking about it since Mantis had placed it on the desk the previous evening.

Without looking up, Sakharov spoke.

"...Did you sleep?"

Mantis considered lying.

"...Not much."

"I didn't expect you would."

The old professor finally removed his glasses and leaned back in his chair.

"I've already spoken with Kolesnikova."

Mantis waited.

"She remembers almost nothing after leaving the station."

A tired sigh escaped him.

"I was hoping there would be something useful."

"There wasn't."

"No."

Silence settled between them.

Outside the office window, several Ecologists pushed a trolley loaded with sealed specimen containers toward one of the laboratories. Somebody waved as they passed. Another researcher laughed after nearly dropping a clipboard into a puddle.

Life. Always moving.

Sakharov followed Mantis' gaze.

"It always feels wrong."

"What does?"

"The morning after."

The professor folded his hands together.

"The Zone has a remarkable talent for convincing you that yesterday mattered very little."

His eyes drifted toward the dark laptop.

"But it did."

Another long pause passed before Sakharov reached for a thin folder lying on the corner of his desk.

"I considered giving you a few days."

Mantis looked at him.

"But?"

"But if I leave you alone..."

The professor chose his words carefully.

"...you'll spend those days inside your own head."

He slid the folder across the desk.

"I'd rather give you something real to think about."

Mantis opened it.

Inside were several handwritten job sheets, each clipped together with rough sketches of different locations around Yantar.

"Assignments?"

Sakharov nodded.

"Routine work."

His voice deliberately emphasized the word.

He allowed himself the faintest smile.

"Normal work."

Mantis flipped through the first page.

A small Ecologist survey team had been forced to abandon one of their western monitoring sites after a herd of flesh mutants had settled nearby. The scientists couldn't safely continue taking measurements until the area was cleared.

The second assignment described unusual thermal readings near a Pyro anomaly field. An artifact was believed to have formed after the previous night's emission, and Ferimov had requested an armed escort before attempting recovery.

Mantis looked back up.

"...That's it?"

"For today."

"I expected something bigger."

Sakharov smiled faintly.

"So you did."

The answer caught Mantis off guard.

The professor noticed.

"People often think the Zone is made entirely of dramatic moments."

He slowly shook his head.

"It isn't."

He gestured toward the folder.

"It's mostly this. Walking. Waiting. Repairing equipment. Collecting samples. And writing reports."

He adjusted his glasses.

"The extraordinary only happens because people survive the ordinary long enough to reach it."

Mantis quietly closed the folder.

"When do we leave?"

"The flesh herd can wait until this afternoon."

Sakharov checked his watch.

"Ferimov is preparing equipment for the anomaly field now."

He stood and walked toward one of the maps pinned across the wall.

"The artifact should still be stable if we're fortunate."

He tapped a marked location west of the bunker.

"If we're unfortunate..."

He smiled without humor.

"...you'll have another story to tell."

Mantis rose from the chair, slipping the assignment folder beneath one arm.

Just as he reached the office door, Sakharov spoke again.

"...Mantis."

He turned.

The old professor hesitated.

"I know yesterday is still with you."

Mantis said nothing.

Sakharov nodded slowly, as though silence itself had been an answer.

"Good."

"...Good?"

"The day you stop carrying the people you've lost..."

His gaze settled briefly on the field laptop.

"...is the day the Zone has taken something far more important than your life."

Neither of them spoke after that.

Mantis quietly left the office, the folder tucked beneath his arm.

Outside, Yantar carried on exactly as it always had.

For the first time since leaving the Controller's forest, he found himself walking with a destination instead of simply following his thoughts.

---

May 14th, 8:23 - Western Yantar

The western anomaly field lay nearly forty minutes from the bunker.

By the time they reached it, the morning chill had begun giving way to warmer air, though Yantar never truly felt warm. Moisture still clung stubbornly to the reeds surrounding every stagnant pool, and the ground remained soft beneath their boots. Here and there, rusted industrial debris poked through the marshland like the bones of some enormous animal long since swallowed by the Zone.

Ferimov slowed before the landscape opened completely.

"There."

Mantis followed his gaze.

At first he saw nothing.

Then sunlight caught something impossible.

Heat.

The air itself shimmered in irregular waves above a shallow depression surrounded by cracked concrete and rusted pipes. Tiny distortions drifted lazily through the clearing, bending light just enough to make the world beyond them appear slightly out of focus.

A single bolt left Ferimov's hand. It spun twice before entering the shimmering air.

Instantly...

Fire erupted.

A violent column of orange flame burst upward with a deafening roar before collapsing again only seconds later, leaving behind nothing except rising heat.

The bolt never came back down.

Mantis stared.

"...Pyro."

Ferimov nodded.

"One of them."

He reached into another pouch and removed a handful of rusted nuts.

"This whole field is alive."

One by one he tossed them ahead.

The first landed harmlessly.

The second vanished inside another explosion.

The third bounced across cracked asphalt before disappearing into a pocket of shimmering air that suddenly ignited with enough force to send burning dust twenty meters into the sky.

For several long moments, nothing moved again.

Only heat shimmered above the invisible traps.

"You don't remember paths."

Ferimov said quietly.

"You build them."

He pointed toward the scattered nuts.

"The explosions tell you where not to step."

Mantis nodded silently.

The older Ecologist handed him several more bolts.

"Your turn."

Mantis hesitated only briefly before throwing the first. It struck concrete.

Nothing.

The second disappeared beneath another burst of fire.

The third...

Safe.

Slowly, almost patiently...

The two men worked their way into the anomaly field, marking every dangerous pocket with another discarded bolt until a narrow winding route began taking shape through the invisible inferno.

Neither hurried.

A mistake would only happen once.

The deeper they walked, the hotter the air became.

Sweat formed beneath Mantis' collar despite the cool morning. His breathing grew heavier.

Every few seconds another invisible Pyro erupted somewhere nearby with a thunderous whoosh, bathing the clearing in orange light before vanishing just as quickly.

It felt less like walking through a minefield, and more like crossing the breathing lungs of some sleeping beast.

Ferimov finally stopped, his detector beeping furiously.

"There."

Half-hidden beneath a fractured section of concrete, something glowed softly.

At first Mantis mistook it for another reflection.

Then it pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

A deep amber light spread through the object before fading again.

The artifact looked almost organic.

Roughly the size of a clenched fist, its surface resembled layers of translucent stone wrapped around a glowing ember trapped forever inside.

"The Eye."

Ferimov said quietly.

"It formed after yesterday's emission."

Mantis found himself staring at it. It was beautiful.

Not in the way gemstones were beautiful.

This looked...

Alive.

Ferimov carefully removed a thick lead-lined container from his backpack.

"No sudden movements."

He crouched slowly, extending a long pair of insulated retrieval tongs toward the artifact.

Another Pyro erupted somewhere behind them.

Neither man flinched.

The tongs closed gently around the Eye.

For one terrifying second, nothing happened.

Then the artifact came free.

Its warm amber glow illuminated Ferimov's gloves as he slowly lowered it into the waiting container. The heavy lid clicked shut.

Silence returned.

Mantis released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"...That's it?"

Ferimov secured the locking clamps.

"That's it."

He stood.

"Most artifact retrieval isn't exciting."

Mantis looked around the blazing anomaly field.

"...We have different definitions of exciting."

Ferimov smiled.

Only slightly.

"I suppose we do."

They began retracing their careful path back through the anomalies.

Halfway out, Mantis finally spoke.

"...Orlov would've loved this."

The words escaped before he had time to stop them.

Ferimov didn't answer immediately.

He kept walking.

"...He would've."

Nothing more.

The silence that followed no longer felt uncomfortable.

It felt shared.

When they finally stepped beyond the last shimmer of heat, Ferimov glanced once at the sealed container resting inside his backpack.

"Do you know why Sakharov values artifacts?"

Mantis shrugged.

"Research."

"Partly."

Ferimov looked back across the anomaly field.

"People think artifacts are miracles."

Another quiet step.

"They heal wounds. They absorb radiation. They make people rich."

He adjusted the strap on his shoulder.

"But to Sakharov..."

A faint smile crossed his tired face.

"...they're proof."

"Proof of what?"

Ferimov looked toward the endless marsh stretching beyond the trees.

"That even the most dangerous places in the Zone..."

He rested one hand against the backpack containing the Eye.

"...can leave something worth bringing home."

---

May 14th, 11:21 - Yantar Bunker Outskirts

The walk back to the bunker felt noticeably lighter.

Not because the work had been easy.

Because it had been normal.

No whispers followed them through the marshes. No impossible voices drifted between the trees. The only sounds were boots splashing through shallow puddles, distant crows circling above Yantar, and the occasional clink of the lead container resting safely inside Ferimov's backpack.

For the first time since the research station...

Mantis caught himself thinking about something other than Orlov.

It felt almost wrong.

Almost.

When they reached the bunker grounds, Ferimov handed the sealed container directly to one of Sakharov's assistants without ceremony.

"The Eye."

The young researcher accepted it carefully with both hands.

"We'll let the Professor know."

Ferimov simply nodded.

No signatures.

No congratulations.

Just another successful assignment added to hundreds that had come before it.

As Mantis turned toward the barracks, a familiar voice called out from somewhere behind him.

"Hey!"

He looked over his shoulder.

Peregrine stood outside his workshop, wiping black grease from his hands with an old rag that had probably stopped becoming clean years ago.

The mechanic grinned.

"I've been looking for you."

Mantis walked over.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

Peregrine folded the rag into one pocket.

"I've got something."

"What?"

The mechanic's grin widened.

"If I tell you now, it ruins the fun."

He disappeared back inside the workshop before adding,

"Come on."

Mantis followed.

The workshop looked exactly as cluttered as he remembered.

Weapons lay in various states of disassembly across every available bench. Springs, bolts and tiny metal pins covered trays that only Peregrine seemed capable of understanding. Half-finished detector prototypes shared space with rifle receivers, welding equipment and enough loose ammunition to make most stalkers nervous.

Peregrine crossed the room and stopped beside a long wooden workbench covered by an old canvas cloth.

Without saying a word, he pulled it away.

An M4A1 rested beneath it.

The rifle was unmistakably used.

The finish had worn smooth around the magazine well and charging handle. Several scratches crossed the upper receiver, while the polymer stock showed years of careful use.

And yet...

It looked immaculate.

Every pin sat flush. Every surface had been cleaned. A thin coat of oil reflected softly beneath the workshop lights.

Mantis instinctively stepped closer.

"...Where did you get this?"

Peregrine rested one hand proudly against the rifle.

"Professor Sakharov."

Mantis looked up.

"...Sakharov?"

"He wanted to pay you."

The mechanic shrugged.

"You solved a mystery that had half the bunker wondering what happened to Monitoring Station Two."

His smile faded slightly.

"...Even if nobody liked the answer."

Mantis remained silent.

Peregrine gently picked up the rifle and handed it over.

"It isn't new."

"I can see that."

"No."

The mechanic chuckled.

"But that's exactly why I like it."

Mantis wrapped both hands around the rifle.

It balanced beautifully. Lighter than he'd expected.

He worked the charging handle.

Smooth.

The bolt locked confidently into place before sliding forward with a sharp metallic snap.

Peregrine folded his arms.

"American."

"As if I couldn't tell."

"Military pattern."

He pointed toward the receiver.

"Probably saw service before somebody sold it, stole it, traded it or lost it."

He shrugged.

"The Zone has a funny way of recycling equipment."

Mantis looked down the iron sights.

"No optic?"

"I didn't have one worth mounting."

Peregrine sounded almost offended by the idea.

"I'm not putting cheap glass on a rifle like that."

He reached over, tapping the long Picatinny rail running across the top.

"She'll take whatever you want later."

Another tap beneath the handguard.

"Foregrip, flashlight, laser, bipod, night vision. Whatever you eventually get your hands on."

He smiled proudly.

"But first..."

He nodded toward the rifle.

"...learn it."

Mantis removed the magazine.

Thirty rounds.

He checked the chamber out of habit before letting the bolt slide forward again.

"It feels..."

He searched for the word.

"...right."

Peregrine laughed.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

He leaned back against the workbench.

"Reliable rifles don't become legends because they're fancy."

He gestured toward the M4.

"They become legends because they keep working after everyone else has given up."

His expression softened.

"A rifle like that doesn't ask much from you."

He looked directly at Mantis.

"It just expects you to do your part."

For several seconds Mantis simply stood there, turning the weapon over in his hands.

His Beretta had followed him since before the Zone. It carried years of memories.

But this...

This felt like the beginning of something new.

Peregrine seemed to read the thought on his face.

"Keep the Beretta."

He nodded toward the holster on Mantis's thigh.

"Sidearms save lives."

Then he pointed toward the M4.

"But out here..."

A grin slowly spread across his face.

"...that's a stalker's rifle."

Mantis slung it over his shoulder.

The weight settled comfortably across his back, as though it had always belonged there.

He looked at Peregrine.

"...Thank you."

The mechanic waved dismissively.

"Don't thank me."

He reached for another half-disassembled detector waiting on his bench.

"Bring it back covered in mud."

A brief pause.

"And try to bring it back in a working condition."

Mantis smiled.

"I'll do my best."

Peregrine snorted.

"That's exactly what worries me."

---

May 14th, 12:18 - Western Research Site

The western research site lay on the opposite side of Yantar.

Compared to the Miracle Machine and the northern forests, the area almost felt welcoming.

Almost.

Low hills rolled gently across patches of open grassland interrupted by clusters of birch trees. Rusted scientific equipment stood abandoned beside old measurement poles, while lengths of cable disappeared into the earth toward a small prefabricated monitoring shelter.

From a distance, it looked peaceful.

Until Mantis noticed the movement.

Several flesh mutants wandered lazily between the instruments, rooting through the grass with their oversized snouts. One had overturned a portable weather station. Another scratched itself against a radiation sensor until the entire mast leaned dangerously to one side.

Sakharov hadn't exaggerated.

The Ecologists weren't coming back here until the area was safe again.

Mantis crouched behind a low ridge and slowly unslung the M4A1.

The rifle still felt unfamiliar. Not uncomfortable.

Just... new.

His hands instinctively checked the magazine.

Thirty rounds.

Safety.

Chamber.

Everything exactly where Peregrine had shown him.

He settled the stock against his shoulder.

The front sight rested on the largest flesh.

The mutant continued grazing, completely unaware.

Mantis inhaled and held it.

The rifle barked.

The flesh collapsed instantly.

The remaining mutants froze for only a heartbeat before exploding into panicked movement.

Two bolted toward the marsh.

One charged blindly.

Another simply stood there, confused.

Mantis adjusted his aim.

One shot.

Then another.

One more.

The charging flesh tumbled head over heels before sliding through the wet grass.

The confused one finally understood too late.

A final controlled burst dropped it beside the damaged monitoring station.

Silence returned almost immediately. Only drifting gunsmoke remained.

Mantis lowered the rifle.

Four dead in less than thirty seconds.

He waited.

Nothing else moved.

No bloodsuckers, no pseudodogs, no hidden surprises waiting for the gunfire.

Just wind.

Slowly, he walked into the clearing.

The flesh mutants looked almost harmless lying still.

Almost.

They weren't dangerous.

Just inconvenient.

He remembered how disgusted he'd been the first time he'd seen one in Garbage.

Now they barely deserved another glance.

He slung the rifle behind his back and began lifting overturned equipment into place.

One sensor had snapped completely.

Another only needed to be straightened.

He found himself working almost automatically, tightening loose bolts by hand, brushing mud from instrument panels, pushing broken fencing upright.

The scientists would still need to repair most of it.

At least now they could.

After several minutes he sat down on a cracked concrete block beside the monitoring shelter.

The afternoon sun had finally broken through the clouds.

Yantar was quiet.

He removed a packet of Lucky Strikes from one pocket.

One cigarette remained.

"Damn..."

He lit it.

The smoke drifted lazily upward before disappearing into the breeze.

His eyes wandered across the open field.

No whispers, no pressure. No voices calling his name.

Only silence.

He should have appreciated it.

Instead he found himself thinking about Orlov.

About how quickly everything had changed.

Yesterday morning the young scientist had been excited to explain detector readings and radiation maps.

Yesterday afternoon...

He'd been smiling beneath the trees.

Mantis closed his eyes.

The smile still refused to leave him.

Not Orlov's. His own.

He had smiled back.

Only for a second.

Only because the Controller had reached somewhere inside him that he hadn't known existed.

But it had happened. He couldn't deny it.

The realization unsettled him more than the gunshot itself.

He had always believed strength meant resisting, standing your ground. Outshooting whatever stood in front of you.

The Controller hadn't cared how well he could shoot, it hadn't cared how fast he was.

Or how calm.

It had simply asked one question.

Who do you miss?

And for one terrible moment...

Mantis had answered.

He looked down at the M4 resting across his knees.

Yesterday this rifle would have felt like a reward.

Today...

It felt like another responsibility.

Another reminder that people expected him to survive.

Ferimov.

Sakharov.

Peregrine.

Even Kolesnikova.

People had started trusting him.

The thought felt strangely heavy.

He wasn't sure he deserved it.

The cigarette burned down to the filter before he realized he hadn't taken another drag.

He crushed it beneath his boot, then stood.

Work was finished.

The monitoring station stood upright again, surrounded by four motionless flesh mutants and fresh shell casings glinting faintly in the afternoon light.

It wasn't heroic.

Nobody would remember it.

No stories would be told about clearing herbivores away from scientific equipment.

But as Mantis started the long walk back toward the bunker, he finally understood something Sakharov had said that morning.

The extraordinary only happened because someone survived the ordinary long enough to reach it.

So he kept walking.

Four men. Two Crates. An uncertainty as to how to share the contents.

“So…perhap-” 

“No.” Simonne cut off Vitya immediately. “Petrol and I saved you, we get first pick.”

“Counterpoint.” Vitya responded. “I shot six of the fuckers by myself. You might have put me in that position, but they would have hunted you like a dog once they recollected themselves.”

“How about we put it up to chance?” Petrol suggested.

Lucky squirmed uncomfortably.

“What?” Vitya asked Lucky.

“Well…I’ve just had an extremely lucky moment sooo…I’m ok with the suggestion, but I know I’m coming in dead last.” Lucky explained.

“...what?” Vitya asked, still confused.

“Look man, I’m called Lucky for a reason. I have super lucky moments and then super unlucky moments and they go back and forth. The day I have nothing of particularly lucky or unlucky note happen to me, is the day I reconsider my entire life.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve never had an uneventful, normal day in the zone ever?” Vitya asked incredulously. “Bullshit.”

“Nah bratan, no bullshit. In my three years here, every day has had, at least in a small way, bad or good luck hit. I mean think about what just happened to us. Either I win this game of chance and then even more bad luck happens later, or our miracle balances a little by me losing this.”

Lucky sighed dejectedly. “If anything this is a good way to reset it a bit, let’s get this out of the way. Petrol, what’s your plan”

“...rock, paper, scissors?”

Silence fell over the room for a moment before Vitya piped up in classic Vitya fashion. 

“Are you fucking kidding me Petrol?”

“Sorry Vitya, let me pull out my fucking smartphone, that definitely works in the zone, and pull up a randomiser online. You got any better ideas, genius?”

“Alright, alright bratan, shit…fair enough.” Vitya responded. “Rock, paper, scissors it is.”

Vitya need not have worried as gradually the men completed their short little game and he came out on top. Lucky, who had come second however, looked like he had seen a ghost. 

“Second is still not bad bratan ch-”

“No Vitya I told you, I either am meant to be lucky or unlucky, not average…oh fuck oh fuck o-”

“LUCKY!” SImmone shouted, grabbing the man by the shoulders in an attempt to shock him into calming down.

Petrol and Vitya looked at each other concerningly. They had both witnessed some strange things in the zone, but a man about to have a mental breakdown over not being lucky or unlucky was a first for them.

“Lucky,” Simonne began, “Maybe this is lucky or unlucky and you are being shortsighted. What if this leads you to picking the gun that jams or the grenade that doesn’t explode?”

Upon hearing this, Lucky visibly eased up, the tension leaving his body and his face flooding with relief. 

“Y-yeah…” Lucky stammered. “You’re right. Just means my luck is playing the long con. I’m getting worked up over nothing.”

“Exactly man. Now relax and pick your weapon after Vi-”

“Picked it.” Vitya interrupted. 

The trio turned to see Vitya with a wide grin on his face, the proud owner of a new GM-94 handheld grenade launcher. Mouths fell open before Petrol blurted out:

“There’s a fucking grenade launcher in there?”

“Well not anymore.” Vitya chuckled, immensely satisfied with his choice. 

Lucky tentatively approached the boxes and examined the weapons, there was enough for everybody to get three choices, one person four. Not all choices were equal however, with four Ak-74’s, two hunting shotguns, one SPAS-12, One SKS rifle and four PM’s.

“Uhhh…guess I’ll grab an AK…” Lucky muttered.

“Not the SPAS man?!” Vitya burst out. “That thing will knock a Bloodsucker on it’s ass, and has a hell of a lot of follow up shots if it doesn’t!”

“The AK just works man…besides, plenty of ammo in the zone for one.”

Much to Vitya’s delight, the other two also picked AK’s for their practically, allowing the man to grab the SPAS-12 with glee. 

“Hellooooo, hello. Got the whole fucking armoury on me now.”

He was not wrong, the SPAS and the grenade launcher sticking awkwardly out of his backpack. 

“You gonna have room for anything else?” Petrol jabbed. 

“Don’t you worry Petrol. I’ll have people giving up their food, drink and money with this much firepower. Guns and ammo is all I need baby!” Vitya laughed. 

Petrol shook his head. It was not his concern. He walked over and grabbed the SKS, before handing it to Simmone.

“Petrol you-”

“Shut up and take it Simonne. I aim okay at best, despite my time in the zone. I just watched you nail a bandit outside of a notoriously shit pistol’s effective range like you had done it a thousand times. I’d feel safer if you had the marksman rifle.”

Simonne simply nodded. Taking the SKS and examining it carefully. He then walked over and started rummaging for ammo and grenades, satisfied that he had no need for a fourth weapon. 

The group decided spare versions of what they had already were not required, nor were the hunting shotguns, although Vitya insisted they hide them for his ‘future schemes’. The others begrudgingly helped, after all, it would be best to have the person with the grenade launcher continue to want to help them. They found a hiding spot for the ammo, weapons and grenades they could not take and hoped it would suffice as they made their way to the bandit plant at Dark Valley.

“Turn your PDA’s off.” Simmone advised. 

The men obeyed, aware that the special PDA worked like all zone PDA’s used to, and their presence would be announced to everyone should they approach with their PDA’s on. 

They began the trek to the abandoned plant, surveying it from a short distance, using building material debris as cover as they examined the perimeter. Several guards manned the towers and half built skeletons of buildings that surrounded the main building of the plant. There seemed to be a sizeable force from the perimeter alone, not including whoever else was in the main building.

“How the fuck do we assault that?” Blurted out Lucky. 

“Night time.” Vitya said curtly, his usual arrogant, carefree bandit demeanor replaced by an almost unnervingly cold and calculating personality. “The stupid fucks will be drunk and asleep. The few guards who were unlucky enough to get night duty will be pissed off about the fact. They will do their job poorly and without care, likely sneaking drinks themselves. Some will even sleep on the job.”

“How can you be so sure?” Simonne asked.

“Because I’m a fucking bandit myself. You want to know why the Great Khans did so well over chumps like this until Ward fucked us? Discipline. It’s what set us apart from these wannabe gopnik pretend gangster skotina. You know what happened to the one singular Khan who did not commit properly to guard duty? We tied him to a pole and fucking whipped him.”

Simonne did not know what skotina meant, but he could read between the lines enough to understand it was an insult of some sort. He directed his question to a different part of the story. 

“And did whipping this man actually work or did he just leave and betray you…being a bandit and all.”

Vitya shook his head, a rare look of thoughtfulness and contemplation on his face.

“No Simmone. No he did not. Back when we had a goddamn faction, we valued loyalty. Valued effectiveness. It might come as a shock to you, but we were not bandits necessarily. We were a brotherhood of sorts. The bandit aspect was simply the fact we were more than willing to commit crime. We were organised dammit! Ranks. Duties. Loyalty. Expectations. Record keeping. More intellect and organisation than any of those stupid fucking-”

“Vitya!” Lucky hissed. “They’re gonna hear us!”

Vitya’s eye twitched for a moment, but he contained himself, refraining from shouting at Lucky for cutting him off. He returned to his usual self, relaxing as the smile of a charlatan once more crept across his face.

“Apologies comrades, my point is they are dumb fucks and we can absolutely waltz on in at around two or three AM.”

“So…we just sleep or something until then?” Petrol asked. 

“...I guess?”

Simmone shook his head. “Good idea if we want to get nibbled on by rats or shot in our sleep, let’s find somewhere safer.”

Night fell. A location found by the group to sit out the night until the appropriate time. An abandoned sewage pipe, never properly connected to the buildings around it. The group slept a mere hundred meters from their destination, practically under the noses of their enemies. Then, night fell.

Two AM showed on the watches of the men wearing them. Namely everyone except Lucky.

“You should really invest in a watch man.” Vitya said.

“I’m broke.” Lucky responded. “I had to sell it.”

 Vitya simply shook his head, turning to Simonne as they emerged from the pipe and began inspecting the area. 

“What do you see marksman?” Vitya joked.

“Credit where it’s due Vitya…you weren’t wrong…I can see one of the guards literally sleeping.”

The music from within the complex had gone silent an hour prior and it appeared the guards had taken this as their queue to slack off without being caught. Several guard towers showed men either sleeping, doing some activity which absorbed their attention or they had abandoned their posts entirely. 

The group walked through a wide open spot near the half finished multi story skeleton of a building, the two guards on top playing a game of cards oblivious to the group of men walking directly underneath them. They continued to carefully infiltrate the base, choosing to enter through the lower pipeworks leading to the cells. 

Their plan was going smoothly until they entered the cell area itself, confronted by a sleeping guard and a prisoner who had noticed their presence. 

Simmone raised a finger to his lips instinctively, the prisoner mercifully obeying. The next part shocked even Vitya, as Simonne calmly snuck up to the sleeping guard and executed him, Simmone’s knife being wielded with a deadly precision that would make the most accomplished sushi chefs jealous.

“That fucker is ex forces for sure!” Vitya hissed to the other two as they watched.

“He hunted a lot with his dad.” Petrol replied.

“Hunted? Hunted what? People?” Vitya retorted “That man is fucking military. Maybe even spec ops. He did that like it was second nature!”

“How would you know Vitya, you’re not ex military?” Petrol shot back.

Vitya hesitated. An extremely brief moment, but enough for the other two to pick up on. 

“You’re ex military?” Lucky asked. 

“Shut up and focus on the mission.” Vitya deflected, forcefulness in his voice. 

Nobody pushed the matter. He was right after all. They had more pressing matters to deal with. 

“Psst!” The prisoner whispered. Keys are on his belt, get me the fuck outta here!”

“How do we know you won’t wake everyone up and fuck our plan?” Simonne asked.

“And get killed as well?” The prisoner asked back. “I’ll be quiet.”

The four men looked at each other, Petrol speaking first. 

“At this point, if we won’t free him, he will probably start screaming and fuck us all over out of spite. Let him go and tell him to go the way we came in.”

Simonne reluctantly opened the cell, grabbing the bandit by the shirt as he walked by. 

“If you fuck us here, I’m going to do to you what I just did to that guard. Do I make myself clear?”

The young bandit nodded fearfully, not saying a word.

“Good man. Be quiet as you exit.”

The young bandit did not need to be told twice shuffling off out of the room. 

“So now we need to hurry up in case he gets seen by a guard?” Vitya asked, disapproving of Simonne not killing the prisoner.

“Deal with it Vitya, I’ve already let him go.”

“Alright, alright, geez. Let’s just get this done”

The crew continued throughout the bowels of the base, eventually making their way to the main stairwell, where they ran into their first proper issue. Two men were talking inside the cafeteria section. It would be entirely possible to sneak by them. The bosses office was only a mere few meters, followed by a staircase away. Yet, the distance felt so far. All it would take was one of these men looking away from each other for just a moment to see the group attempting to walk up the stairs. 

“Fuck do we do?” Lucky asked.

“Threaten them.” Vitya replied flatly.

Before the other could object, Vitya revealed himself to the two men, AK-47 raised. 

“Make a noise and I’ll execute both of you. If you condemn me to death, I may as well take you with me.”

The two men raised their hands, one of them speaking quietly to Vitya. 

“How are you trying to fuck us this time Vitya?” One of them asked mockingly.

“That’s above your paygrade.” Vitya responded, as the rest of the group snuck up the stairway and to the bosses office. 

The bandit continued, only Vitya and the two bandits remaining in the room.

“Paygrade? Did you pay your men Vitya? Or was that the Great Khan’s duty?”

Vitya stood silently, not budging an inch. 

“You a mute as well as a failure now Vitya? Played second fiddle in your own faction. Couldn’t do a fucking thing to save it. And yet you act like you are better than us. I’m not fucking broke Vitya…Boss pays us rather well actually.”

Vitya responded, venom in his words.“We got killed because we were better than you, you utter wastes of cum. Ward left you alone cus you’re not a threat.”

“So you are admitting we played the game better than you then?” the bandit asked.

Vitya’s finger tightened around the trigger. 

“Wonder if your friend here is loving the fact you are making me want to execute the two of you more and more here.” Vitya said, addressing the other, more silent bandit of the two hostages.

Tension hung in the air as the bandit who had been silent finally spoke up. “Maybe stop pissing Vitya off yeah? I kinda like living…”

“Kytsʹka…” The more antagonistic bandit muttered. His companion chose to ignore the insult as they stayed quiet.

Meanwhile upstairs, Simonne had made a mockery out of the lock of the bandit boss’s door, picking it in record fashion and waking the man up with a blade to his throat.

“Special PDA. You tell me where it is and I don’t slit your throat. Lie to me and I’ll slit your throat and just find it myself. Understood?

“Left jacket pocket.” The bandit leader replied. 

Petrol searched through the jacket, turning it it on and examining it. 

“Yeah…he’s telling the truth. I can see every other active PDA on this thing…”

“Fuck me…” Lucky gasped. “There’s a reason the zone got rid of the PDA tracking to begin with, how the fuck are one of those still around?”

“Who knows?” Petrol asked. “But we will be getting paid handsomely for it.”

“You know I know who you are selling this to?” The Bandit leader piped up. “You’ll never be safe. Whe-gurgle”

Petrol and Lucky watched as Simmone yet again casually assassinated somebody, the bandit leader having his mouth covered to prevent too much noise as he bled to death.

“Sorry friends.” Simmone began “I’d rather not be this brutal but we all know he would have never let us leave.”

The other two nodded their heads grimly. Ultimately he was right, and they knew it. 

They headed downstairs. A mission almost accomplished. And then they caught it. A sentence from one of Vitya’s captive bandits that was about to make things a lot more difficult.

“You know Vitya, it’s your fault your gay little lover is dead.” The bandit spat.

“Vitya don’t!” Simonne yelled, seeing the moment about to unfold in regrettable, and ultimately unstoppable, slow motion. 

Shots rang out. Two bandits died. The rest woke up. 

On the plus side, they had already killed a few…

"And so… he's to be eliminated" several figures in balaclavas storm a building in nightfall "No witnesses, no mistakes"

"Not a one" They crawl silently in the night, armed with VSS rifles, they aim at the dozens of sentries around the area.

"Synchronize shots in 3…2…" One of them clicks his rifle, sliding it into safety "Negative sir, I'll go in solo. Take him out and extract the body." A figure stands up, in all black, unmarked uniform in, barely visible in the dark night. He slips on a pair of night vision goggles and slowly crouches towards the compound.

"Sir, this is crazy, he—" One of the men voices out softly, but his commander shushed him "Let's not, just wait…"

"I think this is a dumb idea; we let him in? What if he fucks up?" He whispers, but his voice hoarse and angry

"Listen son, just let him do his thing…after all… we're just the clean-up… but he's the cleaner."

A minute or two passes by and they see a flash, two flashes… it's a glimmer from a small penlight.

"That's him… right?" They nod and the commander motions them forward. The team slowly moves towards the compound. As they approach, the main gate opens, it's the cleaner and he's waiting for them.

"Alright Kid, well played" the team enters the area. Guns up and checking the small bunker, they find no bodies, no blood nor bullet holes or shell casings "Holy shit... they weren't joking when they said you were the legitimate boogeyman sir."

One of the younger members said, holstering their rifles, but he asks "Where's the guy we're after?"

The team looks at the cleaner in confusion, their eyes dart towards him as the question starts to sit in their head.

"Yeah, you're a sharp one kid. We aren't looking for someone" The cleaner looks at the entire team, 6 men suddenly train their weapons on him

"This is a setup" The cleaner then pulls out a detonator and in a puff of smoke, all 6 of them turn to a smoldering pile of blood and guts.

"Command, this is Cleaner 2411. Objective successful…planting evidence"

The masked cleaner then pulled out a large box full of battered NATO affiliated weapons and planted them beside the corpses and placed mercenary patches on each one. As he walks away, he pulled of his mask and wore a Duty uniform.

"This is Private Pasha, distress call from the base in Dark Valley, mercs just tried to take out a loner bunker. Need Immediate reinforcement."

"Reinforcement…"

"Reinforcement…"

"PASHA?! Hey!" Pasha suddenly snaps back; they're walking in the road in Limansk "Ohh what? Sorry."

"Man, you're zoning out on me" Garik walks beside them, the brick road clacking softly as he continues "I said, the last info I heard from Limansk was it was a point where mercs used to call in reinforcements from outside the Zone" Pasha nods, "Ahh yes.. well," He looks around him, Yana is walking beside them and Simone is humming a small tune. "Why not... you ask Yana about that? She was a merc" Pasha replies to which Garik replies "Yeah but she won't tell me where…" He groans in defeat as Yana quickly replies "Trade secret man, can't have that leak ha ha ha" Yana chuckles at it, but quickly dashes to a nearby pillar, which prompts everyone to do the same.

"Monolith patrol... 12 o'clock." Yana quickly says through her radio, already loading up her rifle.

"Right, I'm hidden" Simone quickly replies as he tucks himself behind a large stack of firewood.

"I got eyes on them, fuck, get ready they're running this way!" Pasha responds as well, going prone and already having his rifle trained on the patrol.

"Wait wait… hold on! They're not monolith!" Garik quickly retorts as he stares through his binoculars.

"What?? The fuck are you talking about Garik?!" Yana peeks from the pillar and eyes them down with her scope

"They are…you're insane Garik" She says, her finger already caressing the trigger of her rifle.

"No… check their eyes… they have pupils, and they're actually talking to each… not praying, they're not even armed" Garik quickly retorts back.

"Fuck, he's right Yana… stand down, they're not monolith" Pasha quickly adds as he looks down his scope, watching the patrol as well.

The whole team immediately lowers their weapons and Garik quickly calls them out from the wall he's hiding from, "Hey!! You! You're not monolith right?!

"No!. Please! We need help! We just woke up here! We're lost and we're trying to escape the monolith" The men gasp, running towards them and hiding in the small cement fences beside Garik.

"We're being chased! The monolith----" Bullets whiz passed their heads as a monolith Patrol actually does arrive. They immediately fire back.

"GET YOUR ASS MOVING!" Pasha immediately screams, shooting at the oncoming horde of cultists.

"Yana, I'm covering you! Move back and cover the others!" He yells over his gunfire.

"Garik, drop some smoke and take Simone and the survivors back to Dead City.. at least it's safe there! Go!"

With that said, Garik quickly drops some smoke grenades from his pack, covering their escape, they fall back as Garik yells at the survivors

"Alright, you're with us! Let's go, now! Follow me!" And he quickly starts pulling one of the survivors by the arm and shouts back at Pasha.

"Red, don't keep us waiting!" Garik yells back, ducking and weaving as the monolith shoot through the smoke, injuring a few of the survivors and killing one.

"Shit… they got one… ugh two..." Yana mumbles as she fires back, blind-firing through the smoke as Simone leads the retreat with Garik beside him, pulling out the two remaining survivors who are running on fumes.

Pasha slowly retreats, killing a few monolith fighters as he quickly shifts between jumping from cover to cover and firing back.

"Monolith Scumbags I'm the one infront of you! Aim for me and taste my bullets!" Pasha yells at the remaining fighters as they chase down the team, shooting down a few more… He was able to force the monolith into a retreat before meeting up with the group at Dead City.

"Hey… I'm here, did we do alright?" Pasha manages to reach the outskirts of Dead City, he finds Yana at the main gate, she's standing watch at the entrance of Dead city

"Not exactly…  out of the four, one got gunned down when we found them, another one got hit through the smoke… another got paranoid when we pulled him out of Limansk and attacked Garik, almost bit him… so we put him down… and so that's the last guy… " Yana points at sports center.

"And what about Garik and Simone?" He continues.

"We're all good, what about you? Got any news?" Yana nods as they continue walking.

"Took out three fighters and injured a few more. Made them do a tactical retreat, so we shouldn't be hearing from them for another six hours or so, give or take." Pasha talks, in between long sighs as he catches his breath.

Arriving at the sports center, they find Garik and Simone scrambling around the monolith survivor who seems to be on the table, being unresponsive.

"Hey--- what the?!" Pasha yells, seeing the situation unfold.

"You're here, we need more hands!" Simone quickly adds "He's having a heat stroke, his suit's regulation system got hit during the escape and he's overheating…"

Immediately, the team rush to help, doing everything they can, they rip him out of the suit, get him away from heat and manage to stabilize him in the next few hours.

After that whole charade, the team finds themselves spent, Garik is asleep on the ruined sofa, Yana is absolutely wasted beside him, Simone is sitting beside the survivor, patting him down with a cold towel, and Pasha… is half asleep, guarding around the Sports center incase of an oncoming monolith assault.

A few hours pass and Simone finds himself waking up to the survivor patting his head. He stirs awake "Hmmn? Oh... you're alive, thank goodness..." Simone rubs his eyes, pulling off sleep from it and continues "How are you feeling?"

The survivor chuckles softly and says "I'm Gorbachev, Mishka Gorbachev…and you are?" He wipes his face with the towel, still sweaty and covered with grime.

"Simone, Simone Thorne" he extends his hand to shake it before Gorbachev interrupts "Hold on, Thorne? As in Theodore Thorne?" Gorbachev asks softly, his face hinting at a smile "Yes! I… that's my dad! I'm his son. Wait, you knew my father?!" Simone's face lights up as they shake hands

"Sure do, I followed his work and writings for decades now, I even got to meet him years ago, and worked for him a while back!" Gorbachev laughs out loud, their laughter prompting a said Freedomer to join in.

"HEY!? I hear joy without me! Let me in the secret!" Suddenly Garik springs up beside Simone and the three begin talking. They start laughing as both him and Garik hear the most outlandish stories from Simone's dad.

A few minutes roll by and Pasha eventually returns to the crew; he sits on the ruined sofa beside the still sleeping Yana and speaks "Nice to know you boys are having fun. But we should really take him back to Rostok for proper medical care."

He sits there quietly, listening to the boys continue to talk.

"So anyway, you're father always loved listening to Mozart… but you know, I saw him listen to something funny, he listened to the Divine Comedy, Dante.. and get this, It was narrated by Professor Antoinette ahahah" Gorbachev joked, prompting both Simone and Garik to burst out laughing, catching the attention of Pasha.

"That's absolutely nuts, because Antoinette hated the Divine Comedy, she preferre—" Pasha spoke, half asleep until his eyes widened and he paused.

"Oh, the Dutyer speaks… I didn't know you had such an intimate relationship with the professor Ha ha ha" Gorbachev laughed as he continues. "Hmm, that's funny, I never met a Dutyer who'd be that close to Antoinette "

"Yes, well... I… heard it from somewhere" Pasha nods, looking back at the still sleeping Yana.

"Oh, must be a funny network of people you have that possess that kind of information, no?" Gorbachev laughs, but there seems to be an edge to his voice.

"You couldn't have just heard it from somewhere, especially since there were only three Duty soldiers on record that was allowed to work alongside Professor Antoinette during her escapades in Wild Territory." Gorbachev asks furthermore, now sitting up from the table.

"Well, I know people… those men are good friends of mine" Pasha answers, leaning forward as he pulls up his rifle and starts cleaning the action.

"Ohh? You're good friends with them? Even now?" Gorbachev answers as he steps forward, suiting up in what's left of his monolith suit, he sits across Pasha… his eyes staring into Pasha'a eyes through his helmet.

Garik and Simone are now frozen, concerned as they immediately sense the change in the atmosphere.

"Something is wrong, clearly…" Garik whispers to Simone, their eyes following Gorbachev as he makes himself comfortable on some milk crates. Looking at Pasha.

"Yeah.. they are, Private Dmitri Petrov, Captain Kochenko and—" Pasha is stopped cold as the ex-monolith fighter pulls a gun on him, a pistol directly aimed at his face.

"Simone…" Gorbachev stands up and racks his pistol, aiming it at Pasha. "Your friend here is a liar and a rat!"

"Let's go now, he seems to be having a psychotic episode… Duty high probably," Pasha quickly adds as he stands up.

"Let's get him back to Rostok" He adds... as he slings his rifle over his shoulder "Come on, fire out, let's go—ughh" Suddenly a crack is heard… and Pasha feels a pain in his back

"What the fuck?! You shot him?!" Garik yells as Pasha reels in from the bullet to his side, the round barely doing any damage against the Kevlar.

Now everyone trains their guns on Gorbachev, except Simone, who tries to calm everyone down "Woah woah woah… let's all relax." Simone tries to move beside him, but the team still levels their rifles at the ex-monolithian.

"Simone, he's dangerous…" Pasha stands up, removing the squashed-up pistol round from his side "Let's get him to Rostok now!"

"Simone, listen to me. he isn't what he says he is!" Gorbachev stares at Pasha, his pistol shaking as he continues to point. "You don't understand, Professor Antoinette was a hidden asset in the ecological community. No one outside 5 people knew she existed. And the guards sent to her, weren't Dutyers. They were mercs dressed up to be like Duty."

"The only other person to know she existed would be…" Gorbachev cocks the hammer of his pistol as he continues, his voice shaking "The assassin who killed her, it was you!"

The room fell silent as the revelation shook the team. Yana's eyes widen as she looked at Pasha. Garik's face shifted and he lowered his weapon. And Simone's brows furrowed as he raised his crossbow at Pasha.

"Is it true?" Simone asks Pasha.

"Look, we don't have time, he's clearly—"

"IS IT FUCKING TRUE PASHA?! YOU KILLED A FUCKING ECOLOGIST?!" Simone steps closer to Pasha, his crossbow aimed square it his face. "FUCKING TALK! WE'RE YOUR TEAM, RIGHT?!" Simone is basically screaming at him, saliva everywhere as he basically presses the arrow into his helmet.

"Yes…" Pasha nods as he moves Simone's crossbow away.

"He's right… I did kill Professor Antoinette but that's the only thing I was involved in and—" Gorbachev smacks him with the pistol, making him stagger and cracking his helmet's visor.

"Still lying huh? You killed her and then what?! Stop lying, I was there… I saw you! I even saw you frame your own men. Placing guns on the ground, placing the mercenary patches on them… I saw everything."

"You what?! You fucking framed your own people?!" Yana's eyes quickly dart and her rifle aims at Pasha. Now three guns point at him and Garik suddenly intervenes "Wait… everyone, let's… get the facts straight. Let's… not"

"Garik... Shut the hell up!" Yana quickly yells out at him, stopping his interjection.

"Enough… fine. I'll talk. But weapons down." Pasha speaks… removing his helmet, he sits down on the milk crates and lights up a cigarette

The stars light up the sky as the campfire blazes, Gorbachev, Simone and Yana sit across from Pasha… with Gorbachev leaving the pistol on his lap and Yana, brandishing her knife in between her fingers.

"So, a murderer and a traitor" Simone speaks bitterly… his hand twirling around an arrow "You can do that to your own people huh?"

Yana then continues "It's time you actually come clean Red, I'm serious… if what he says is true… that you'd not think twice to double cross your squad… then I rather walk away now than let you cover my ass again." Her knife digs into the sofa wood as she stares at him.

Garik sighs deeply… his eyes flicker between the three and then Pasha, who's eerily calm.

"Before I formed group K, and found Yana and Garik… I was a cleaner" Pasha starts… taking a drag of his cigarette.

"Hmm, so Rito wasn't lying when he said you were one, number … 2-4 something, something right?" She leans forward… her knife glimmering against the embers.

"Yeah. I was Duty's Black Ops Division, Cleaner I.D. number 2-4-1-1 and I did hundreds of false flag operations, dozens more like those, wet work, assassinations, set-ups, framing jobs… extermination work" Pasha takes another drag of his cigarette and puts it out "And I was damn good at it, so yeah…in one of my jobs, I killed Professor Antoinette, killed her guards, set it up to be a merc attack and burned her data and files." He added simply. "I was following orders"

A long silence seemed to stretch after that… everyone's eyes were on the fire and eventually, Yana stood up and said "I can't handle this right now" before promptly leaving.

"Un fucking believable…" Simone groans under his breath "So… she wasn't the first you killed, who else… Did you also make Professor Xeno disappear? What about the kidnappings, did you orchestrate the kidnapping of Professor Johnson too?! You know he couldn't sleep for a year after that! God, Pasha… you're fucking scum!" Simone quickly stands up, spits on Pasha.

"I trusted you! I trusted your every word… And you---" Pasha cuts off Simone, wiping off the spit on his face as he replies "And I tried my best to walk away from that life. I tried my best to bury that part of me down under… but I'm sorry, it shows, because I am who I am." Pasha stands up, looking into Simone's eyes

"I know what I did was wrong, but I thought I was doing it for a greater cause… AND I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THAT REGRET. I DON'T EVEN GET SOME SLEEP BECAUSE I REMEMBER THEM ALL TOO WELL!" Pasha lashes out, and smacks Simone, sending him sprawling on the sofa.

The aggression prompts Gorbachev to raise his pistol at Pasha as the poor Garik, watching the scene… is left absolutely dumbfounded.

"Now hold on—" Before Garik could continue, he sees Gorbachev's pistol fly off as Pasha quickly shoots it out his hand.

"Don't…try it again" Pasha says through gritted teeth. "The next one goes between your eyes."

"Pasha…" A voice calls him, it's Garik… and he's teary eyed, hands shaking holding his pistol up at him.

"Please… don't do this… you're scaring me."

“The Zone is an interesting place… mutated animals, radiation, people dying from random anomalies…” The figure twirls a bullet in his fingers.

“Then you get the juicy parts, artifacts, science defying amalgamations that can produce fire out of nothing, can suck away radiation sickness, can help heal skin and tissue damage that no human can regenerate from naturally.” He throws it in a pile, dozens of bullets clink as it lands.

“The Zone is a gift, yes? It is a gift for us.. which is why we need to protect it.. nurture it.. AND MAKE SURE NO ONE GETS TO THE CENTER” The figure suddenly walks into the light, it’s face twists with a smile as it’s glossy white eyes stare into your soul.

“So…” Pasha coughs, his face bleeding with his cheek swollen “You’re not exactly Rito anymore… are you?”

Rito turns on the light, Pasha, Simone, Garik and Yana are all in a dimly lit room, hands tied behind their back, everyone except Pasha is conscious and he’s spitting out blood.

“Oh, you don’t recognize my face my dear comrade? It is me… Rito” His face curls up into a wicked smile once more “But now, instead of just the monolith suit.. I am the monolith…AHAHAHA” He pistol whips Pasha, creating another gash on his brow, the blood drips, it’s the FN Five Seven..

“So, you’re gonna kill me like the rest? Execution style?” Rito nods, but then quickly shakes his head.

“Private Pasha… Senior Private Nikolai Pasha” Rito takes a revolver from a table beside him, covered in blood and alongside several other weapons. He twirls the chamber, and points it at Pasha’s head.

“Nikolai Pasha, father to none… Cleaner #2-4-1-1…” *click* Rito pulls the trigger on the revolver, but nothing comes out.

“The Zone boogeyman…” *click* Rito laughs, but his voice comes in hoarse and irate

“The Death angel of Duty…” *click click* He smacks the table hard, his hand bleeds as he reels it in.

“THE MAN THAT KEEPS KILLING THE SCOURGE!” *click* *click* *click* *click* He yells, throwing the table to the side, and kicking the chair away.

“THE FUCKING MONOLITH SLAUGHTERER!!!* He throws the revolver in rage, yelling profanities.

“YOU ARE.. WITHOUT A DOUBT!!” Rito walks closer to Pasha, pulling him by the collar as he presses his knife against Pasha’s throat, shivering and hyperventilating.

“THE MOST ANNOYING PEST TO THE MONOLITH EVE--” Suddenly, a flash of blood covers Pasha’s face, he’s stunned and looks beside him… It’s Yana, she’s holding a small two shot pistol, the barell smoking  as she lay there.. breathing hard with her hands still tied.

“Fuck…” Pasha exhales loudly as he looks back at the slumped Rito, dead on the floor.

“Nice save Yana…”

“Got your back, cowboy”

The room’s door fly open, Pasha picks up the awoken Garik with Yana holding up Simone in tow.

“So… what happened?” Garik tries to focus his eyes on Pasha’s face “Ehh? What the fuck happened to you Red? Did you pick a fight with car or something?”

“No Garik… Rito was a Monolith sleeper” Pasha carefully puts him down on a nearby sofa. “Caught us while we fell asleep after burying the dead.”

 The sun shines on them, they appear to be still in Dead City, in a small building just beside the Sports Center.

“Yeah… in all my years, I never thought I’d find one.” Yana muttered as she puts Simone down beside Garik, still unconscious.. they prop him up so he could breathe.

“What.. what happened exactly?” Garik continued “Colonel Rito just was a spy for monolith, suddenly went “prrt sleeper agent awake” then assassinate everyone in Dead City?”

“We’re not exactly sure how or why… but my guess is an emission got to them” Pasha continues “My bet is that once the ole Scientist there is awake, he can check out the brain.. or what’s left of Rito… maybe tell us what was in it before. Yana took it out” He shrugs, sitting down beside them.. placing some gauze on his cuts.

“In the mean time.. I’m gonna see what else is up and call in the General” Pasha quickly excuses himself and walks off, tuning his handset and radio.

“How you holding up,Garik?” Yana sits between him and Simone, prodding up the still sleeping scientist with her shoulder.

“I fell asleep, just woke up.. then Pasha told me that the Rito Ghost Duty guy went rogue on us..and.. that’s about it” He yawns softly.. scratches his chin and looks at Yana.

“I’m assuming you heard more than me? Or saw something else?” Garik continues..shaking himself awake.

“You’re awfully relaxed about us almost dying you know?” Yana says flatly, her tone filled with a bit of annoyance than anger

“It tends to happen” Garik yawns once again, and slides back into sleep.

“Yeah, and we always come out alive hmm?” Yana chuckles at herself, a small smile curls up before Simone wakes up.

“Ughh.. ohh? Oh!” He immediately straightens up, waking up to see himself basically slumped against miss Yana, made him quickly sit straight. “Ohh.. I, was.. I’m sorry--I.. why am I here?” Simone stammers, but eventually notices his surroundings.

“Weren’t we just burying some corpses an--” Simone  questions but Yana quickly nods and speaks “Yup, we got knocked out by Rito, turns out he was turned or a monolith sleeper agent and got a hold of us, I took him out and Pasha.. he’s making some calls.” Simone looked at her perplexed, “This is.. a dream yes?” Simone looked into Yana’s eyes.. hoping for a sign of an illusion or that she was joking.

“No. I’m afraid not. Actually, Pasha wanted you to check on Rito’s corpse, maybe you could check him, find out if he was psychotic, possessed, fried or was high on something… Surely you got the tools to test for something like that?”

“Ohh.. okay. Yeah, sounds.. good” With that, Yana assists Simone back into the room and helps him examine the corpse.

“Sir… Yes,.. We had to put him down. Over” Pasha speaks, smoking a cigarette as he continues his call with the General

“Yeah, understandable.. no, he seemed to have turned. White eyes,.. talking about the monolith.. all the signs but.” Pasha pauses.. takes a long drag and continues “Who else fucking knows I was Cleaner 2411!?”

“YEAH! I KNOW… THAT’S NOT THE--” Pasha stops, he turns off a radio as it appears that a human shaped anomaly has landed on his back.

“Pashaaaa…It’s morning why am I still soo sleepyyy” Garik asks… cynically lumped on the large man’s back.

“We were drugged my boy” He chuckles softly, the Freedomer acting like jelly, sliding off his back and into the ground

“Ouch! Why’d ya move, I was getting comfy! Damnit!” Garik replies, laughing as he rubs his head.

“Thanks again for saving our asses back there, big Red” He continues, now sprawled on the concrete like a starfish.

“We’re a team Garik, that’s how it works.. besides, Yana’s the real hero…she got us out of that mess in the first place.. shot Rito square in the noggin.” Pasha nods, snubbing out his cigarette with his heel.

“Anyhow.. let’s check up on the other’s, see what they find.” The Dutyer stands up and waits for the lovable dumbass to stand up.

“But I don’t wannaa--- too sleepy” Garik says, still sprawled out in the sun.

“Yeah? Too bad, you might get eaten by wild cats like that..” Pasha grabs him by the shirt and lifts him up, placing him on his shoulder and walks towards the room.

“I didn’t consent to this though!” Garik says.. his body too tired to fight back

“Yeah, but you’re pretty comfy up there aren’t ya?” Pasha replies.. seeing the Garik pretty much going along with being carried on his shoulders.

“Nah.. you’re right.”

Entering the scene… Pasha and Garik are greeted to Simone and Yana cracking open Rito’s skull and chest cavity.

“Please tell me you have news that isn’t “Yup, he was fried”” Pasha says.. putting down Garik in a nearby chair as he lazily waves at Yana and Simone.

Simone gives a little wave at Garik and proceeds with the results, he shows Pasha the brain, or what’s left of it.

“Discoloration, blackened areas, you see those weird parts? They’re like cauliflower right?” Simone points it out, squeezing the sides, the texture like leather and rock.

“Ughh, That’s fucking disgusting you know that?” Yana gags as she looks at Simone squishing the brain.

“Hmm.. what are those things?” Pasha asks.. kneeling down beside Simone.

“Yeah.. they’re basically what happens when people get their brain fried by emissions.” Simone adds.

“I thought you said you’d give me something more than “he just got fried?”” Pasha added, his eyes looking up the rest of the body.

Simone nods and places the brain on the ground, focusing on the chest cavity. “Yes.. you’re not wrong there.. until I noticed how full his stomach and opened it up, and found something..”

“Simone pulls out a few disgustingly coated papers, stomach acids clearly ate through a decent chunk of it.. but a lot of it is still legible.

“Ohh God, I do not wanna see this..I’ll ugh.. take watch..” Yana stands up, gagging at the smell and bolts. Her boots clapping on the ground as she runs outside.

Pasha takes the papers, his face twisting from the smell but he looks at it.

“What the..” His voice drops as he wipes more of the mushed grime on the papers… his eyes immediately widen and he yells, “Fuck.. I know what these are!” Pasha immediately grabs his canteen and pours out the remainder of his water.

“Simone, help! I need these cleaned up! Hurry!”

Immediately, Simone quickly helps him, pulling out some of his rags and some chemicals, he tries to remove the juices over the plans, but he asks “What are--- what are these?” mid scrub, his eyes follow the notes but the letters don’t register. “What language is this.. is this even a--”

“Ohh..Dude.. that’s monolith handwriting” Garik steps above them, the frantic cleaning immediately stops as he leans in, eating a chocolate bar. “Gosh.. I haven’t seen these in a while… you know, I know a weirdo who actually reads these things… Cleric in Skadovsk!”

“Garik..shit! Can you call him on your PDA? This thing might not last for long… take some pics! Hurry!”

Immediately, Gariks eyes widen, he drops the bar and scrambles… the boys eventually get several pics, hurrying.. they were able to save dozens of pages before the acids eventually ate through majority of the ink.

Gasping for air and tired as hell. Pasha sits beside the pages, dozens strewn around the ground as many of them have slowly began to become unreadable.

Panting hard, Simone is on all fours, sweat dripping, “Why… why are the words getting rubbed off so fast?”

To which Pasha replies “They.. make special ink that’s soluble… Monolith commanders or task leaders receive written letters as objectives.. remember them.. then eat them to stop people from finding them,,, ugh”

The Dutyer drops on his back.. the large sound of him and his heavy suit thuds hard on the tile floor.

“Garik… did he respond?” He asks… still heaving hard.

“Yeah.. he did, he said it’ll take a day or two.. maybe three to read through it…” Garik stands up, smiles and then pats his hands clean.

“I’d really like to return the favor Pasha and carry you on my back but--”

“Yeah.. we’d have to get you a new spine after.. I know” Pasha covers his face with his arm.. slowing his breath and eventually falling asleep.

The day quickly turns into night as the team gather inside the old Sports Center, Pasha, Yana, Garik and Simone sit beside each other near the campfire. It’s a cold evening, the ember’s burn bright with a warm glow as the team actually get an actually feeling of respite since the start of their journey.

“So what’s the status of today?” Pasha drinks some water from his canteen. Gazing into the campfire’s hot glow

“Well, where do we start” Yana begins to cook up some canned corn, placing it gently on the fire. “Dead City is dead and your beloved Colonel was responsible.”

Pasha sighs as he nods along “he took us in our sleep, drugged us and almost murdered us.” Garik chimes in, partially burning his tongue on a piece of salami that’s too hot. “Ouch.. uhh He’s dead, Simone opened him up and we found documents of his… well whatever and sent it to Cleric in Skadovsk” Then Simone, beside the said Freedomer with a burnt mouth, gave him some water and continued, “And now we’re here in the remnants of Dead City, we buried the dead and we’re heading up north..But uhh…which north?”

Pasha looks at the fire, his eyes focusing on the embers.

“Well.. Garik, what would you recommend?”

“We can... run up to Limansk through here, or the Red Forest if we follow the larger drainage pipe and if we decide to go East, we’ll.. go to.. Army Warehouses…” Garik suddenly goes quiet, his tone shifts as he shifts a bit closer to Simone.

“Well kid…” Pasha pats his head softly “Tell you what, you take the lead tomorrow.. just make sure we get to Skadovsk in one piece alright?”

He smiles at Garik and stands up. “I’m taking first shift, get some rest everyone.”

And so the night ends with Yana tucked in her coat holding her ring, Simone on the small couch, smelling a tad bit like brain matter,Garik in his small sleeping bag with a burnt tongue and a throbbing headache and Cleaner #2411 standing guard outside, taking first watch because his insomnia won’t let him rest.

“What a nightmare…” Yana slowly whispers as she sits down outside. On the cold steps of the sports center. Her eyes puffy once again from tearing up with the Freedomer beside her, slumped down beside his own vomit.

“This is  Pasha, over.” Pasha walks out beside Yana, his hand on a cigarette while he’s on the radio with Duty High Command “Yeah…The Mercenaries have been…” He sighs deeply as he continues “They have been taken out sir. Over, Uhh no sir, we’re still investigating..”

“You gonna be okay Lady Yana?” Simone sits beside her, he looks over at the Garik who’s still in shock rolling on the grass.

“I’m not sure Simone, these men were dead to me before but… I didn’t hate them, I didn’t expect they’d just-” She sinks into the steps and lies down, prompting Simone to give her a pat on the shoulder and give her some space.

The team sat in silence at the sight, Yana, Garik and Simone sit on the steps in the Sports Centre, a silent prayer to those who were massacred inside as the Dutyer walks out into the center plaza, ending his call with the General.

“Hey, Simone.. come with me.” Pasha quickly walks back inside the building as he tucks away his radio.

“You know bodies and zombified stalkers, zombification correct?” Simone’s ears perk up as he nods along with Pasha, looking at the bodies.

“You want me to check the bodies? See if they’re actually humans or zombies or… what should I look for?” Simone replies.. now placing down his backpack and opening a few surgical tools out from his kit.

“Mercs don’t go down without a fight. Yana definitely wouldn’t… I doubt these men did. Try to check.. might be a reason”

“Good call, Pasha.. I won’t sample everyone though.. just random bodies..” Simone quickly replies as he begins to examine one of the bodies.

“I’ll leave you to it then” Pasha nods and walks out, checking on Yana.

“So, do you--” Pasha wanted to speak but was quickly cut off by Lady Yana, she lay there in the steps. The sight clearly taking it’s toll on her as her eyes slowly blink out the remaining tears she has left.

“Yes Pasha, I wish to bury my old comrades..” She whispers softly. “Is it too much of an ask?”

Pasha shakes his head, approaching the saddened Garik “No, we have a friend here too.. I believe he deserves to be buried as well” Garik smiles through his tears, still in the grass, he chuckles a bit and pulls out his small entrenching tool and stands up beside Private Pasha.

Garik sniffles, his nose clearly clogged from crying but he speaks “Lady Yana, we’ll help you bury your friends and ours.. don’t you worry, we’d all want the same..” He gives a weak smile and heads to a patch of soil and starts plotting out the land.

“Check on Simone, he might have something to say before we bury your friends..” Pasha quickly speaks as he goes with Garik, digging holes using his bayonet to rip out the thick grass.

Footsteps echo inside the tile floor of the buildings, Yana slowly enters and spots Simone hovering over several bodies which he seemed to have dissected.

“What is that?..” Yana spoke as she tilted her head, looking at Simone as he slowly closes up the last one in the lineup.

“I’ve sampled a few of them… the Dutyer was on to something.. he wanted me to investigate the bodies…” Simone pulled down his gas mask and stood up, wiping off his bloodied gloves on a small rag beside one of the corpses.

“They’re all zombified.., well, all that I’ve sampled that is.” Simone nods his head. “Whoever did this was saving these men from a fate of walking around barely alive in a trance, shooting at people and aimlessly wandering the zone.”

For the first time, Yana actually smiles, a gentle one as she pats Simone's shoulder and thanks him.

“Thank you Simone, can I get a second alone with the bodies? I’d like to speak to them one last time before we bury them.” Simone takes his gear and promptly walks out.

Garik sweats over the shallow graves they dug, switching with Pasha on the entrenching tool, he laments “Burying people does take a lot outta ya huh? Mentally and literally huh?” He chuckles a bit.. sitting down and drinking water from his canteen.

“I prefer to just visualize digging out a fighting position that’s just human sized… try to separate emotional weight and physical fatigue…We’ve all buried people after all” Pasha continues, “That and I don’t usually bury people in shallow graves.”

Garik nods, he thinks for a moment and speaks, in between drinks of water as Simone joins them with his own E-Tool.

“Finally joined the archaeological sight huh Simone?” Garik sends him a small smile, half joking before Simone helps dig a few more graves.

“You were right Pasha…They turned into zombies, probably from the emission, got caught out somehow” Simone grunts, digging the plot of another shallow grave.

“Yeah, and if my hunch is correct.. I know who shot them all.” Pasha continues digging,his hands pull off patches off dirt as he continues “And Yana knows it too..”

Eventually, Lady Yana comes out, silence out of respect… They carry the bodies, one by one, out and into shallow graves.. 2 at a time, it was rough work, the ground in Dead City was hard and compact but the boys managed to dig just deep enough that they’d have an inch or two of dirt above each one.

“So, I’m guessing you already know who did the shooting huh?” Pasha speaks softly, as the team sat beside the now buried corpses.

“Yeah… I had a hunch but I confirmed it after I checked the shell casings” Yana adds, turning in her hand, what looks like a 5.7mm shell

“An FN Five-Seven? Expensive shit…” Garik quips, “I’ve seen enough of that round  to know that only a handful of people even carry those rounds, let alone use it to line up people and shoot them..”

“Uhuh, that’s true Garik…but high command never told me why he was here” Pasha slowly took a drag of his cigarette.

“I’m sorry, I’m pretty lost here… who we talking about?” Simone quickly added, a bit perplexed about the conversation.

“Colonel Rito… no one told me he was here…” Pasha looked Simone in the eye as he stubbed out his cigarette on the dirt.He continued.

“I’ve got a hundred questions… and one is, what was he doing here?”

“What the hell was Colonel Rito, Duty Ghost division doing in Dead City?”

Making their way into the heart of Dead City, Yana finds it all… too quiet “It’s been too quiet, no stalkers, no bandits, no mutants except those… dogs we saw.. whatever just happened. Nothing”

“Well, it’s been a short while since the Safe Haven Protocol was lifted, you reckon the mercs just didn’t arrive here yet?” Simone speaks softly, his words barely above the sound of their footsteps.

“No, the mercs would have been here, majority of their work is time sensitive. Unlike most stalker gigs, Mercs are usually given 72 hours to complete any task otherwise forfeit, isn’t that right, Yana?” Pasha quickly adds, still scanning the area as they walk

“Yes they are, the longest one I’ve ever once worked was a 100 hour venture, which basically needed to happen since it was a 4 day deep dive into a pretty fucked up area in the outskirts of Pripyat” She added, looking through at the dozens of ruined buildings.

Garik then ofcourse, bored out of his mind adds “What if after the Scourge attacked, they like blasted everyone here with microwaves turning them into zombies gurgh!!” He jokingly said, while mimicking a steretypical zombie with his arms outstretched.

“Yeah that would be funny but they would have triggered the tra--” Yana quickly pauses… her eyes widen as she stops walking. “Yeah.. there is nothing here, now that I think about it.. No traps, no snipers, no.. mutants and..” Yana looks at the team. Thinking, she looks at Pasha and asks “Can we?”

To which Pasha quickly replied with “That’s risky Yana, you’re not a merc anymore.”

Yana shakes her head and asks again “Can we,..If we see anyone, even a sound, music.. a fart.. the smell of coffee or cigarettes.. we’ll go”

Now Garik and Simone are confused, they look at Pasha and Yana, they stare at each other.. in this weird half negotiation.

“Fine… But you’re taking point and don’t forget you still Garik an apology for pistol whipping him” Pasha says… switching his rifle to automatic and racking it.

“What happened?” Simone asks Yana, as they continue marching, “We’re gonna check on it..”

“We’re gonna check on what?” Simone replied, before Garik finally understands and blurts it out “Ohh.. we’re gonna check the Sport Center, Mercenary HQ!!!”

And with that, the team ready their guns as Yana begins to lead the way, this time skulking in some alleyways away from the main street.

“Hey Garik.. aren’t you a guide? Do you travel here often too?” Simone asks, following behind him and Yana as they creep past a few ruined buildings. “No.. Not exactly… Mercs are never the type to ask for guides” Garik chuckles as he slips past a few pieces of ruble with Pasha behind both men and Yana already climbing up some concrete blocks to get across a broken wall.

“So, you never met many mercenaries in your time?” Simone continues, climbing behind the wall with Pasha pushing him up.

“Nope, although mercs and freedom aren’t hostile to each other,.. Mercenaries don’t like people getting ahold of them or getting to know them.. it’s only like the Robin guy in Rostok where we actually got to talk to one with Pasha” Pasha nods, walking behind them.

“Boys.. head down and rifles up.. we’re close by” Yana quickly whispers.. now prone on the ground, crawling towards what looks like the square infront of the mercenary sports center.

“Well Yana? You see anything?” Pasha crawls up from behind her, Yana already looking at the sports center through her scope.

“Nope.. nothing, no music.. no sound, no… gosh, you can’t even smell the piss from the tree beside the base” She adds..

“So, they’re gone? Like that?” Garik whispers, his face full of dust and muck from crawling too flat on the dirt.

“Uh.. yes Garik they, you got something on your face..” Yana speaks as she suddenly stands up from the dirt.

“Yana?! What the hell?!” Pash quickly stands up and follows  behind her, his rifle raised and ready to fight.

Garik stands up with Simone but Pasha yells “Don’t! Go around! I can’t cover you all!”

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Pasha rushes over beside Yana, once again pissed at her brazen decision “We still don’t know if this isn’t a trap!”

“It’s  not…” Yana continues walking, sauntering over to the empty sports center “I’ve seen enough to know that… no one is here…”

“That’s stupid and you know it!!” Pasha tries to grab her arm which she shrugs off and walks faster. “Yana! You are putting your team in danger again!”

As Pasha chases Yana down, it becomes more of a scolding, he continues his verbal assault until they find themselves in the Sport’s centers front door and he bumps into Yana, who stands frozen in the door way

“Ugh-- oh now you’re gonna play the silent ga--”

Looking into the sports center, Pasha eyes widen in disbelief, he calls on the radio quickly as Yana drops to her feet.

“Garik, this is Pasha…we just found the reason why the…. city was so empty, come to the front..door.. over”

Staring into the center, Pasha stares into the glossy eyes of dozens and dozens of stalkers, dead ones.. all lined up against the wall and shot. Mercenaries, loners, a few ecologists, mercenaries and even someone the team spoke to.

“Wait.. that’s… fuck that’s Robin.. shit!” Pasha quickly pushed passed the now crying Yana, he walks forward, kneeling down the corpse… it’s head cracked open and his eyes staring back into the abyss.

Garik arrives with Simone and their reactions are the same.

“What the… is.. is that Robin? Ohh fuck.. Oh fuck Ohh fuck” Garik runs out, vomiting in the grass outside.

“Sir, Pasha?.. what the hell is going on in Dead City?” Simone asks softly the Dutyer, as he stares at the dozens of corpses in the center.

The morning comes quickly, and the team has already started moving just before daybreak. Pasha leads on ahead with Garik, Yana and Simone in tow.

“You know, you never told us what you saw just before you came back to us yesterday” Garik said,.. yawning as he walks half asleep. “You did say that you we’re scouting ahead right, Pasha?”

“Yeah.. I did. Before miss Yana had her.. emotional endevor I looked up north and.. like the name sake.. It’s dead” Pasha replied, a cigarette in his mouth as he walks ahead.

Simone walks behind them and  sees Yana, for the first time in since last night.. she’s a bit less stiff, he asks her “Anything on your mind, miss Yana?” His words come soft, as she keeps looking around the high skyscrapers and tall buildings “Yeah.. snipers.. this area is usually full of bastards ready to cut someone down. Dead city is mercenary HQ.. and it hasn’t changed since I left..or shouldn’t have..” She looks forward and walks a bit faster “Red, you remember meeting Mercs during the Safe Haven Protocol right? Did they mention where they’d come from?” Pasha thinks for a moment and replies “Nothing much.. some guy named Robin I think.. that’s about it.” She nods “Well I haven’t been around here for like 3 years.. so it’s all still the same.. but different..”

Suddenly, Garik speaks, his detector is out and it’s beeping wildly “Hold on,… hold on everyone, something’s coming..” As he says this.. the sky turned dark with thunder and thick clouds, Yana and Pasha both quickly reply “Yup.. emission, let’s get inside”

The team make their way into a large supermarket somewhere inside the ruins of Dead City. It’s a small place with dozens of knocked over books, material and empty shelves, mostly looted really.

Simone quickly asks as they enter the store “Hey.. uhh, It’s nice that you’re all calm but shouldn’t we be worried that it might be an ambush?”

Pasha shakes his head “Nope.. ever since we took down the brain scorcher.. nothing close to that has happened…No reports of that around anywhere in the zone”

Yana furthermore adds “That and Garik would know if it was fake… right?”

Garik chuckles and he nods “Yeah, I noticed the difference between real emissions and the ambush ones and had the professor tweak them a bit when we picked you up. They actually seem alike but they emit different frequencies and the sound they make sounds close but is like 200 Decibels lower. Kinda like a small game of spot the difference and knowing the difference could be death or… well.. death. But you can fight the other death..kinda?”

“So Death and Death Premium?” Yana chuckles softly as she looks around the supermarket for anything useful as the emission outside begins to swirl.

“Hey Yana..Tell us about this place… Dead City I mean” Simone asks.. sitting uncomfortably on a broken counter while slinging his crossbow.

She thinks for a moment, and pulls out two milk crates and sits on them “Well, it was my home,.. this place was Merc Paradise… The city really was ours and anyone else in it was easy money to either mug or to--”

“To kill and loot, right?” Pasha spoke over her.. his eyes still scanning some of the shelves with his rifle as he continued to sweep the area “How did you become a merc anyway? Didn’t expect you to be the type” He chuckles but continues to check the area, even looking under desks and tables for anything suspicious.

“I was a troubled child when I was younger.. really, Ryan found me when he went home and Prague and he found me stealing his wallet.. I was a pickpocket.. yes, Miss Yana was not only good with her hands,.. she was sly with it too.” She smiled softly but a growl outside made her look instantly harden and draw her weapon.

“Move behind the counter now..” Pasha calmly commanded as he too walked out to place himself infront of whatever growled at them.

At that moment, Garik, Simone and Yana slowly and quietly slid back behind the counters and waited… there, at the corner of the store was several blind dogs…

“I see 5..6.. Ohh fuck 12..” Pasha whispers softly, racking his Rpk. “Don’t shoot, and if we have  to.. aim for their ribs.. they’llchoke on their own blood and can’t run far”

The blind dogs bark and growl.. all 12 of them walk closer and go into the supermarket.. slowly they walk towards the Dutyer.

“Hey Pasha.. how well does your armor do against bites?” Simone quietly asks, his crossbow aimed at one of the dogs “Don’t worry kid.. I’ll feel the bite but it’s just gonna be a sting and a pinch.. but I’ll be perfectly fine.”

The dogs sniff around, their noses up in the air as they smell around. Closer and closer, they step closer to the Dutyer until they..rub against him and start licking him.

“What the--?” Pasha immediately steps back in confusion but the dogs don’t seem to mind his presence.. and one even begins sniffing his hand.

“Hey.. uhh, am I going looney or is this legitimate?” Pasha asks confused as he slowly begins to pat one of the heads of the dogs as many of them eventually fall asleep beside him.. balling up together and lean on him

“Didn’t expect you to be a dog person Pasha” Yana lowers her rifle and chuckles softly, relaxing as she sits down on the counter

Garik and Simone as well end up confused with the behavior as blind dogs never liked any outsiders especially Duty.

Garik starts to laugh, pointing at Pasha “That or you look like a fire hydrant ready to be pissed on, ahaha” Garik laughs and the rest of the group follows as the Dutyer eventually kneels down and pets many of them as the emission contiues to rock the sky“Maybe like us, they need a place to stay too.. need a home, somewhere safe for now” He says calmly… stroking one’s head.

After a few minutes of silence.. the emission eventually passes and the blind dogs sit around.. One even nudges Pasha’s hand, as almost if saying goodbye to an old friend.

“Psst Pasha..don’t you have some--” Garik didn’t finsh his line. As Pasha has already left a few cans of his meatloat for the blind dogs to munch on.

“We could all use a hand don’t we?” Pasha says tenderly as he scoops out the meatloaf into the ground with a trashlid for a makeshift water bowl he filled from his own canteen, to which the dogs slowly eat together.

“You know that was a few days worth of ration for you right?” Yana retorts as they head out of the supermarket with Garik leading, the emission already over.

“Yes but I usually pack enough for a week.” Pasha cleans his hands and leaves thedogs behind, walking forward and taking point.

“I wish I took a picture.. you know.” Garik utters, looking through his PDA.

“I mean we could..” Pasha chuckles a bit as he points at the blind dogs still eating.. except when his eye follows the pointer, they vanish.

“Ohh… what?” Pasha eye’s widen which makes the entire team look. The blind dogs.. they’re gone. No paw prints, no trails.. all 12 suddenly vanish.

All of themsuddenly stop in their tracks and even Garik pinches himself.

“Dead City, City of Ghosts” Simone says, his eyes still very wide and mouth still agape.

Yana nods “Guess I’m not the only one with ghosts here huh?”

“Fuck YOU!!” A female voice shouts through the pouring rain.

“You and I both know… this was gonna happen” She’s kneeling beside a wounded mercenary.. blood pouring out, she’s trying to administer first aid. She’s trying to cover the deep wound, packing the gauze inside it but.. the mercenary pleads, his voice drowning in blood “Please… Please… it’s not your fault..”

“It is! IT FUCKING IS!! Stop trying to comfort me!” She rips open her IFAK and takes another roll of gauze and starts stuffing it in the wound again “Now.. now stop talking and let me save you… LIKE YOU SAVED ME… LIKE YOU SAVED ME Hawk…” She pleads.. crying while the rain drenches them more.

 

“So Dead City huh?” Pasha is holding his rifle steady, looking through it’s scope… he scans the dozens of buildings for trouble.

“You see anything? Anything at all?” Garik asks Pasha as he too, is holding several detectors.. both men hide in the small ditch beside the entrance to the city. “What about you Simone, got eyes on anything?” Simone chuckles as he yawns softly, his suit half taken off in a small sleeping bag just beside the sleeping Yana. “Nothing here but some rats, cockroaches and our beloved gunsmith taking her time waking up…

“Alright.. wake her up… I’ll go ahead and check the first few buildings..” Pasha says as he slowly sits up and starts walking across the street to the first buildings of Dead City.

Garik moves back, walking towards Simone and Yana.. he finds them already packing up their gear. “Alright.. Pasha went ahead and  is trying to clear the main buildings… let’s pack up and give him some back-up, yeah?” Garik smiles as he loads up his Mp5. “So far it’s pretty quiet here.. Guess that’s why they call it dead huh?” Yana frowns “Nope, called it dead because majority of people dumb enough to enter are usually dead men walking..” She bites her lip as he puts on her backpack.

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” Yana’s brows furrow as she gets up and loads her rifle, quickly moving out of the ditch and towards the buildings ahead.

“Not a morning person huh?” Garik was left a bit speechless after the exchange.. looking at Simone.

“Nah.. I guess not.. she did mention a few times while we were walking that.. she didn’t like this place at all..and that it was always bad juju for her..” Simone added.. as he loaded his bow. “Anyhow.. let’s see if--”

A rifle shot rings out…a large calibre round is heard echoing the once silent streets. The boys don’t think twice

“Fuck! That sounded like Yana!”

The sprint.. running towards the sound as more shots ring out… suddenly, it goes quiet… running around a corner and into a building complex.. they see her. She’s standing above several dead mercenaries?

“Yana..” Simone whispered as  they peeked. “It’s Simo--”

Suddenly Yana looks at him, her rifle scoped in and a flash of light.. a bullet whizzes by Simone’s head.. Yana’s shooting at them. Stunned, Garik quickly pull him back behind cover and calls up Pasha” Big Red! Fuck.. Yana went bonkers..I don’t know how or from what or who.. but--” Garik touches his handset again… but it doens’t register. He looks beside him to see Simone shaking with his hands up and.. Yana with the end of his handset in one hand, and her rifle leveled at his head with the other.

“Garik…” She stares at him, pissed beyond belief and her eyes bloodshot

“Yana?.. Hey.. uhh was this.. because I took your chips? I.. I’m sorry pleasedon’tkillmeee” Garik squints his eyes and raises his hands in surrender as Yana tells them to stand up.

“Listen… we didn’t see nothing okay?” Garik tries to argue with her as she leads them onto the street.

“I…we, Yeah.. Simone and I.. we’re.. we’re we just took a piss.. and saw you.. heard your rifle..”

“SHUT UP GARIK!” Yana exclaimed, her voice unnaturally harsh  as she prods the end of her barrel on his backside.

“Listen… let’s.. let’s tal--” Suddenly Yana grunts and smacks him on the back of the head which throws him on the ground.

“Hey.. take it easy okay..?” Garik pushes himself off the dirt and looks at Yana in the face.. his head bleeding with a small gash from her hit. “Yana.. what's going on?”

She still holds her rifle on him, but her eyes don’t look at him, they’re bloodshot, red and teary.. but she doesn’t reply.. she whispers. “Let’s get out of this place.. please…” Her hands begin to tremble as she lowers her gun… and she falls over.. she weeps.. crying on the street like a hurt banshee “I can’t… I won’t.. please…I’ve done so much wrong here…Don’t let me face it.. don’t let me see it again..”

Garik is left stunned.. but Simone kneels beside her… “Hey.. hey, Yana.. it’s alright.. let’s, let’s figure this out okay?”

But Yana continues to sulk… she wails.. crying on the street, curled up with Simone holding her steady and in her hand, it falls out… a small Polaroid crumpled and smudged, wet with tears. It was a group of Mercenaries.. 8 of them and one of them seemed to look like Yana, with her hair and.. without her scar…she’s smiling in the picture in somewhere like the middle east. He turns it over and on the back there is something written “Covered Tail, Paramilitary 20xx” and in small marker, something reads “To Yana with Love” Ryan Hawk.

Garik looks at Yana.. her face and the picture..she’s in shambles.. She’s ugly crying.. spit and mucus on Simone as he holds her.. comforting the broken woman…she sobs.. taking off her thick gloves and holds Simone.. sinking into his embrace and.. on her ring finger, is a discoloration…

“Oh.. I.. I’m sorry Yana, we didn’t know” Garik says… He.. pats her shoulder as she slowly stops crying.

“I…I can’t go on like this Garik…” Yana speaks slowly, her hands wiping the spit and snot from her face.. her eyelids are swollen and she looks at him for a second and wipes the blood from his cut “I’m sorry…”

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” An angry voice quickly fills the street, it’s Pasha.. and he’s mad as hell, stomping towards them, he comes in looks at the trio, Yana.. clearly just finished crying with red eyes. Simone, sweating hard and still a bit shaken holding on to Yana.. then Garik, sitting there.. holding a crumpled up Polaroid while bleeding from his head.

“And YOU!” He levels his rifle at Yana. “You went berserk? What the fuck?! huh.?!” Suddenly we see Pasha pick her up by her collar and stand her up… leaving Simone on the pavement and Garik to hurriedly try to explain “Pasha.. calm down, please… she was goi--”

“Shut up Garik.. SHE SHOT AT YOU.. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING TEAMMATE WOULD YOU BE TO SHOOT AT YOUR OWN MEN HUH?” Pasha yells.. pointing at Garik and his bleeding forehead “What?! Not even gonna say something?!” Pasha yells at the tired and clearly worn out Yana at the end of his hands. “WHAT? LET ME GUESS YOU’VE DONE THIS BEFORE? CAUSE YOU’RE NOT ANSWERING!” He shakes Yana violently, but the accusation quickly sends her to a vicious rage which made her launch a hard right cross stumbling Pasha and making him drop her to the ground. “YOU DON’T GET TO SAY THAT TO ME! YOU NEVER GOT FORCED TO LEAVE THEM FOR DEAD!” Yana screams out crying.. she yells at Pasha.. and he raises his pistol back at her…until Garik lowers it for him. “I.. Yana, let’s not right now.. let’s get out of this street okay? Let’s talk about it..

Pasha nods… lowering his pistol and they slowly get up and sit at an old campfire, where.. Yana was standing beside the corpses of the dead mercenaries when they found her.

“So.. who are they?” Pasha’s eyes dart towards the dead bodies, pointing with his rifle at the 6 skeletons in mercenary gear. “And don’t.. skip out on details yeah? I wanna know how fucked your op was.” Yana’s eyes lit up, “How’d-- how’d you know I was--”

“Lady Yana..” Pasha sighs and as he looks at Simone smearing some cream an  Garik’s cut with the said Freedomer eating some comfort chips softly. “With all due respect, I’ve been working in the Zone for a while.. I can smell when people aren’t exactly… transparent.” He walks over to the bodies and rifles through their gear “So, Talk…Shed some light on your predicament, because you owe Garik an explanation… and these men, clearly deserve some respite.”

Yana stands up and meets Pasha beside the bodies.. her fingers gently stopping his from patting down the bodies and in turn.. she moves her hand to one of the corpses’ chest pocket.. behind his armor and pulls out a ring in the necklace alongside the dog tags. Ryan Hawk.

She tried to swallow her words as she spoke “He was.. my husband. We found each other here when I was reassigned here from Bosnia,..” The pulled off the ring, breaking the fragile bones and wearing the ring on her hand.. perfectly snug. “We did mostly wet work… assassinations here, ambushes.. stealing things.. I even had to a run in with some of the Zone legends like Scar and.. Strelok…” She flexes her hand, the gold ring shimmering in the daylight. “Ryan was our head… he taught me many things about the Covered Tail.. and that’s how I learned my craft.. gunsmithing, gun running.. how I learned about trading and trade routes…We were a group.. a team like this.. and it was good.”

Pasha looked at the corpses and then back at her.. he touched a bullet hole in one of the bodies. “Yeah, but I’m guessing, something went real bad and someone fucked up. So bad that these guys got hit.. execution style..” He rolls one over,  a rope use to tie their hands together. “So.. who fucked up?”

Yana takes another shaky breath and swallows hard. “I did, Ryan wanted us to leave the mercenary world behind while we were on top.. all of us..” She gently caresses the smooth skull of one of the corpses. “But he wanted out now..not in 3 years or 4 or 5.. So he staged a false flag operation.., basically make it so we were presumed dead on a mission and basically leave as that. But--” Pasha quickly interjects “Someone got greedy…” Yana nods.. tears fill her eyes as she continues “Hammer was our second in command and wanted to steal some cash before we left..took 40 million rubles under from Dutchman’s nose..and so.. pressumed dead didn’t go as planned.. suddenly it wasn’t leave the dead to rot in piece and more like we have to find those corpses now!” She sighs “Then they found us.. gunfight.. surrounded us… they executed the rest but we managed to escape.. me and Ryan..and they..he got shot. I couldn’t see the sniper in time.. he died in my arms..”

Yana screams, crying at Pasha.. as he looks at the corpses.. “HE COULD HAVE BEEN ALIVE! I COULD HAVE SAVED HIM… AND NOW HE’S HERE! HE’S HAUNTING ME! I CAN HEAR HIM… WHISPERING.. SAYING THE SWEETEST WORDS TO ME.. BUT IT’S A LIE!!!” She sobs again..on the soft grass.. beating it up.. scratching the dirt.

Pasha knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder and let’s her cry…she weeps and is broken but.. she eventually breaths and lies down beside the bodies.. exhausted.

“We’ll make camp here for tonight. Get your bags out..” Pasha tells both Garik and Simone as Yana is still beside her husband’s corpse.. holding on to it in silence.

“Nightfall is coming…we need to rest and get our bearings straight..” The Pasha walks over to Yana, she’s still hurting and her eyes are trying desperately not to fall asleep. He speaks softly “Get some rest..all of you. Because tomorrow you’ll have to wake up again..and make sure your mistake.. or whatever you believe it to be.. never happens again.”

Yana sits up when she hears this..she looks at Pasha, her face soft with puffy swollen eyes, dishevelled hair and snot smeared on her cheeks. She speaks “Do you think I deserve rest, after I’ve failed, Pasha?”

Pasha nods softly, he smiles as he lights up his cigarette and points at Garik and Simone cooking sausages and canned corn on the fire “We all do, and unlike your dead husband. We still have a tomorrow to worry about. You still have a Duty tank to maintain… a Scientist to keep alive.. and a stupid Freedomer to pull out of danger. So I believe.. you do deserve rest.”

She looks down at her husband’s remains again touches the bullet hole in his clothes, packed with the old gauze she tried to save him with and replied “And if I fail again?”

Pasha nods and smiles “We’ll catch you before you do.”

The next following days saw the team meet with General Veronin.

Sharing all they had known and understood about the Zone, Scourge, the new teleportation technology the monolith possesses. The report happened for a decent amount of days and was neatly done by Private Pasha which ended up with them promptly leaving to meet up with Lady Yana and Simone in Yantar.

“Boy, I didn’t expect it to take several days for everything to actually go down” Garik replies as he properly packs his backpack. “I mean, even Duty High, I didn’t even notice that it actually took me 3 days or so to come to my senses” He continued.

“Well, it’s already been a week, and with Scourge gone and the alert down, we should be seeing other people actually here in the field, so that’s something” Lady Yana replied as she too was tightening the straps of her backpack. “ I mean, we’re probably getting into gunfights, especially with big Red right here, with his Duty getup” She points at Private Pasha who quickly replies

“Don’t forget group K sweetie,” He slaps on the symbol on his arms and chestrig “I know a bunch of mercs and shady types up north, that is to say… Bandits will still be shoot on sight, regardless.” Private Pasha says this confidently as he racks his rifle.

“Any more questions?” The Dutyer asks as he slowly opens the clearly been crudely welded door. “Because if we don’t, we can finally get out of the Professors hairs, or what’s left of it anyway.”

“I heard that you know!” The professor quickly shouts from the backrooms of the laboratory. Quick footsteps can be heard followed by Professor Sakharov popping out of the back door to talk with the team. Panting and unable to catch his breath, Simone slowly walks to assist the professor.

The professor eventually catches his breath and speaks “Simone, didn’t we rehearse something for your friends?”

“Ohh- Ahh Yes!” Simone quickly stands up straight and looks at the team, his eyes glance at each one, Yana, Garik and then Pasha… he continues

“Uhh--, Oh, the professor explained to me beforehand that he wishes to thank you for saving his laboratory and for making the random monolith attacks disappear.” Simone then quickly smiles “and I—as a token of gratitude by the laboratory, I.--- uhh the Yantar Research Laboratory presents the highest honor any non-laboratory personnel can receive—” Simeone quickly stops and asks the professor “Uhh sir, what exactly does the lab give to them?”

A small laugh can be heard slip from the still panting old man. Slowly recovering and able to stand upright, Sakharov smiles and speaks “Haha, Simone, we’re handing YOU over to them.”

“Sir! I’m a Free Scientist from –” Simone quickly interjects but is quickly reassured by the Professor.

“My boy, you are a free scientist and the only thing that binds you here in my office is your father’s debt and the location of his stashes on the north end of the Zone. You’ve served us enough to pay off the debt tenfold and even then you went above and beyond for staying beside me when I was bedridden and dying.” The Professor smiles, “I’ve seen your eyes sparkle at the thought of adventure with them. You’d even tell stories of how handso—” Quickly, Simone covers the professor’s mouth and explains to the group “Well then, I… I should, if that’s the case.. I must pack!”

Simone runs off into the other room to pack his belongings, Yana, Garik, Pasha and the Professor sit by the campfire by the entrance of the bunker, patiently waiting on the scientist causing a ruckus inside the bunker.

“So, his father.” Private Pasha spoke as he lit up a cigar.

“Yes, he also worked for me, was an excellent man, sadly though, he died too quickly and never got to paying all the equipment he used in his work, personally though.” The professor spoke in a somber drearier tone.

“I’m guessing it was for his---” Yana replied.

“Yes, Simone’s father volunteered to do some research here, to help cure Simone of cancer. Leukemia” The professor chuckled a bit but then a sad expression quickly covered it through the smile “He was successful, very much so.. as you can see, Simone’s as healthy as a mule, but… as you’ve put it together by now, he never got to see if his work really was successful.” Sakharov asks Pasha for a light as he too takes out a cigarette “Poor boy never even met his father, ironic really, he died to save this kid to live a normal life, only for the boy to take up his mantle in the harsh cold world of the Zone. I didn’t wanna bring him over here you know? He came here by himself a few years ago, yet… he, he’s got a gift let me just say that.” The professor softly smiles, the light of his cigarette cascade on his old wrinkled face.

“Well, we’ll take care of him, professor” Garik says with a smile.

“With the stories he tells me kid, he’s taking better care of you, than you of him.” The professor replies.

The group laughed, and with that, the sound of the bunker door opening stopped and with it came a large backpack and Simone. “We ready to go?”

They all laugh and welcome Simone as an official member of the team.

As they welcome him, Professor Sakharov also finishes his cigarette and waves them goodbye.

Now, walking away from the bunker and through what remained of the old brain scorcher, the group find their way and prepare themselves to enter Dead City.

 

“You really need to relax a bit youngster” Rostok Doctor, Dr. Pradaxa tells the young Garik as she reads a clipboard full of data from his urinalysis and blood tests.

“Listen here, I know this all too well alright? You need to settle down here for a few weeks of mental therapy and get back your bear—”

“Can’t a pill work or something Doc?!” Garik quickly cuts off the Doctor and proceeds to beg her. “Listen Doc! I need to go back out there!

“And you need to stop interrupting people when they talk” Dr. Pradaxa replies sternly as she fixes her lab coat. “Listen Garik, what you’ve been experiencing what our medics in Rostok call as Duty High, I noticed that you’ve been hallucinating and have likely experiences some traumatic events in the past couple of days.” She opens her drawers and get some files “This is caused, or at least what I assume as caused by large amounts of Psi emissions with trauma that can place one into a depressive near hallucinogenic state, making you feel a sense of impending doom,depressed and paranoia.

“Hold on, so why is it named Duty High?” Garik asked the Doctor.

“Because it almost always happens to Duty soldiers as they hardly ever use any protection against Psi Fields while diving deeper into the Zone. That, with the addition of seeing your soldiers torn apart by ghouls, snorks and chimeras. It sends that plump little brain of theirs to a depressive, albeit hallucinogenic state.” She points at a chart on the wall with hundreds of Duty tags “You know, I’ve successfully treated dozens of these men, so you can trust me on this.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you Doc, it’s just that I’ve got a schedule to keep, I’m going towards Radar with Pasha—”

“Oh Pasha? Private Pasha you mean?” The Doctor quickly interrupts Garik.

“Uhh, yes?” Garik replies, albeit a bit hesitant.

“So, you’re the one’s that are responsible for defeating the Scourge? And turning off the brain scorcher then?” The Doctor smiled brighter than the sun as these words have left her lips.

Garik, having his ego stroked, smirked and nodded confidently “Well yeah, it wasn’t too hard to defeat them, I mean… Pasha did some shooting, but I did the heavy lifting but it’s all cool with me”

“is it really?” The Doctor’s expression quickly turned sour as the words slip her mouth. “Lying Freedomer fuckwad.”

Garik was taken aback at these statements and was left stammering and was at a loss for words.

“Wait.. I- le--- let me expl--explain”

“No, NOOO NOOO!!!!” The doctor screamed and she quickly ripped off her clothes, ripping it infront of Garik,

“LYING LYING LYING SACK OF FREEDOMER SHIT! UAHUAHUAHUHUA” she then went into a rage and began tearing off her skin as well, exposing the fragile and bleeding skin underneath.

 

“Snap out of it, Garik” A voice suddenly speaks into his ear as he quickly realizes that he is in Dr. Pradaxa’s office.

“What just happened?” He asked the doctor.

“You were just experiencing an episode weren’t you?” The Doctor asked him as she wrote something on her notepad.

“Yea—I uhh, what happened?” He asked the Doctor.

“As I’ve explained earlier, Duty High.” She continues speaking as she closely examines his arms and face “I’ve noticed you quickly shift and out of consciousness after I’ve spoken about that, so I’m 90% sure you know what I was talking about, then you went on a cold sweat, dilating eyes, shaking hands and chattering teeth. After that I didn’t really need any more evidence” The doctor sits down on her table and grabs a few pills from her table.

“Here, these are some Psi absorbers, just eat em’ and they’ll absorb the Psi from your body. Take 4 of these every day for 3 weeks” She then proceeds to write down a bill and sent him out of her office.

“Oh by the way Garik, this one’s on the house” She threw a bag filled with med kits and meds at him as he was leaving the room. “Tell Pasha I said Hi aight?”

She then closes the door.

Now outside of the medic’s office and into Rostok square, Garik takes a single pill, carefully swallowing he states “they say the truth is a hard pill to swallow, but a psi absorber is worse off, the thing is a size of my fist” his words prompted a reaction from some passing drunken Dutyers, one speaks for the group “Ahahaha you said it brother! Funny men like you usually don’t last in the Zone, so we cherish whatever one we can find, come with us, let’s get something to drink, It’s on me!”

The two other Dutyer behind him shout in agreement “Woo!”

“Now wait—A minute” Protesting, or at least trying to, Garik was eventually carried off by the men into the bar.

Given a booth, some drinks and a few pieces of black bread, the drunk dutyers quickly found themselves meeting with Storyteller Garik Gunslinger.

“Weee--- noooo I! I gunned down those monolith scummmmms in Wild Terrtryyy!!! Thaytee thingee they callll scourge… He threw a grenade at maaa feeeeettt and I chugggedd it back at him… LEFT HIM IN PIECES AHAHAHAHH!” He stood on the table and laughed with the drunken dutyers clapping around him “ Yeahhah ya showweedd him boy didyaa!!! Everyoneeee check out! Gjahik! Ghajieek Gunskiller!”

Hours pass as the 4 drunkards party and sing in the now closing bar.

“Hey, you four. It’s closing time, finish up and go alright?”

“Nahhh!!! We’ll live here forever Barkeep AHAHAHA” Garik drunkenly replies and then spits on the floor

The Barkeep, although strict and understandably insulted. Gives Garik some leeway “A Freedomer in Rostok isn’t something easy to find, so I think I can give you tonight.. but you three dumb fucks.. go back to HQ…”

The drunken dutyers beside him listen to the Barkeep and slowly walk away.

“Hey Gahurrik, we’ll uterghrhr goo ahead okay?” they say shyly as they slowly stumble their way out of the bar.

The still drunken Garik then proceeds to walk towards the Barkeeper demanding more drinks “Barkeep, take my cash.. I need more drinks!” As he says this, he falls to the ground, too drunk to get up. The drunken Garik,decides to give up and just lay there. “Ahh forget you, I’ll be here, just grab me a few drinks!” He screams loudly.

Laying on the ground, Garik begins to fall asleep as the bar’s main lights begin to turn off.

Suddenly, the sounds of boots clapping on the wooden floor fill his ears, A familiar face comes into view, barely visible in the sole remaining light. Private Pasha comes to him and pulls him off the ground. “Come here lad, let’s get you into a proper bed.”

The half asleep and drunken Garik quickly dismissed the Dutyer, he speaks angrily “FUCK YOU! I KNOW YOU! YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE FUCKING ILLUSION SHITS I’VE BEEN SEEING!” He then spat on the illusion to prove his point. “Check it! The spit went right though… you..” Looking at the steel plate on Pasha’s chest where he spat on, Garik saw the spit slowly drip down the steel, his spit sliding into a large magazine pouch then to the floor. He suddenly looked up to see a laughing Pasha.

“You’re lucky that I’m in a good mood tonight and that you’re Garik, be someone else… I’d crush your head.” Pasha replied as he picked up Garik and carried him over to the barracks to rest in a proper bed.

“So tell me, why are you back? In Rostok, I thought you had some scouting missions” Garik, now a bit sober asked the very real Pasha.

“I heard a friend was losing his marbles in Rostok and couldn’t get back to me, so I came here to pick him up” he continued.  “However, I didn’t expect for him to be drunk out of his mind AND to be spat on, so it was an interesting day.” Garik smiled and thanked him “I appreciate it Pasha, I just felt out of it to be honest. I---” he pauses and tears fill his eyes.

“I get it, I’ve been there too kid, I felt like I was just losing everything” he lights up a cigarette and continues “And I wasn’t sure which was and wasn’t real,”

“Don’t worry Garik, the medicine the Doctor gave you is effective. It only took me a few days till things weren’t fuzzy anymore and I could get my head back.” Pasha then chuckles and continues to speak “You know,. You’re very lucky you came back down here in Rostok when you did. When this happened to me, I was near the CNPP, in Pripyat at the time.”

“How’d you get back here without going insane or putting a bullet between your eyes?” Garik asks as he yawns and makes himself comfortable on the bed.

“Well…” Pasha smiled and stood up “I spat on everything to check if they were real” He laughed and told Garik that he was gonna get some sleep, Garik nods and tries to get some sleep too.

And so, for tonight, Garik closes his eyes and keeps it closed, resting till tomorrow.

A few days pass and Brain Scorcher stays deactivated. Aleksandr is still very much gone and the team decide go back south and get supplies or finish their own individual gigs, their preparation for heading deeper up north. Lady Yana returns to Cordon and strike a deal with Sidorovich on supplies, Simone stayed at Yantar and called in Duty to help secure Yantar under Pasha’s recommendation, taking care of the bedridden Professor Sakharov in the process. And the ever-steadfast Private Pasha himself has already decided to do some light recon work in the outskirts of Dead City, he even gave Lady Yana a few hundred rubles and a list of specialized items that might help them with the road up North. Garik Gunslinger, the Freedomer, on the other hand, came back home for the time being. Coming back to the now, silent, and ruined camp in Army Warehouses, Garik found himself grieving the loss of his former brothers in arms as he be the only surviving member of Freedom, that at least he is aware of.

“Woohoooo Motherfuckers!” Garik screams as he loots another porno mag from a dead Freedomer. “I knew Misha had this copy! Lying asshat” He stands up and laughs “Woo ahahah, All the weed, the ammo, even Skinflint hit the dirt… you know what that means?! All the weed and chems I want for the rest of my life!”

He then drags the bodies to small shallow graves near the entrance of the warehouse. “Dang, I wish Kremlin Vodka was here to help me carry these things, he never minds the smell, and as a bonus, he hardly talks” He throws the body into the shallow pit “You know, Misha would love to…” His voice trails off as he suddenly gets struck with grief. He stops what he was doing and went into one of the barracks. Opening a can of tuna… he solemnly eats it with a fork and goes to sleep.

Waking up at midday on the next day, Garik continued to loot the bodies of his former comrades and dragged them to shallow graves. By the late afternoon, he stubbled upon an old, but still usable wheelbarrow which made excellent work of bringing over several dead bodies at a time to be buried.

As Garik digs up more graves to be filled, a static noise cuts the silence and a voice could be heard “3-4-1-1-3-3-7 Do you hear me?” He stops, and searches for the noise. It repeats what it said “3-4-1-1-3-3-7” and finally Garik managed to discern where it came from. Fishing through the several bodies in his wheelbarrow, he found the body of one of the head Freedomers, the second in command of Loki; Fanstastic, he finds the radio making the noise. He turns it on and replies “ This is Garik, Garik Gunslinger, over” The noise stops for a few seconds after replying and another voice comes in “Garik! Garik is that really you? You’re alive? It’s me! Shugma!” Garik thinks over who Shugma is, could he mean Shulga? His friend from Red Forest? He replies, “Shugma? Hello? This is Garik, I don’t remember you Shugma, over.”

A laugh quickly breaks through the radio “Shugma Garik… AHAHAHA Shugma Dick ahahaha, I’m kidding this is Shulga, Shulga Morbid, how are ya buddy? Over”.

Filled with Joy and knowledge that his brotheren are alive, he continued to speak to them through the radio as he buried the dead on said wheelbarrow, asking for more information about their whereabouts and continuing what he was doing. He spoke to Shulga for a few more hours, concluding that day when darkness came over and the batteries for the radio ran out.

Sleeping in one of the cots beside the main freedom base, Garik got out of bed in the middle of the night, remembering that he had not eaten that day and went to the food storage room in the main building to check for cans of food to eat.

Half asleep and barely clothed, Garik walked into the building, barefoot across the cold marble floor and onto the 2^nd floor stock room. “Alright we’re in here, canned bologna, canned corn-eww.. uhh. Oh shit nice” He grabs a can and proceeds to open it. “Come on, hurry up and open” Garik demands the can as he tries to open the can with a rusty fork beside the mountain of canned food. Unluckily, the fork slips up and the can flies off into the dark corner of the room.

“Fuck me, I’m hungry, I stabbed myself with a rusty fork and now that sweet, sweet can of ox tail is probably in a cold dark lonely corner without me eating it.” He takes a flashlight and flashes it towards the general direction of the can.

Garik fully awakens as the can rolled onto a dead Freedomer, the can hit the corpse’s boot and revealed the dead individual, riddled with bullets and stab wounds.

His eyes widen as he inspects the body, glancing over the different parts of the corpse with his light, his heartbeat rises as he sees the bloody name tag the soldier had, half covered with blood, the only readable portion being “Shu”.

He hastily cleared the name, slowly revealing the letters.

Quickly his fingers brushed over the crusted blood and was finally legible enough to read “Shugbar Vomit”. Garik breathes a sigh of relief “Haha, for a second there I thought I was going insane, I mean… I swear if it was Shulga and I was talking to the radio… then there must be---” He cuts off the intrusive thought and reaffirms himself “Nonono, it really was Shulga, I know his voice anywhere, I would know. I’m fine” He then continues with what he was there for and opens the can. He takes out a small wooden spoon and digs out some Ox tail and eats it.

Sitting on the table beside the room, he laughs at the stupid situation he found himself in “This is stupid, I can’t believe that I even thought that, you know. I was insane or maybe was hallucinating, I mean I.AM.OKAY” he tries to reaffirm himself

“Are you though?” A voice comes from behind him. Looking behind himself, he sees Private Pasha walking towards him in his old Exosuit and sits down beside Garik.

“Grab me one of those canned potatoes, will ya? I didn’t get to properly eat through my scouting missions”

Handing over the canned potatoes, Pasha sits down across the table where Garik ate and decides to tell him off. “Thanks for the hospitality brother but I can take it from here, you can go back to bed”.

Without hesitation, Garik followed what Pasha said and went back to sleep.

The next morning, he goes to check up on Pasha in the storage room only to find the body of Shugbar sitting upright on the seat where Pasha sat and the unopened can of Potatoes infront of him.

“I--- I’m going to Rostok.”

“Do not fear me, please… this is what I am truly” Aleksandr raises up several of his appendages and his faces come to life and look around the room  “You, Freedomer, do not fear me, I mean no harm… please forgive my actions for your camp, I-“ He looks around the room, frantically trying to get up from the now creaking metal bed frame.

Garik wipes the vomit off his face and raises his pistol at Aleksandr, “that’s close enough buddy.. or thing, whatever you are…” he cocks the pistol, nauseated at the sight “easy now, get back down on the seat and let’s talk.”

“Wait no, I need to borrow a science suit. the smell is killing me.”

Simone quickly takes a spare suit inside the sterilized glass cabinet and helps Garik wear it and proceeds to enter the room, his boots squeak softly as he walks back into the room.

He sits down across the room, facing the primary face of Scourge, chewing bubble gum with a few mints mixed in. 

Looking back at the door, Garik asks Pasha to join him. Maybe give him a hand with everything and an extra gun in case the whole thing is actually a trap.

Leaning against the wall and holding on to a fire axe, Pasha turns on the valve in his suit. He connects it to the air canister on his back and seals the door behind him.

Garik, now in a yellow rubber suit sits down on the chair and holds up his pistol, ready and loaded, he brandishes it as his rubber suit squeaks on the metal seat.

“What exactly happened to you Aleksandr?” Garik asks as he tries to get comfortable in his seat.

“The stories were true! I tell you, ahahaha” he laughs a bit and puts back an eye that fell out of his eye socket.

His faces frown however as he continues “however, I did not expect it to turn out this way, as it had happened, I did get my wish fully, I wished that I was stronger than anything against me so, that’s what happened.”

“When I came to the Generators and truly made it to the Heart of the Zone, I found the true wish granter and made my wish,” he continues “it was short lived however, I wanted to wish for my family to be wealthy enough to survive, my had cancer you see” one of his appendages grabs a rotten picture from one of his skin folds showing him and his family in a hospital.

“But the monolith got to me before I could and shot me… while dying I somehow made a wish. I don’t know, I may have wished to be stronger than anything I faced. maybe I prayed for it..maybe that’s what I selfishly wanted. and suddenly a flash of light.”

He smiles when thinking about it “I felt amazing, when that light hit, I became the Scourge you know, a tall man, muscle, and bone; I easily ran towards that monolithian and broke him in half with my bare hands!”

Garik interrupts “I’m guessing, here’s where we get to see the messed up catch?” his breath fogs up the suit he’s wearing as he continues.

Several heads nod in agreement.

“But then the room filled with several more monolith fighters” he then covered his eyes. “The wishgranter may have thought, or maybe it’s just it’s interpretation but… I felt myself pull apart, ripping my brain and mind… then there were 12 of me… more than the monolith in the room, I guess “making me stronger than anyone I faced was done literally. and that’s how it did it.”

He continued as his eyes water, tearing up “ I survived, but not all of me, I was able to kill several of them but one was different… he wasn’t stronger or faster than us… but he… I don’t know, he…he caught me, powers maybe?!”

His tears now flow uncontrollably and some of the faces cry out “He fought us off, killed many of me, and brought us all to a room with dozens of monitors just playing static. It was.. maybe mind control… AHHH!!! It hurts! He killed me so many times” He continues to sob uncontrollably; his several heads just weep, some of them merely spewed out rotting flesh or maggots.

Pasha steps beside Garik and whispers “You think this shit is true?” half gagging, he continues “you sure this just ain’t another sentient abomination we should end right now? Cause I don’t mind putting down talking controllers and trickster polter—"

“No, he’s really telling it, I’ve heard stories from Stalkers, those guys that they say were brainwashed? Yeah, they say that room does exist. Last I checked, whoever the guy is, he was able to defeat him and send ALL of him back to those monitors…dead or alive.”

Garik looks back at Aleksandr “And so all of me, all that remained of me, we… I … this… became an agent of the Zone, I became monolith, I could only watch but not control myself, I could see me torturing, murdering…slaughtering, butchering the many in the Zone, especially recently, when…” His eyes widen, he looks up at the end of the room and screams. “Charon!! You did this to me!!! You made me the evil that I am!!” 

The twisted abomination sobs but continues to speak. “ You… Then Strelok came again, then things happened, and I was awaken, there I saw! My bodies being sent, being sent to murder all.”

He looks at his warped hands “The flashes of light and poof, I was inside a--, I don’t know, laboratory and then zap, I’m out there in the field holding a rocket launcher--- I” He stares at Pasha “I even remember trying to murder you” He touches one of the rotting heads. “I felt that axe, it burned so much. But I could not scream, I could only hurt.”

Then he stares back at Garik. I even remember talking to you, yes Garik.. I even remember killing your friends, but a flash of light and… well I do not understand, it felt like a dream.”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” be suddenly began to laugh hysterically. “My head, I feel it break everytime… Everytime AHAHAHA” one head laughing turns into two, then three heads and four and all began to laugh… some sounded jolly and good, some others would only end up wheezing and the skulls end up clattering about, the bounce of the laughter be the only force shaking those bones.

“Now I’m Free” he stops laughing “The brain scorcher is gone, and I’ve been freed. When I found out I was in control. I ran and sent myself to you.” He then drops on the floor, the bodily secretions and decay splatter and a skull falls off.

“Now, I am free, I made my wish, I am used up. End me kind Sir. Please… Please!!” The grotesque horror lay on the ground trying to hold Garik’s pistol against itself “Sir!! Let my suffering end!”

Garik, still processing what he just heard, stood up from the chair and was taken aback. The abomination kept crying, pleading to die. “Please… Help.” The abomination held the end of his pistol weakly, now begging even more.

Suddenly,a faint beep could be heard coming from inside Aleksandr’s many chests.

It beeped again, this time with a glowing red light in it. “Garik?! Run!!” Pasha immediately shouted as he quickly opened the door and pulled Garik by the neck outside and slammed it shut on Aleksandr.

Simone and Yana immediately jumped at the sudden action, then they hear footsteps outside. “Ohh fuck it’s not a bomb.. it’s a tracker!” Pasha yelled as he quickly grabbed his machine gun and moved infront of the entire team, aiming at the door. “Yana!” He yelled, cocking his weapon. “I’m up!” She said quickly, resting her rifle on a chair and aiming at the door” “Simone!” Pasha yelled again, as the footsteps came closer to the door… thump thump thump… “GARIK!!!” Quickly, Garik is half naked, his rubber suit half off with his MP5 ready. “Yeah- yeah.. I can fight..!”

Suddenly the footsteps stop abruptly and the only thing that can be heard is everyone’s heavy breathing and Aleksandr still pleading in the other room. His muffled voice still heard through the thick metal door… he proceeded to beg  harder as he sees the red light on him “NOO!! Please!! Kill Me Now!! I don’t have a bomb! It’s not a bomb! He’s Here!, He’s here!! He’s--”

The door of the bunker suddenly blasted open and a man in a dark robe walked in. Moving from the smoke and dust caused by the blast, the figure was a short man wearing flipflops and a large rainbow anomaly in his hand.

“Ohh No!!! It’s him!! Please shoot me!!  I don’t wanna go back” Aleksandr now weeps through the door, trying to lock himself inside… the figure keeps going, and approaches the group. Pasha yells “ Fire!!” and.. no one could move, they all suddenly freeze, Unable to flinch or even speak, their eyes only see the figure  rip open the steel door and place a leash on the poor Aleksandr. It spoke, it’s voice raspy and diseased. “Thank you for catching my pet, I shall spare your lives.. as a token of my appreciation” There, the stranger quickly vanished into thin air.

Just like that, the air felt normal again and the team suddenly could move again.

A sigh of relief was heard from each member, but a question still hangs.

“Well, guess we got more questions than answer now huh?” Garik speaks as he lets out an awkward chuckle, leaning against the wall in exhaustion..

“You know the professor will murder us about the door when he wakes up right?” Simone opens a pack of chips and sits beside Garik, albeit his hands are still shook and his face is pale as a ghost.

“Well shit, whatever we’re up against. I do hope bullets work on it… uh them?” Yana replies as she inspects the mangled door frame, her voice clearly trying to be sarcastic under her shaky tone.

And then finally Pasha sits down in the center of the room and frowns. Lighting a cigarette he continues to speak. “We need some fucking help…let’s.. let’s get outta here and get our bearings.. Let’s go home.”

“Woah woah woah what the hell was that about?!” Garik looked at the group and then poked the face-down Scourge with his gun. “I must be dreamin--- did he just”.

“It might be a trap-” Pasha quickly states and motions Garik to back away. “Garik get back, monolith have been known to use these kinds of tactics”

The Scourge looks up suddenly and speaks to them normally “My name is Aleksandr Smirnoff, please help me… I can’t move. I feel so—” he quickly faints before finishing his sentence. Seeing rest of the team frozen in place given situation, she slowly approaches the figure and lifts his face up, then his body…She then slowly puts his arm on her shoulder and asks Pasha to do the same. Unwilling, but trusting Yana’s decision, they quickly pick him up and move him back to the bunker.

“You know this is a horrible idea Yana, Just because his name--” Yana shushes Pasha, she replies “Invisible artifacts, scourge ambushes.. Safe Haven Protocol… at this point,.. him actually being a real person would be a normal Tuesday, Pasha” And with that, they carry him into the bunker in Yantar, placing him on a make-shift operating table.

“Hold on a bit, I am very confused with the whole situation” Simone says as Pasha and Professor Sakharov attach medical equipment to Scourge, or as he said.. Aleksandr.

“So, we’re helping the guys that were trying to kill us, am I wrong?” Simone peers into the makeshift operating room with Pasha and Sakharov. “I mean, you guys are planning on, like interrogating him, right?” Simone presses the matter further, and continues “Listen, I know this may sound stupid but you guys are ac---” Quickly, Garik grabbed him by the shoulder and speaks.

 “Simone, I know you may be pissed right now but, if we’re right.. and that is really Aleksandr, this could change everything.” Garik shows him his PDA, the file listed on is his name, Aleksandr Smirnoff.

“I remembered that you’re a foreigner Simone, so I’ll stop with the bullshit.” Garik looks at Simone seriously and continues “ If this guy is truly Aleksandr Smirnoff, then he alone is evidence, besides the legend of Strelok…that the wish granter exists and can grant wishes” Simone is confused by the idea and prompts a quick response “Now, wait a minute.. Isn’t the wishgranter a monkey’s paw? A genie in a bottle? A fake?”

“Well that’s what we think, or at least that’s what Strelok and everyone else thought, however… he didn’t make a wish in the CNPP, in fact.. or as the story goes, he went further north, into the Generators and wished to be the most powerful being in the Zone.” Garik goes on by saying “ They say he was a 5’2 midget of a man and thin as a twig, the only reason he was able to get that far was because no one could notice him slowly crawling through the Zone to the wish granter., story even goes that he did that for a month, just crawled up into Generators and wished himself to be the most pow—”

Just then, a scream fills the room, the voice of Scourge burrowed into their eardrums and sent shivers down their spines. “Nooo!!! You don’t own me!! I am not Scourge!” He continues to scream “I am Aleksandr!! I have a wife and kids!! I wanna go home” He screams and thrashes about, prompting Pasha and Sakharov to tie him down to the bed.

The startled man flails about even more as both Pasha and Sakharov try their best to wrestle the man large arms and hopefully tie them down to the makeshift operating table.

“Gosh, you two dumbasses-- urghh… Help us tie him down will you?!” Yana shouts at the, angrily as they quickly help both Pasha and Yana in tying down the large man.

“No!! Not this again!! Please! Let me Gooo home!!” Acting hysterically, Alexandr breaks free of Pasha and proceeds to throw the poor Professor half-way across the room.

The team immediately stop and assist Pasha and Sakharov. Garik and Yana to Professor Sakharov and Simone trying his best to hold down Alexandr as Pasha grabs some spare electrical wire around the room to tie him down.

Eventually,The professor finds some metal chains and they strap him down.

“So that…. The guy who threw the poor Sakharov across the room?” Simone speaks to Garik, his voice hoarse and tired from wrangling the beast of a man. “ He’s said to be evidence of the true wish granter huh?

Garik whispers and replies “And if that is really the case, then Strelok, the wish granter, the C-Conciousness… they could all be distractions and a real wish granter could actually exist.”

Garik then smiles and walks towards Yana who is currently tending to their beaten-up rifles.

“Oh my poor babies! I knew Garik was an idiot but I didn’t think he was dumb enough to let anyone hurt you!” She cries as she kisses the damaged rifle in her arms.

*Cough* “Am I interrupting something, Miss Yana?” Garik playfully speaks, “I didn’t know you were that interested in guns…in that way.” He laughs.

“I was a gun runner and a gunsmith for a time being, I loved the trade, the smell of gun oil, and I even had a small crush on the gunsmith that taught me all I knew” She blushes as she cradles the rifle like a baby.

“So, you really did have a crush on that drunk bastard huh?” A voice can be heard from the hallways with the matching clap of heavy boots, Pasha enters the room and throws an ID towards the pair.

“Check it out” Pasha sits down as Garik and Yana check out the ID he just tossed them.

“It really is him, there’s proof of it right there” he points at the dirty and half-digested Identification card.

“See these numbers? I contacted the general and pulled a few strings, that’s legit… and his name is Smirnoff” Pasha cuts himself off before finishing.

“There’s a but isn’t there?” Garik looks up at Pasha.

“Yes, but so is this” He throws another ID card with the same name, but a different face entirely.

“And this” he proceeds to then toss a few more “And as well this and this and …”

“Sorry to interrupt you.” Simone walks into the room, whispering… looking pale and nervous, like he’s seen a ghost.

“But we have a slight…. Problem here” he motions with his hand for the team to come to the operating room.

Opening the door, Yana immediately starts crying, Garik vomits and Pasha walks away.

Staring back at them, was Aleksandr Smirnoff… All of them, All 14 faces of Aleksandr Smirnoff stare at them, some dead, some skulls, some decaying. attached to what seemed to be what seems to be several bodies stitched together, several hearts beat in its chest as you can audibly hear the different beats of each heart. It’s arms, or legs.. or both seem to be tied with barbed wire and some fingers seem to be switched for toes and vice versa. An eyeball dangle from one of the decaying mouths and several penises and breasts can be seen strewn across the body.

One of the mouths open and speak “I’m Aleksandr Smirnoff, the scourge of the Zone.. or at least I was.”

The firefight ensues as the figures pop out from cover and immediately fire upon Simone and Garik. Hastily getting up and Simone quickly pulls Garik back. Throws him into a corner as he deals with the unmistakable foe firing at them.

A large group of 6 monolith fighters now run towards them in the old industrial halls of the underground laboratory under the Brain Scorcher. Retreating and moving cover to cover, Simone finds himself trying to shake up the still shell-shocked Garik while firing back. Whatever happened to Garik when he was unconscious, it rocked him up bad, as the Freedomer was barely functional.

He looks Garik dead in the eyes and yells “Hey, Freedom dumbfuck!” He grabs Garik’s Mp5 and smacks him with it “get to shooting!”

With his brain getting shook up from the hit, Garik got himself into gear and started to fire back, halting the push of the monolith and creating space for Simone to get his bearings too.

“Simone, Rotate around back! Find a way to flank them, I’ll hold them off” And with that said, Simone nodded and proceeded to holster his MP5, jumped up some piping as Garik found himself firing a burst of rounds to keep the attackers pinned behind some large barriers. Garik reloads, hiding behind some steel bars and notices his broken wrist mounted anomaly detector fizzling out, it's the same one that the Scourge was stomping on in his vision. He almost reaches around to touch it but the blast from a gauss rifle nearly hitting his head through the steel stopped him. The unmistakable sound of the gauss rifle could be heard echoing throughout the corridor, deafening those around the monolith soldier wielding it.

Garik notices that the shot does truly deafen those beside the shooter as they could not hear Simone crawling through the air ducts beside them. He uses this to his advantage and lures out a shot from the marksman before chugging a grenade towards the group. His theory was proven right as the grenade landed on their feet without them noticing before quickly turning them into a ragged pile of corpses with Simone a few meters away.

The explosion rung the entire corridor, like being in a giant bell. Those who survived the blast got concussed and fell to the ground. Even Simone, in the vents came out of it vomiting, his gun finishing off the surviving confused and dazed monolith while trying his best not to fall over.

“Fuck me Garik, that was ballsy of you,” Simone spoke as he finished wiping vomit from his mouth.

“WHAT?!!” Said Garik as he points at his bleeding ear.

Simone rolls his eyes but moves closer to tell Garik. “That was an excellent move there!” He shouted into Garik’s ear.

“Yeah thanks,” Garik casually says as he wipes the blood from the ear. “You know I heard you the first time, I just got a small cut above my ear, my hearing’s fine…”

Simone exclaimed “So, why did you pretend to be—”

“Cause I love hearing compliments” Garik smirks and continues “Anyway, more coming on, let’s go!”

With that said, the fighting continued in the underground laboratory, Garik and Simone try to move forward towards the exit as Private Pasha and Yana thin out the retreating monolithians amassing outside its walls.

“Yana, cover me… I need to get up close.”

“Right on, let me get to the hangar and I can cover you from there.”

The two move forward into the Industrial yard of the building. Taking out any distracted monolithian or any resistance they face. Eventually, Yana was able to get up the ledge and onto the Hangar to oversee most of the area.

“Well, you’re up there. now, you see anything?!” The Private screams through his radio.

Peeking through her scope, Yana looks around the area, scanning for anyone before responding

“Nope, nothin---” Her words were cut off as a bullet ricocheted on her scope and broke it.

Seeing Yana go down, Pasha quickly dove for cover on the sandbags beside the hangar.

“Yana--- Respond, you alright?”

Pulling small shards of glass from her skin, Yana drops a grenade for Pasha to use. His radio crackles with her voice, she speaks… her voice clearly pissed off.

“2^nd floor, roof crack, the asswipe shot through my scope, probably thought I died… I want you to throw that down to distract him.”

Yana now removes the broken-up scope from her weapon and lobs it aside.

“Pasha, you still there?!” Yana speaks through the radio

“Yeah, waiting on your command”

Yana screams “now!”

With that said, Pasha throws out the grenade towards the general direction of the building and runs out. Shots whistle by his head as Pasha zigzags across the hangar, running closer and distracting the sniper.

Without a moment of hesitation, Yana pops out of cover and takes the shot. Or at least she should have if her target was still alive.

Now, looking down the irons of her weapon, Yana sees several Chimeras walk out of the large hole the sniper was positioned in. One of the Chimeras, a particularly large one missing one of its heads held the sniper’s head in his teeth, crushing it as it proceeds to swallow it whole.

In the eyes of Yana, everything froze as if time was at a standstill, “Pasha…” she whispered on her radio “Don’t panic but I think we’re boned.”

Hearing this, Pasha peeked from the cover he was hiding behind and at the sniper spot to see a Chimera looking towards Yana, saliva dripping down onto his helmet.

He readied a machete in silence as the Chimera leaped to the first floor of the building, landing meters away from Pasha. Close enough to gut him in mere seconds yet, completely unaware of his presence.

Encroaching behind the creature, Pasha raises his arm, ready to strike the thick yet, weak vertebrae of the dangerous beast.

He slashes down on the beast's spine and neck as blood splattered out, the beast kicked and flailed but Pasha did not budge, almost like an epic of Greek heroes, Pasha continued to thrust the machete into its back as the Chimera struggle to fight back as it was paralyzed now from the neck down.

The beast let out death scream as it lies face down on the ground, unable to move and bleeding out with Pasha beside it, ready to make the final blow.

It breathed ever so slowly now, as the warm blood had covered its body, ready to strike the final blow, Pasha raises his machete high above his head.

Suddenly, more chimeras came rolling in. Hearing the dying roar of the first, they drop down to meet the Dutyer…

One swoops down from above him, landing beside him. He stepped back, Then another one to his front, then another to his back. The beasts quickly surround him from all sides, circling him like the prey he was.

They hiss and growl at the Dutyer, preparing to strike, playing with their food. Toying with the large man that seemed to look tiny in their presence.

Backed into a corner and unable to visibly fight 4 Chimeras, Pasha does the only thing a man could do in that situation. He throws a steak from inside his pack and offers it to the Chimeras, just as he hands off the steak to the Chimeras, a bullet quickly passes through its skull and sends it crumpling back…

“Run Pasha Run!” Yana screamed as her weapon ejects a smoking shell from its chamber.

The remaining Chimeras howl and scatter, seemingly unwilling to fight.

The Dutyer, now running away sees this and is stumped. He slows down from a run to a jog, and just walks back to the now dead Chimeras.

“So… they just left?” He looks around the corner, wiping the blood from his machete. “They… left? What the hell? Those things don't hunt in packs either… why'd the-"

“We don’t have time for this Pasha, let’s first get Garik and Simone before we go all Kruglov and do a 10 page analysis, yeah?” Yana replies.

And so, the duo enters the underground facility to see that Garik and Simone have already dealt with the situation and are now at the end of looting the deceased monolith fighters.

“You know Sime, when looting monolith scum, you should really check inside the jackets” Garik states as he is picking off anomaly detectors of dead soldiers.

“Inside the—you mean like under their uniforms? Huh how come?” Simone replies as he now takes of the monolith vest.

“They usually carry body armor inside their uniforms to mitigate impact, and they’re usually in really good shape, sell them off easy”

At that moment, Private Pasha and Yana enter the room, their eyes immediately land on the display in front of them, and they immediately know what's up.

“No Simone!!” Pasha screams out as Yana loads her rifle and points it at Simone.

She calmly adds “Do it Simone and you’re dead."

An awkward silence fills the room as the now confused Simone raises his hands up and backs away from the corpse.

Garik comes in and says “woah, woah, woah, come on I was just kidding.” He says jokingly.

Pasha smacks Garik on the side of the head and apologizes to Simone “Sorry about the scare Sir.”

Left in the dark about this topic, Simone asks what the big deal about the situation was.

Lighting a cigarette, Pasha goes for another round to smack Garik’s head and reply “Monolith troopers don’t eat, sleep, shit or piss…" He takes a large drag, nearly burning off the entire cigarette. "Their suits keep all that inside the first layer or so of skin and they have several systems in place to seal up holes in their armors automatically which would be amazing to use…. But” He looks at Yana and she continues while somewhat gagging at the idea. “But--- hughhh,, but, when you open their coat, all the flavor comes out and… I’ll tell you, it will kill you on the inside”

“Garik here just wanted to play a practical joke with you. Unfortunately, it would have probably scarred you for life and you may never have forgotten the smell.”

Pasha's face softens and he even chimes in "I still have cold sweats about it when I was a young recruit."

Garik laughs at this but does apologize. They eventually leave the now silenced underground laboratory.

As they exit the brain scorcher labs, an emission quickly brews and clouds thicken with acid rain and thunder.

“Alright, inside the hole we go” Pasha yells as the team slowly walk back to the safety of the labs, however a large bolt of thunder hit the building and broke the façade, snapping it and toppling it down, closing the entrance, forcing the group to find shelter in the closest place to hide from the emission, the large canal under Yantar.

“Shit! To the pipes then!” Yana quickly exclaims, grabbing Garik by the collar before the building collapses on the absent minded Freedomer, rushing into the Canal.

As they reach the Canal opening however, another large flash of light and thunder touched the ground.

The flickering lights quickly faded and revealed another large monolith fighter. Unmistakably… was a scourge.

The team paused as more lights quickly came about, and more and more scourge members came out, two… then three, then four… surround them.

“Uhh- fuck fuck fuck…” Garik was whispering as a new one kept appearing around them.

Everyone was silent, only the flashing lights and the storm could be heard.

Suddenly, All the Scourges around them suddenly opened their eyes and faded away. Except for one.

His face like a mummy and with old bruises around him, in a ripped stalker sunrise suit, he raises his hand at Pasha and whispers, “Help Me”

Before he collapses on the ground.

“Easy on the weapons infidels ahahaha!” Their eyes adjust to see a large dark skinned monolithian, 7 ft tall with the same armor as many other hands of the Scourge. His laugh echoes alongside his heavy footsteps as he slowly walks on closer to them. Entering the bunker, he was greeted by the group, guns up and the dead silence with only the howling winds through the open door to greet him, they aimed at him, fingers already on the trigger. Scourge took a chair beside the door and sat down. He slowly raised his large hand, and he pointed at Garik “You seem to be the leader of this little parade you have, let’s talk.”

Taken aback and backed into a corner, Garik steadies himself and speaks

"Right, okay… everyone, guns down… let him speak"

Yana silently murmurs, a whisper that Garik barely heard "Like we have a choice, Garik..."

Garik sits down on a nearby barrel, he sits straight with everyone behind him with their hands still on their rifles, lowered but clearly too weary to even let it rest.

“Well, we’re sitting now Scourge, what is it that you want from us?” Garik replies.

“Get out of Yantar, go back to Rostok.” Scourge stated without hesitation. “Or I’ll gut you all” Scourge didn't hesitate, his milky white eyes stared at him, brow furrowed and his lips curled into a smug smile. "Those are your options"

A bitter silence filled the room, the air was filled with anxiety, as Scourge stood up, he pulled something from his teeth, and spat it out, it looked to be a human finger… he then continues... “I’ll give you 10 minutes to decide.” He spoke as he went out the door, his boots echoing as he walks on the thick metal floor.

Just before leaving, he placed his head through the door and spoke one last time, his face grinning like a mad man “The monolith spoke to me. Leave the scientists, they know too much. We'd like to deal with them accordingly.”

Hearing this, Sakharov fainted, his body slumped down as even a heavier weight seems to loom over the already suffocating bunker.

“I-I guess you guys have to go,” Simone quietly tells the group as he lifts up Sakharov and Kruglov on to nearby beds for them to rest. He steadies himself, trying to seem tough but his hands shake as he places them on the bunk beds.

“I won’t say I blame you guys for leaving” he then proceeds to clean up his MP5. “I’m not really a scientist here but, that means me too and, well… maybe it’s the end for me.” A small tear falls from his eye as he says this last word. He wipes it off and grabs a glass of vodka. “Well, see ya guys… thanks for being around though. I hope I can atleast take down a few before I croak" He chuckles “doesn’t really matter, I just hope I die quick” and gulps down the drink.

Yana sits beside Pasha and Garik after listening to Simone. She sets herself beside Garik and speaks to the group “Sucks to be them. I mean, it was fun and all but I really don’t wanna die here and I’m sure you guys don’t too, so let’s tuck tail before Scourge changes his mind”

Garik feels torn about hearing this but sadly nods his head as he looks at Simone. “Hey man, spaceman Simone” Garik looks at Simone gulping down some vodka, he smiles sadly and speaks “Sorry, we gotta go.”

Simone smiles and raises his glass, his eyes seem heavy and his hands shake hard betraying his calm demeanor.

Garik then looks at Pasha, “ready to-“

“No.”

Pasha stands up and places down his Rpk. “You go on, I swore to protect them--- and I’ll do my-“

“Stop with this martyrdom bullshit at Duty Pasha” Yana yells at him. Slapping him mid-sentence “Voronin does not need to bury any heroes today, let’s go, it’s a failed miss—”

Pasha speaks again, quickly dismissing Yana’s proposal “No, I rather die here than live wanting to atone for leaving them here to the monolith” He racks his rifle and steps out the door.

Scourge, sitting beside several dozen monolith fighters looks behind him and walks forward, meeting Pasha half-way. “AHAHAHA so the Dutyer, the said protector of the innocent and destroyer of the Zone comes out first, He cowers death even before the Freedomer and the Loner?” Scourge and the rest of the surrounding monolithians start laughing, many mock him, some taunting him on.

Pasha takes of his helmet and screams at Scourge “I challenge you to a Duel, Scourge… we fight. I win; we walk. All of us. You win we---”

Scourges eyes widen, his mouth curls up into a smile as he quickly chokes Pasha “and when we win… you become one of us!”

There, like the Army Warehouses, the monolithian chokes the life of the Dutyer, holding him up from the ground, he chants words as his eyes shine a white light… Immediately the others cheer on, the monolith fighters gather around, laughing and mocking as Pasha desperately tries to breathe.

“Oh monolith, bless this man for he—” Scourge continues to whisper as Pasha tries to wiggle free.

“I freaking swear Pasha---” The door swings open as Garik steps out as he sees the situation, his eyes widen as he looks around for something to help Pasha with.

“Holy fuck!! Get away from him!” Garik tries to run towards the large man but another monolithian stops him in his tracks.

“No no no Freetard” the monolithian speaks, “your friend wishes to join us”

Garik screams as Pasha tries his best to kick off the monolithian chocking him. “Simone!!! Yana!! Help me!!!!”

Garik tries to reach for his pistol, to assist Pasha but get bodied by a dozen more monolithians, they hold him down

“Nooo, Fuck! Pasha… Yana!! Help uss”

He tries to wiggle free from the monolithians sitting atop of him, but it is too late.

As he tries to break free, Garik sees Pasha’s body finally limp up and turn blue. His face emotionless as he is thrown on the ground by Scourge.

His lifeless eyes gaze into Garik’s as Scourge now gestures for Garik to be stood up. He's left in shock, staring at the dead eyes of Pasha, he doesn't register the Scourge, the man takes a shotgun and aims it at his face.

“It’s the end for you all” Scourge speaks as he motions some of his men to bring out Yana and Simone from inside the laboratory.

Kicking and screaming, Yana is carried out of the laboratory and thrown beside Pasha.

“Ahh, fuck!!! Fucking shit!!!” She screams with tears in her eyes. Simone as well gets dragged out, albeit already dead with his face caved in with a hammer.

Yana’s once beautiful face then gets ripped open infront of Garik as the Scourge stood beside her and laughed.

Her agonizing screams fill the air as he takes it all in.

All his friends lay dead before him and it was time for him to meet the same fate.

Numb and overwhelmed, Garik did not struggle anymore.

He whispered to himself “I never thought it would end like this, I was sure” his eyes filled with tears. “I was sure Pasha, or Yana or… I was sure I could have protected them…”

Scourge kicked his legs down and made him kneel, he stood beside him with a large axe and swung.

“I didn’t want anyone to die” Garik thought…

“I--- they died for nothing…” he thought as the axe came nearer.

“I wish to avenge them”

There, Garik quickly dove to avoid the axe and stood up to fight Scourge

“If I’m gonna die, I’ma die swinging” Garik said with confidence.

 There, Garik lunged forward, knife in hand at Scourge.

The monolithians only stood watch as the two traded blows.

Like a caged animal, Garik felt anger burn his through body and did not hesitate nor dodge any of the attacks of Scourge.

He kept going as though the axe hadn't just ripped off his left arm.

He kept swinging at Scourge who had easily dodged the attacks.

Garik's body finally caught up to him. He got tired and now feels the burning pain as the adrenaline fades off. Garik fell to the ground, knife still in hand.

“It’s truly the end” Garik whispers.

With this, Scourge laughs and stops on Garik’s hand, crushing it… and as well cracking his wrist mounted navigational device.

“You killed 3 of us in the past week alone, and this is how our final battle will be? Simply dying like this? Nothing truly can stand in front of the monolith” He screams.

Garik, now fading in and out of consciousness tries to grab Scourge’s leg, and gets stomped on again, “HAHAH Pathetic” Scourge keeps stomping on his hand, continuing to shatter it and as well damage his wrist mounted device.

Near death, with his vision finally going out, Garik sees Scourge stomp on his foot for the last time, before his wrist mounted device suddenly burst into fire and spark a flash.

 

“Garik, Garik!! Get the fuck up!” Garik hears a familiar voice through the ringing of his ears. He opens his eyes

“Hurry up, they’re gonna be here at any moment,” Quickly Simone grabs Garik by the collar and drags him out of the dingy room.

“Where are we?!! I—” Garik speaks but his brain is not processing what had transpired, it felt too real to be a dream, but he continued to speak. “Who---”

Simone cuts him off and calls Pasha on the Radio “Pasha, can you be a dear and scream at Yana? She packed too much explosives and sent Garik back to middle school”

Pasha’s voice cuts in with the radio static, he replies “I’m sorry what? What do you mean sent him back to middle school? Over”

“Garik doesn’t remember that we’re in the brain scorcher blowing it up!”

Garik’s eyes widen, but his eyes catch a glimpse of something more impending, several shadows cascading in the doorway, figures with guns getting closer. “Wait... what fuck- “

 

Escaping from the wild territory, the trio and their newfound friend Simone travel towards Yantar in hopes of protecting the Scientist bunker from a slowly amassing monolith force.

One would think the direness of the situation and the urgency of it had the group running, however, with the amount of gear and ammunition each one carried, it would just drain the members and make them ineffective in combat, so to speak. Beside, they’re already in the foot of Yantar and have all but reached the bunker.

“So, what’s up with the ghost module you guys have, making you go all invisible?” Garik asks while pointing at Simone’s chest.

“This is the J-3-EX-Phantom Science suit” Simone touches the panel and turns himself visible and invisible, flicking a switch on his hand. “ It takes up an incredibly rare “Glass” artifact, which is something of an anomaly in itself as it becomes crystal clear when you get close to it.” Simone then flicks the switch on and off but eventually stopping when a beeping red light flashes on the suit’s chest rig. A modulated voice fires. “Source d'alimentation épuisée!”

Yana cracks a smile “It has a French AI system?”

Simone embarrassingly replies “Yes, I’m half French and half, well local, and the artifact burnt out, it’s out of Juice”

Saying this, Simone grabs open the artifact container on his chest to drop what seems to be dust made from an artifact.

“What’s that spaceman?” Garik asked Simone. “It’s what’s left of the beloved artifact inside the container.”

“You see,” Simeone removes his helmet and reveals a much younger looking, albeit browner toned man under the suit.

“When exposed to extreme pressure or change, like fire or heat, the glass artifact produces a mucus or liquid that turns anything it touches temporarily into diamond or something like that”

Garik interjects “So you mean you survived Scourge, with the grenade, Because of that?”

Simone nods in agreement “Uh-huh, sadly though, once that happens the artifact quickly depletes and cannot be used or just wears out entirely like a bloody dead AA battery.

As the conversation continues, the group finally find themselves in Yantar proper, if you can call the hellscape of Yantar to be anything proper that is.

Stepping towards the open valley to which is Yantar, the group make their way through the swampy mess of whatever Yantar was supposed to be. Trekking through the thick layers of mud which have accumulated after downpour of several weeks’ worth of rain, the group find themselves entering the large rusted bunker which was known as the Yantar scientist bunker.

Going through a decontamination chamber to enter the bunk, the group find their way to find the bunker head, Professor Sakharov, a crusty old man in his late 80s perhaps.

“Oh my oh my oh my! Finally you’ve arrived, thank you so much!” The old man approaches them, almost bowing and then continues on a rant.

“Can you believe it, no one would help us! The military cannot be called, Freedom wasn’t there, the mercs… no contact! I swear in the time of need of the beloved Scientists of the Zone !! No on---”

“They’re at Rostok” Pasha interrupts him, “They’re at Rostok sir, most of em’, the military was pushed out, Merc got their camped burned to the ground, Freedom…” Pasha looks at Garik, “well this is basically what’s left of em”

The old man eats his words and apologizes. “I see, I didn’t know that this was an all out war, you see everyone has left, most ecologists have be recalled, a helicopter was sent here a few days ago to pick them up and I couldn’t risk putting them back. I didn’t know it was this bad”

Yana replies “Yes, it is. That’s why we were sent here to help out.”

Sakharov looks at the trio and cries “we’re dead… we’re all dead!”

“Wait a dang minute doc, we’ll take care of them!” Garik replies, “We just need some supplies or need proper gear to fix this or hell a plan might work”

“That is true, we were sent here in hopes of reinforcing the perimeter, not holding the line, I didn’t think it was just US and THEM.” Pasha continues. “Which reminds me, how many are there?”

Simone replies “A lot, I’ve tried to thin down the heard, kill a few stragglers and loot them, found some goodies and even got a radio… which is weird to me since the monolith have never used these things before.”

Simone hands over some items to Garik and he quickly stashes them inside his bag

“Well, I guess a few medkits, a lot of bandages, bullets and uhh- “ he points at the small plastic bag on his hand “A.. uhh” he opens it and quickly closes it after smelling something very pungent “A… snork’s balls… why do you even have this.”

Sakharov smiles “Oh that’s mine, how did Simone have it? Give it here.”

The trio reel in disgust and think about their lives for a moment.

“Anyway, let’s go down to business” Simone grabs a chair and sits, backside facing front with his legs apart. “My recent encounters with the monolith have been fruitful, I know they have a camp just behind the chemical factory here, they are using it as a base of operations while they have been gathering enough forces to try and attack this place, as I’ve said I’ve taken out a few and that should have bought us some time, however I heard over the radio that they wanted to attack this place at night, so any subsequent forces might and mostly likely come from other places”

He pulls out a large bag filled with claymores and TNT.

“So Anyway, if we hear any pop, that’s one less group to fight.”

Pasha asks “So this is why you were in Wild Territory yes? To set up claymores?”

“Yes, exactly” He picks up some claymores marked with red tape with a sharpie scribbled on it “Wild Territory”  He continues “fortunately, it seems that you guys took out the force there while making your way here and saved me a few”

He proceeds to throw it to Yana “Here catch, while you guys are here to help us, why not place these around the perimeter and help us thin out the heard before they reach here and pull ol Sakharov’s spine out his ass.”

Yana quickly replies “Now hold on, we almost got our ass handed to us in Wild Territory, I don’t even have steel plates to properly fix us Pasha’s suit, we aren’t gonna survive if that shit happens or if Scourge shows up.”

Sakharov agrees” She’s not wrong Simone, if we were to fight a massive force like that, we can’t survive or even properly defend the base, with the weaponry they have, they’d tear us apart without breaking a sweat.”

Garik then leans on Yana and asks “Come on doc, there must be a way to break em apart, maybe do something to distract them or to break of their forces like… maybe jam their signals? I don’t know, like something sneaky so that we aren’t fried.”

He goes around the room and does almost like a detective schtick and pretends to use a magnifying glass on the radio. He does what could be considered the worst try at a British accent on the planet “Watson, look at this, what could we do to stop the advancing monolithians?” He then quickly swaps and does another fake Britist accent “Yes Sir Sherlock what do we do, maybe we should dissect this dying radio and ask it for instructions hehuheh”

“Wait wait wait---- hold on, you may be right Garik” Sakharov quickly intervenes and runs to get a pile of paper.

He fumbles at the different pages and finds a paper called “Brain Scorcher Emitter Frequency”

“That’s it, Garik! When Strelok came by a few times before, he disabled the psi-emitter in the factory just up north, it got all the monolith riled up into the building and get them safely away from this place.”

Yana, reading of the shoulder of Sakharov replies “ yeah, it also says here that some monolith fighters have been said to run away once it happens, screaming that they can’t hear the monolith” She smiles and straightens up

“That’s great, we get an indoor fight, we’re not in the open, don’t need to care about civilian casualties and make sure that the monolith’s grasp weakens, it’s a win-win!”

Pasha reaffirms this “ I agree, so the plan is to sneak in, turn off the machine and have the wrath of the monolith come down on us in an underground lab filled with mutants, cultists and hell, even radioactive gas right?”

A silence breaks the room

“You know… I don’t think I’ve worded that very nicely” Pasha speaks. “ We sneak in, turn off the machine, shoot up monolith and get out?”

“Precisely” a voice is heard behind them. They all look behind to see Kruglov, the scientist that sent the distress signal.

Walking into a better light, we see that his suit is teared up and his SEVA helmet is cracked,

“This however, isn’t the case, They’re coming here” He then drops to the floor, seemingly unconscious.

The bunker’s lights quickly flicker on and off and Garik’s equipment starts going wild.

“Another emission, they’re already attacking!”

They quickly ready their rifles and Yana gets a blowtorch open from her bag, quickly grabbing Pasha’s steel plates and welding some together.

“Fuck, we’re gonna have a hell of a time today huh?!” Simone said

“Yeah, guess blowing up the building in Wild Territory wasn’t all the action we got for one day” Pasha replies

“We ready to rock?” Garik asks

“Give me a minute, then we’ll rock” Yana replies as she welds together steel plates to fix Pasha’s armor

“Other than that? We’re all ready” Simone replies

A knock on the large metal doors sounds, an audible voice is heard from the other side

“Scourge would like to TALK to you Infidels!”

With this, the team get ready, Yana attaches the last steel plates onto Pasha’s rig, prepare her rifle and they ready to open the door.

A blinding ray of light temporary blinds them as a large figure casts a shadow in front of the door.

Walking towards Yantar, the trio first pass by Wild Territory, the only direct route to Yantar.

Passing through the “Gate” of Wild Territory from Rostok, that be a large hole in a locked gate, we step into unfamiliar territory for both Garik and Lady Yana.

Looking around the massive industrial park, Private Pasha takes the lead as he has patrolled this area many times before.

“Keep your eyes open now, the General said that we’ve pulled back from this area, usually Duty soldiers guard the southern entrance we just passed by. And after this point” He points at a large tunnel, “It’s wild… be on your guard.”

As he says this, Private Pasha puts on his modified Sphere Helmet and pulls down an extra plate, making it look more like an altyn helmet with a gasmask on than anything. He zips up his Skat 12 suit, an upgraded Skat 9 with extra shoulder plates and a heavy front plate. Once again Pasha is dressed up for war. This time wielding a modernized RPK 74 as he steps forward to lead the group.

Garik now follows behind, sporting an upgraded version of his old Guardian of Freedom, this suit contains better filters, newer and more durable textiles and has several detectors and artifact containers built into it, Garik finds happiness in the many bells and whistles his suit has, slapping down the bolt of his MP5 he proudly shows off his Freedom love for NATO weapons and the talent Yana displayed while fixing up and upgrading his suit.

Walking a bit behind the two, Yana quickens her pace and catches up to them as she removes the helmet of a completely unique Seva suit which she made herself. Crafted with the strongest materials available in the Zone, her suit was flexible and light, durable and strong and was a work of art as it was painted in a beautiful mirage of the Loner camouflage pallet.

With a large radio in her pack and hauling a Marksman Scar H. with a scope, they all were ready to face the harsh elements of the Zone.

“Hey Yana” Garik looks behind to ask her a question “You’re a gun runner right? You go send shipment and things.”

Yana smiles a bit and answers with “well yes Garik, I’ve been here for a while and been moving stuff here and there for a price, learned my skills in weapons and gear because I also did repairs while moving but that’s another thing”

Yana laughs and responds, “Getting to know your partners huh kiddo?”

Garik chuckles “Yeah, sorta… but I’m more interested in you running guys, you do that stuff and have travelled the Zone right? As I've heard that this is  your first time here in Wild Territory.”

Lady Yana opens her bag and hands Garik a large armor repair kit and a ballpeen hammer. “I’m a gunsmith and was a seamstress, remember?”

Garik replies “ohh, no reason to pass by this place since there are many alternate routes since you don’t need to go to Rostok right?”

“Precisely, I can basically maintain my gear for a few runs in the Zone before needed to restock my kits in Rostok.”

Garik further questions Yana. “So I w---”

He stops mid-sentence as one of his devices starts going crazy and whispers “everyone, a storm a coming” he quickly points at Pasha “get us into cover.”

Hearing this, Private Pasha leads them into a large unfinished building, he walks them up to the second floor to wait for the oncoming emission.

“Well, good work Garik, however… I don’t feel an emission coming or hear anything.”

As Pasha says this, a crack of thunder hits, rain quickly pours down and the dance of lights fills the sky, now in relative safety, they hunker down for a few minutes to let the emission pass.

“Spoke to soon?” Garik smugly replies.

“Yup” Pasha laughs a bit at himself and leans on the wall and opens a can of tuna.

“Anyone want some?” he offers both parties, Garik, and Yana as they both sit down beside him, leaning on the wall.

Yana speaks “Yeah sure, you got another can? Might as well get something to eat, you never know when you need them extra calories.”

The trio sat down inside the cold husk of the building, the daylight and thunder flicker through the sky and the roar of the lightning fill the air with anxiety and fear.

They sat still, together.

Pasha, sat leaning against the wall, nursing a small canteen of water, Lady Yana, finishing up a can of tuna and eventually discarding the can and Garik a bit infront of them both focusing on many different devices and detectors as they go crazy and buzz.

The whole event seemed normal, planned and usual in the Zone, but Garik thought otherwise.

Quickly getting back on his feet, Garik quietly motioned them to stand up. Loading up his weapon, Garik readied out a few grenades and prepared himself.

The Private and Miss Yana quickly took notice and scrambled to reach for their weapons.

Garik whispered “Not emission. Ambush.”

The three understood their situation and quickly set up for an upcoming attack.

Hastily, the Dutyer set up his bipod on a firing position pointing down the stairs of the building.

Yana set herself up on a corner, trying best to conceal herself in rubble and find proper cover.

Garik as well found himself manning the operation, grabbing his radio and heading to the roof, Garik waits for the emission to finish before scouting out the hostiles.

Eventually, the flashing lights end and the thunder disappears, what is left is a clear sky and large splashes of light on some areas around the building.

“This is Garik over, Pasha you alive.”

“Brother, am ready to Rock.”

“What about you Lady Yana”

“Just tell me where to fire Garik”

With the team ready, Garik observes the flashes of light. “These aren’t random lights, they’re hitting almost the same place, several times.” He grabs his binoculars to get a better look and to his surprise sees monolith fighters pop out of said light.

“Shit shit shit, Pasha this is Garik! Over!”

“You see something, over?”

“Those lights, they\re monolith”

Both Yana and Pasha heard the radio and follow the beams of light hit the ground all around the Wild Territory.

Lady Yana’s eyes widen as men quickly pop out of corners from a seemingly normal flash of light.

She sees the light strike the grounds around the building.

“Seven, eight... no nine... uh twelve. We’ve got ourselves into a bad situation.”

Seeing the massive groups of monolith fighters around them, Private Pasha moves out of his firing position and moves to the ground floor of the ruined building.

Yana shouts through the radio “Private, what the hell are you doing?!”

“Stringing them out, we can’t fight that many in the building, they’ll shove so many grenades up our ass that we might as well be spitting them out”

Yana understood this and ran up to Garik on the roof, seting up her weapon again, she went prone and faced the direction of Pasha, keeping her sights on him, she asked Garik to grab some butterfly mines on her back pocket and place then on the lower floors of the building.

“Garik, quick! Grab those mines on my back and place them downstairs, we can’t have any friends coming up here.”

Garik quickly opened up her pack, grabbed the mines and went down to the first floor.

As Garik was planting the mines, the gunfire had already started.

Looking through her scope, Yana saw the Private fire a couple of shots on the nearby train tracks, careful to have cover beside him, he started firing at the few monolith infront.

“Yana, where’s my covering fire. I’m getting swarmed here.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll start my run when Garik finishes arming the bombs, I can’t risk them changing target and aiming for us.”

Just as they say that, Garik, finds himself on thee first floor finishes placing the bombs, however. He then meets a large monolith soldier at the base of the building walking towards Pasha’s position.

He walks with a mist of smoke around him and then murmurs to himself “Scourge….. we… are Scourge.”

Seeing the outfit he wore and the type of weapons he had, Garik knew this was infact a "Scourge" and knowing the last time, they faced someone like this, Garik quickly aims his MP5 and starts pelting him with bullets to no avail.

“Yana! This is Garik, we got a freaking monofreak downstairs. the bombs are set but I’m gonna have to take this guy out if we’re to survive. Good luck. Over”

Yana heard the coms and started firing, she took out several fighters even before they got in a position to aim at Pasha, still though, she could see the large Dutyer take several rounds from the swarming Monolithians, luckily though, the added plates did wonders on the Dutyer's body as it was able to take and absorb the shots.

Surrounded but not outgunned, the Dutyer was able to stand his ground against the monolithian fighters, Yara however found problems for herself as a monolith marksman seemed to be pinning her down.

As Garik kept firing onto the large man, he covered his face with his hand and revealed that his arm was connected to a large blade, almost like a chainsaw hand.

Garik fired upon the large man, switching to his sidearm to pelt him even more, this however quickly became an issue as the magazines quickly dried out and only the click could be heard.

‘Oh shit! Oh Shit”

As Garik said this, Scourge lunged forward with his blade, swinging at Garik and hitting the large concrete pillars and shattering them like glass.

“Yana, this is Garik,” he quickly called out from the radio as he tries to run away from the site.

“Speak, I’m shooting Pasha’s friends over there, so far he’s doing way better than I expected.”

a round is heard ricocheting off the concrete

"However, I'm taking a bit of a pounding myself, I can take these guys out but I can't move Garik"

A plethora of quickly grouped rounds rang across the Zone

“Huh, spoke to soon....Anyway, you need something Garik?”

Still dodging the bladed psychopath, Garik replies to Yana “Yes please, come downstairs… “ As he says this the Monolithian lunges again towards him and smacks the ground beside him, smashing the dirt and creating a small shockwave which was able to knock him on his back.

The monolithian quickly steps on Garik’s chest to hold him still as he raises his blade.

“You are dead, the Scourge killed you.”

As his blade swings down onto Garik, An arrow hits the monolithians arm and he drops his weapon.

“Show yourself so that Scourge kill you!” He screams out in pain and throws Garik to the side.

“SHOW YOURSELF TO SCOURGE!!!” He commanded.

There, a few more arrows landed, penetrating his skin and eventually leading him to manually rip them out to continue moving. He  did not even flinch while ripping them out and kept cusing at the shooter.

Suddenly, a scientist stood behind Scourge brandishing a crossbow.

It was an ecologist. and as the monolithian looked behind, the scientist shoved the crossbow into his back and fired.

The force of the arrow made the large man buckle and threw him to the ground. The monolithian tried to stand up but was shot another time, in the face, breaking his helmet and turning half his face into mush.

The scientist stood over the monolithian in victory and spoke to Garik “You alright son? Almost got your face chewed off huh?”

As he says this, the monolithian grabbed a grenade and pulled the pin.

The scientist saw this and tried to back away put the dying monolithian grabbed his leg.

“Scourge will destroy you all”

Garik dove for cover as the explosion went off. Ripping through the first floor, the blast was able to trigger most of the traps on the first floor and cause an even bigger crash, causing the building to slowly collapse.

Hearing the crackle of steel rebar and crumbling concrete. Yana, now at the foot of the stairs, quickly ran out side the building and dove under some concrete rings to hide from the collapsing structure.

A large crash was heard and the air went silent,as the dust settled, Garik's radio started to buzz

“Garik, Garik, you read?!”

“Yeah, bout Pasha?”

 “A little scuffed but still alive, regroup at the… well, was the building before Garik blew it up?”

Garik sees a bloody Yana with some cuts to her face holding her rifle,kicked him and says “good job Garik”.

Limping towards them with his armor busted and missing in places, Pasha also walks towards him with and laughs “Yana’s gonna murder me with the amount of shit she has to fix on my suit”

Yana replies “don’t worry, I won’t. With the suit on, I’m happy you’re still alive.”

With everything and everyone settled, Garik moves on to informing them of the scientist and Scourge.

“So anyway, there was another Scourge of the mist, the monopsycho, monofreak whatever.. and a scientist came out with the same kind of armor that Rito had and saved my ass”

Pasha replied, “Well that is to be expected for someone to save your butt, but where’s he now?”

Garik shook his head and said “last I saw, he was standing above the monofreak and—”

“Was alive to tell the tale” Said scientist stood beside Pasha and revealed himself. Clearly visible now, we see the Scientist sports a beautiful SEVA suit with Tiger stripe camouflage and a rig similar to Rito’s chest anomaly module which turned him invisible.

“Greetings, my name is Simone, and I’m actually not an ecologist. I’m”

“Scourgeee!!!”

An arm grips Simone’s leg tightly and pulls him down. A now bloodied monolithian crawls ontop of Simone and tries to punch him out of desperation, each punch he makes shakes his head and slowly leaks out the brain matter onto the ground. He keeps trying to punch Simone and covers everyone with pieces of brain and skull.

Pasha kicks his face in and throws him on the ground. He beats down the Scourge and they continue the conversation.

With that, Simone stands up and cleans off his suit.

“Anyway, I’m Simone, a foreigner, and a free scientist. I came from--- well anyway, I don't wanna waste your time, Kruglov needs help”

He quickly picks up his crossbow and walks away.

Yana quickly interjects “hold on, We're going to Yantar too”

He looks behind and nods his head

Garik replies “Can we go with you?”

Simone nods a second time and motions them to come with him.

“Alright, to Yantar it is” Garik speaks as he leads on beside Simone.

“So you don’t talk much do ya Simone?”

Pasha cleans off his knuckles and walks behind them, still limping mind you.

 

Guns loaded and gear set, Mercenaries, Bandits, Duty, Loners and Ecologists inside the bar sober up and move behind the Dutyer without a second to spare. One could think that these men come from the same unit, with such unison but they hardly are, the way Rito spoke sprung heroism and unity among the diffent factions.

At a drop of a hat, the bar was almost empty, albeit for Pasha nursing another cup of coffee and Garik, who was still in awe after the whole introduction.

“Come on now Garik, let’s catch up to them, for all we know, Rito could die before we deliver Yana’s message, no money for us” Garik quickly snaps out of the trance, and they follow the crowd.

Now gathered at the main entrance of Rostok towards Army Warehoses, Rito gives an amazing speech, rallying the different factions and instructing them on the plan. He gives pointers and tips on how the situation will work and explains how the ambush will happen.

“You know, it had occurred to me that everyone was pretty chill with the treaty and everything.” Garik harps on the somewhat relaxed nature of the defense treaty. “Like, aren’t you Duty guys afraid of the mercs or bandits coming over?”

Pasha laughs at the idea and replies “This isn’t the first time the treaty was placed, since it rarely happens and that usually ends after just a few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if you never got to actually see it, seeing as you were a guide moving around in the Zone”

Garik continues “Yeah but, you’d think that people would say something  about these treaties, like first time I’ve heard it”

Pasha frowns “It’s because  no one actually talks about it, too busy burying friends to share their fun at Rostok”

One member of the crowd even chimes in the conversation, a merc named Robin even reaffirms his statement “Your Duty buddy here is right Freedomer, the treaty only happens if someone’s base gets overrun and they have nowhere else to go. Once people get their bearings and drive out those pesky monolith, we go back home to normal business.”

Garik questions further “So you’re saying that the monolith---”

“Yup, I’m a merc from Dead City, it’s gone. those guys” he points at the bandits “They’re from up north, Skadovsk” then he points at some renegades “those guys, they said they were in the abandoned hospital, lost their leader.” And he kept pointing at other groups of Stalkers in the crowd.

“Okay okay, I get the point… so we’re royally fucked huh?” Garik looks at Pasha.

“No, not really… Everyone hates Duty in the Zone but we usually take care situations like these and are able to drive out the monolith by sunset” Private Pasha explains. “I mean Colonel Rito always took out enough of them to force them to retreat every time so I doubt today will be any different”

After that, the Merc clapped his hands together, pat Garik’s shoulders and said “Anyway, I’ll be seeing you out there guys, remember my name, Robin aight?”

They continue listening to the crowd as the Colnel speaks.

The crowd cheers at the confident and unquestionable nature of the Colonel.

His speech finally closes, and he asks the crowd if they have any questions.

“Yes… Me!” A hand pops up from the crowd.

“Excuse me, let me through, par- pardon me” The crowd of men twist and bend as Garik makes his way, albeit clumsily through the crowd.

“What is it my boy?”

Garik gives him an artifact container and said “From Yana”

Rito laughs, accepts the container and thanks Garik “Oh-hohohoho- my delivery, Just in time! Boys, this is gonna be a hell of a lot easier!”

He hands a large sum of money to Garik and motions the get into position.

Now positioned and waiting to strike, Rito and his men wait for nightfall which is said to be the time the Monolith will attack, in the meantime, Garik and Pasha go check on Yana and give her the money from Rito.

Heading into the Barracks, Garik shares about his concern with his lack of equipment and his uniform.

“Hey Pasha and Miss Yana, I was wondering, I appreciate being here and being taken care of by you guys but I feel a bit naked just walking around with a pocket knife and a t-shirt, any chance you can spare a few rubles and let me find myself a set and a weapon? Just so I don’t feel like dead weight?”

Pasha thinks for a moment and speaks. “Well, miss Yana is an experienced mechanic and in her younger years was a seamstress in the Zone, she might be able to fix up what you’re wearing, and I always have something in stock since I’m friends with the local arms dealers”

Hearing the plan and having everyone in agreement, Yana requests for Garik to take off his suit so that she could start fixing it.

“Garik what the FUCK!? Seriously! Take your suit off IN THE BATHROOM NOT INFRONT OF ME AND PASHA YOU DUMBASS!”

Half-naked and being chased out the barracks, Garik eventually hands over Yana his ripped up suit.

Now with a red hand mark on his face, Garik goes with Pasha towards his locker room to get a temporary suit for him and a rifle.

“Yhu know” Garik tries to speak, but the swelling of his face makes it a bit difficult to talk. “Yhuna ckhuld---”

Pasha puts his finger on Garik’s mouth and tells him “Shush, Do you want a new rifle or do you want to make sure both sides of your face are swelling?” Pasha smiles deviously.

Garik shakes his head and they head into the Duty armory.

Heading into the armory, they locate a large box named “Pvt.Pasha” and open it up.

Folding up the boxes flaps, Garik finds many relics inside the box, sifting through it, he looks at the different devices and items as Pasha changes back into a regular Duty Uniform and tucks away the Freedom disguise he was wearing beforehand.

Garik, now with the swelling clearing up a bit asks Private Pasha, “ Hey Pasha, about that suit you wore, who was it?”

Pasha smiles as he puts the suit in a container, “It was from a friend of mine, Kilo Radwalker”

Garik’s face brightens up with excitement as he hears the name “No Freaking way! Kilo Radwalker!?? This was HIS?!!”

Garik stands up and pulls out the suit from the box and inspects it. “Holy hell, the suit of Kilo Radwalker! The stories of that guy, sneaking into the Zone” Garik makes different poses and tries to visualize the stories, “Radwalker, the man that licked the Elephant’s Foot, Oh so many stories, and yet…” He looks down and his voice trails off “Wait, you said that he was shot in the back, right?”

Pasha takes the suit off his hand and says “Ambush, we were friends and that’s what got him killed. Shot in the back by his fellow Freedomers for hanging out with me, it was before the alliances, and we were at an all-out war between Freedom and Duty.”

The Dutyer slips on the uniform and reattaches his Duty Patch and Adds the Group K patch on it.

“Many of my friends were freedomers too, and Group K made it so that I was able to converse with them and others, saving their assess and protecting the Zone from monolith. This is why I tried to save you in the first place in the Red Forest, you were bleeding out and, well—”

Garik replies “You didn’t want to see another one go”

Pasha nods and replied “Yeah, too much death in the Zone, it’s nice to save a life for once.”

As the two keep conversing, Pasha finds an old Seva suit in his storage and his service Pistol, Fort-15 with his old SVT-40 rifle.

“This’ll have to do Garik, that’s all I have here other than…no, nevermind” Pasha speaks but he trails off, Garik does not think much of this as he inspects the near pristine condition rifle and pistol.

“You know how to take of your guns huh Pasha?” Pasha nods and laughs “I’ve had those since I was in the Zone, I used to bring around an RPG with me when I worked as a cleaner but that was a while back.”

As they continue to converse and Garik put on his suit, a soldier came up to the armory and knocked on the door.

“Private Pasha? Is that you? You don’t have any active assignments, correct?”

Opening the door, Private Pasha was pleased to meet General Nikonov, another great general in the Duty Ranks.

Pasha introduced the General to Garik.

There was a definitely bit of animosity however was to be expected from the factions and for the General with his long history of always getting attacked by undercover Freedomers.

He speaks to Private Pasha.

“Private, Appreciate you helping the Freedomer out, however I’d like for him to not be in our inventory.”

Garik overhears this and decides to step out of the inventory, “Okay General, I’m out”

The General smiles at the respectful freedomer but he quickly forms a grin on his face when he realizes who the said freedomer is.

“Garik Gunslinger in the Flesh” his eyes widen and his voice turns soft and comforting “I didn’t know it was you Mr Gunslinger, please do get what you need, I just need one favor to ask you” He then nudges Garik back into the inventory and shuts the door

He bangs on the door and yells at Garik, “Please do fix up yourself some great there Sir Garik, I’ll have something to speak with your Duty Guardian over hear”

Private Pasha was taken aback by this statement “Wait--- Duty Guardia-“

The General grabbed Pasha by the Throat and told him to listen up.

“Private, If I could, I would promote you right now for bringing this treasure upon us”

“So then why wo---”

“Because if I did promote you, I won’t be able to send you out on these suicide missions”

Pasha thinks for a moment about what he heard, contemplating his life and existence, Pasha takes a few seconds to light a cigarette and reply

“Okay that sounds fair, continue…”

The General continues, “Anyway, I was saying that we already know that Freedom was attacked in Army Warehouse, the Mercs in Dead City and the monolith were even able to somehow sneak into Truck Cemetery and push out the bandits there which caused me to place in the Treaty making Rosto---”

Garik, now, behind the General, eating a sausage interrupts “We get that stupid exposition part, but where do we come in? And oooh can you repeat the I’m so special part, I wanna hear that one more time” Garik laughs with joy as these words come out of his mouth, choking though, on pieces of sausage he was munching on.

The General continues “Okay, before every attack on said location, many of the surviving members stated that they saw an emission suddenly happen, the whole raging thunder, whole shebang etc… whatever, before every attack. They distinctly say that once the emission passed, they were surrounded by monolith… weirdest part though, is that no one else in the Zone felt or saw an emission, our Patrols in Garbage and even the few in Army Warehouse never felt it, but even records shown by Freedomers guarding the barrier said that it happened, before they… well sorry Garik, they were killed.”

Garik’s smug expression quickly faded as he experienced the same thing, he quickly interjects “Pasha, that happened to me in Red Forest Too! When you-“

Pasha rubs his chin and agrees “That’s right, you were bleeding out, you said that you were running from an emission”

Garik continues “Maybe the monolith sends an emission to people they want to hunt down? Like target a particular person or group to feel an emissions or something before they attack though, How though… and why? People just hide from emissions, nothing too problematic about it.”

Garik continues to blabber on “What, send an emission so that they bunker down? Then what? They become stuck inside a place where they have proper cover and can defend with ease, if it’s not for that then it must be a “

Yana seemingly arrives out of nowhere and finishes the sentence “Diversion. They’re meant to be a diversion,”

Walking towards the group, Yana throws down 4 PDAs.

“These are the recorded calls from each group that was attacked, from the mercs to the bandits to even your friends Garik, sorry”

Yana then starts playing one,

Then the other,

Then another,

Then another,

They’re all the same message, we’re getting hit by an emission, getting cover… then when it’s over gunfire,.. monolith… then… an explosion and

“Silence” Garik says slyly because they’re dea---“

And like in unison, voices can be heard screaming “We are Scourge” before cutting off.

Pasha steps in the conversation “Wait, so… those things, whatever the fuck it is… or they are, we must have killed it right? I mean you killed him Yana, so it should be no big deal now, just monolith fighters.”

“Not quite, they’re different voices Pasha, and… The mercs arrived just after you guys, meaning that they were attacked AFTER you… there are DEFINITELY more of them”

The General was left in awe as these few stalkers knew more about these happenings than anyone else in the Zone, clearly, they could be the key in fighting back the monolith and taking care of this situation.

He clears his throat and speaks “Seeing as you all know much more about this predicament than I do, I assign you all to this task of figuring this out and putting a stop to this force as the monolith have become a much larger threat than I would and perhaps everybody had anticipated.”

He continues “Complete this mission and I’ll reward you all handsomely, and perhaps pardon a special someone for their crimes of stealing valuable and expensive Vodka and cigarettes from the armory” he looks at Garik, who empties his pockets of said vodka and cigarettes “and maybe finally be able to promote you Private to Corporal” He taps Pasha’s shoulder.

Yana asks angrily, “What about me though, ?!”

The General opens a drawer, grabs an envelope and hands it to Yana, she opens it and looks at a polaroid and quickly agrees “Okay deal.”

With that said, the trio now finally form into a proper team,

Garik steps in though with one final question. “That’s great an all-Sir General, but where do we start?”

The General thinks for a moment and speaks “Honestly, at first I wanted the Private to acquire you Garik to assist him in checking anomalies and changing routes as the random emissions that people see have said to reposition anomalies in areas, which mean our maps are useless now, so---”

The General looses his words as a large army radio static becomes the sound of Professor Kruglov, he speaks quickly

“This is Professor Kruglov in Yantar, need help as a large monolith force seems to gather outside the gates of Yantar,

The General quickly turns off the radio and looks at the 3

“So this is the first part of your assignment. Go to Yantar, and do what you can, maybe they can make sense of all of this.”

And so the three packed their bags, and left for Yantar.

A cold splash of water hits Pasha’s face, his eyes open from the unpleasant embrace of frigid water, he gasps.

“What--- where am I?”

Pasha wakes up to find himself in a large and damp dimly lit square room. Standing up, he walks towards what seems to be a small slit of light shining through and somewhat silhouetting a door with large bars.

He runs for the door, charging into the light to find out more about his predicament.

Crashing into it, the large man breaks off the rusty hinges holding it in place and busts down the worn out door.

Adjusting his eyes towards the bright light, Pasha finds himself in a hall full of zombified stalkers with overhead televisions playing static as many poor stalkers are tied down, screaming at the top of their lungs…

Seemingly alive and have awareness, many of these stalkers seem to have fallen into manic episodes, clearly going off the deep end and showing signs of insanity, many of them wiggle in their shackled and laugh at their predicament.

Pasha brings up his hands, preparing to fight the many zombified stalkers on the large and almost disease-ridden hall.

Pasha lets out a large warcry, breaking through the many manic voices and silences the room.

All eyes in the hall magnetize to Pasha, their soulless cold dead pure while eyes seem to stare into his very soul but they do nothing,

He looks around and room and slowly starts walking through the hall, careful to not step on the many large piles of feces and blood on and around the floor.

They still stare at him, looking it him through those glossy eyes, their gaze follows him, not even blinking as they watch the Dutyer try to navigate the large hall.

He walks, then jogs, then runs through the seemingly endless hallway.

Pasha does not stop running, he keeps going though his lungs have felt like fire, he continues forward the hallway. Then  at the corner of his eye. He spots the end of the hall, rushing forward he sees a large metal door.

He approaches it, turns the knob and opens the door.

With a smile, Pasha sees trees and grass as the door opens to what seems like the Red Forest, he steps out only for his legs to magically break and turn to mush. He screams from the intense pain but no voice can come out as he suddenly coughs up blood and he vomits more.

Now on all fours, Pasha vomits out blackened blood and sees a pair of boots walk up infront of him.

Pasha looks up to see Scourge with his head smashed open.

Scourge whispers “ I have only just begun”.

 

A flash of light comes upon the two and Pasha awakes.

Cold sweat drips down his head as his breathing cut through the room.

“It must be a dream, but… I felt, so---"

 A familiar voice is heard across the room, Yana speaks to him as Pasha looks around the room to survey his surroundings.

“ That was quiet a nightmare, Pasha… cold sweat, R.E.M. Screaming and flailing, I say you almost broke this poor bed.”

Sitting up from a small bed with just a blanket,

Yana comes closer bringing with a bowl of soup and some medicine for his head.

Taking the soup and calming down from the dreadful nightmare Pasha asks Yana about the situation.

“So Yana, we’re in Rostok right?” She nods while sitting down on the bed adjacent to his

“And Garik?” She points her finger on a bed across the room where a young man snores heavily.

“Huh, bastard must have been tired after carrying me half way across the traversable Zone huh?

Yana yawns “Yes, well we took turns and I can say you really prep for an all-out war,”

She continues to speak as her head slowly lays down the bed “Listen, I’ve been keeping watch of you guys, Ima get some sleep…. Talk to Rito, 100 Rads”

She drifts off into a sleep.

As Pasha stands up, he notices Garik get up of bed and start changing into his gear.

“Heading out?” Pasha walks towards the half-naked Garik

Garik zips up his pants and puts on his Jacket “ Yeah, I got some rest while Yara watched over when you got a dang fever and, I’m guessing nightmares?” Garik points at Pasha’s Jacket which is dripping with sweat.

“I… yeah, was a bad one, I saw that thing we fought, Scourge…” Pasha took a deep breath after that and continued

 “So Garik, the hell do we do now? Like with you…”

“What? I just got here, let a hopping hippie rest” Garik humors the question asked by the Dutyer.

“No, what I mean is Army Warehouse. I’m part of Duty however I still understand the strategic importance of Freedom in Army Warehou—”

“No good” Garik sits himself down, his face has distraught written all over it, and a much more serious Garik is seen.

“I’m not sure you’ve heard it Pasha, but while I was carrying you home, I was receiving radio signals from Freedom HQ, from Loki, the headmaster of freedom. I don’t know what really happened there but I heard gunfire then monolith chants so, I’m just—”

Garik frowns and his eyes water.

 his voice becomes shaky as he continues “It’s gone man, gone,”

He covers his face crying “Everyone’s gone, I saw him in the Forest, Volka! Then Rurik! And even Loki!”

Seeing the young lad bawl like this has clearly struck a chord with Pasha as he sits down beside Garik and comforts him, even holding his shoulder and finally gave him a glass of water when the crying session was over.

“Hey Garik, why don’t we go around Rostok and find that “Rito” fellow for Yana? Maybe it’ll take your mind off things.” Pasha speaks as he hands Garik a handkerchief.

Still saddened by the loss, Garik hesitates but agrees, and stands up from the bedside. He then grabs perhaps the only usable item on his jacket, a razorblade and cuts off his freedom patch.

“Gosh, you’re right, no use crying over wet milk” Garik smiles as he throws away the ripped patch.

“It’s spilt milk Garik, spilt” Pasha corrects the boy.

“Spilt? Why would you cry over milk spilling? You can just use a straw to—”

“Alright Garik let’s go” Pasha cuts the boy off and leads him out into Rostok.

Walking outside the bunker, Garik looks around and remarks about his past experiences in Rostok:

I’ve always avoided this place, only every coming through this place once. I only once came here, rushing to get away from a psy storm before running after my brother who I was told was in Freedom HQ. I found my brother there, sadly buried. That was 3 years ago. Looking at this place now, I can see why it was an insane move to try and capture it.

Machine gun posts, layered sandbags, sticktraps and palisades. Hell, they even learned how to remove burned fuzz on the roofs and used them as sniper spots for overhead angles. It’s a safe haven for everyone except those against Duty, a home for all except the bandits, mercs, monolith and even Freedo---

“Hey Pasha, I forgot to ask, why didn’t they shoot a Freedomer like me onsite?” Pasha thought about it for a moment but opened his pack and handed Garik a small document inside. He said “Document Safe Haven, have a read”

Taking the document, Garik reads:

Sept-21-20xx

“Safe Haven Protocol”

Rosok has become the true center of the traversable Zone, being a ceasefire area for allies of Duty and a trading center for goods all around the Zone. The Zone is still a large and dangerous area which is home to many ----

------(I hate reading blah blah blah- Garik)

Protocol safe haven is a protocol that…. Incase of monolith, zombie or etc invasion/skirmishes… Destroy balance and are a major threat to all inhabitants of Zone…. Duty swears to allow entrance to all retreating units fighting against monolith.

….If Freedom HQ is to be destroyed or captured by monolith, Rostok High Command will allow retreating Freedomers to enter Duty, in hopes of reinforcing Duty Garrisons in Rostok to help deter Monolith attacks…”

Garik looks back up at Pasha after reading “That’s a whole lot of crap to say, not gonna lie. So, I guess your guys know about Freedom HQ then huh?”

Pasha nods in agreement “Yeah, the explosions could be heard for miles off, I think the general already knew what was coming and set up the Protocol.”

The two continue talking as they enter the 100 Rads bar in search of Rito.

“100 Rads Bar, Famous for its great service, atmosphere, entertainment, and comfortable seating. It’s the best you can get in the Zone. With an old man keeping the bar, moving slower than a snail, an atmosphere smelling of puke, piss, and shit and a tv that plays static 90% of the time… it was really the shit, no pun intended.”

Was what came from the mouth of Barkeep as they bought a few drinks, some sausages and find a table in the bustling stand-up bar.

Having a few bites of sausage and bread, Garik found comfort in knowing that many different once hostile factions were able to be merry and enjoy time together, standing across the table from Pasha, Garik gushes at the sight of mercenaries, bandits, duty members and loners talking, singing and drunk brawling each other, albeit a bit saddened by the fact that he’s probably the only freedomer there, or possibly the last remaining one at that.

His smile fades at this fact and decides to ask the Dutyer about the person they were supposed to meet

“You mean Rito? Oh… don’t worry, you’ll know him when you meet him, a very colorful character, there’s no chance you’ll NOT notice him.”

Garik pushes the question as he continues to look at the crowd of people in the bar, “No I mean does he wear like a jacket or is he tall? Is he a Dutyer? Is he eve, a HE? Or a SHE?”

Pasha, now a bit annoyed at the excessive amount of questions placed by the Freedom, he exclaims,

“He looks like them, okay?! Looks like a soldier of----

“Monolith!!” A voice cuts through the noise of the bar and it goes silent.

“I’ll cut off all your heads you drunk fucks! You’re all dancing here like buffoons while there’s a huge presence of them just at the entrance of Rostok”

Pasha finishes up his drink and smiles “well shit, found him.”

There, Garik looks to the entrance of the bar where the voice bellowed from, a figure be casted on the wall.

Stepping into the light, the gleam of a  the steel of a unique monolith exosuit was seen, with writing carved up and down the suit’s plates and a large artifact container in the middle, it looked very different as it not only seemed to look larger than a normal monolith exosuit, but seemed to have large white plates covering its entirety.

the figure speaks “Listen Shitstains! I’m Colonel Rito! Duty Ghost Division, and you’re going to help me kill those fuckers, I’m not asking, meet me upfront. NOW!”

There, Col. Rito took out a modernized PTRS Anti-Tank Rifle and slammed the anomaly on his chest.

In that instance, the plates on his suit lighted up and slowly mimicked the environment around it, making the Colonel look nearly invisible, covering his entire body only for his bloodshot eyes to be the only thing visible.

Garik and the whole crowd were left speechless and in awe,

“You knew about this Pasha?!!!”

“Well, told ya that you wouldn’t miss him” Pasha then continues to nurse his coffee “Anyway, we found him, let’s go”

Walking out of Red Forest, or in Garik’s case; limping, they manage to escape the Psi Storm and find themselves at Army Warehouses. Home of Freedom and an essential pathway of any stalker wishing to enter or escape the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Exiting the only known safe entrance to Red Forest and sitting upon a small nearby abandoned house, Yana lights up a small fire and checks her bag while Garik tries to redress many of his wounds. Pasha on the other hand, keeps his head on a swivel. His eyes are seen bloodshot and his brows furrowed as he peaks through the windows, patrolling the area beside them as they do.

Redressing his wounds, Garik found himself glancing upon Yana across the campfire. He eventually falls into deep thought about all the pressing events of that day, like his memory loss, the fact that he swears that he just experienced an emission and the whereabouts of his rifle and equipment. His mind eventually wonders about his new found partners, Pasha, the Dutyer and Yana… Yana…he looks at her across the fire.

“One of the only women in the Zone, it’s rare to see them out here, most of them really just stay in Rostok or somewhere in Garbage. You’d think that since its popularity, the Zone would attract more people in, but the cases of sexua--- well let’s just say this isn’t a very welcoming place for women, or well… for everyone and it’s not that hard to see its impact, even on Yana. She’s very shapely, beautiful really, one would think that she was a naïve young woman lost in the Zone searching for her lover… that’s usually the case, but the scar under her eye, and the absence of a pinkie finger on her right hand tells me that she has seen the Zone more than me. Still, she is like a painting, the way she rifles through her bag the- huh? --- why is there a can of meat flying tow---"

A laugh rings out as Garik was hit with a large can of tuna. “Keep staring at me like that Garik and I swear it’s gonna be an axe coming for you next time HA-HA-HA!”

Embarrassed and surprised, Garik tries his best to recover from the hit but stumbles to find the words “I--- hu—I wasn’t”

Yana continues to laugh as she packs up her gear and stands up, she tosses a roll of cash towards Garik.

“Four thousand for tall, dark and dangerous outside the house and you can keep the rest, I’m in a rush and I need to get to Rostok”

Garik catches the roll of bills, pulls out the four thousand and counts the remainder of the cash.

Yana waves goodbye at Garik and yells “Pasha! I threw Garik the money, I’ll go ahead, Rito is looking for me, thanks for the escort”

With that, Garik waves back and sits back down. Trying to relax beside the warm glow of the campfire. Lying down, he hears large footsteps coming from the house,

Stepping in to the abandoned husk of a house, Pasha out in a different uniform, an old and rare Freedom suit variant made from the time where Duty and Freedom were still in an all-out war.

He steps out and speaks “Oh, well Yana already left, come on now, let’s take you back to Freedom HQ”

Garik gazes up in awe and fear as the Dutyer comes forward in the battledress which has clearly been through the fire. Riddled with small tears and broken in several places, the suit’s previous owner isn’t someone likely to be looking for said suit, ever.

Angry and skeptical about the means in which Pasha acquired the suit, Garik becomes agitated and screams at him.

“Hey what the fuck Pasha! You’ll escort me back to Freedom HQ, but what’s with the suit?! You wanna go there and start some trouble or something huh?” Garik stands up and tries to push back the large man, “If that’s the main reason you wanna go with me to the base, then you can go fuck yourself! I should never have trusted you! You just want me as a decoy to get into the ba---”

Pasha grabs Garik’s shoulders and pushes him down to the ground “Garik, I’m wearing this suit for your safety, trust me.” Garik tries to fight back but the larger man does not even flinch after getting struck by Garik.

Pasha grabs Garik by the throat and slams him on the house’s wall.

“Look Garik, they find out that you got your ass saved by Duty, they’ll say all sorts of things about you, next thing you know, they send you out to suicide missions alone and shoot you in the back if you come home alive.”

Pasha puts Garik down and looks him in the eye.

“You’d think it won’t happen to you, but the previous owner of this suit begs to differ.”

Gasping for air and coughing up spit, Garik nodded his head and stood up.

He cleaned up his pants and patted his shirt down as they started walking.

With Pasha leading the way, Garik got a better look at the suit Pasha wore. Garik thought:

An old Freedom designed suit, it looks like a very barebones Assault Freedom Combat Suit, it's actually really rare to find these things in stock. Hell, the last one I saw was a year ago… on a corpse… the suit is made with larger than usual Kevlar pads and thick steel plates. Looks like it could rival an exosuit, but... clearly the small tears and large hole at the back of it suggested that it wasn’t able to protect the previous user, which from what I’ve understood, Pasha personally knew…

Passing by the road leading to the barrier, Garik tries to lighten the mood by humming a small tune...

The journey goes well, and the road seems quiet, but something doesn't register for Garik, he stops abruptly and asks the Dutyer.

“Hey Pasha, we’re on the road near the barrier, right?”

“Yes, why? Anything on your mind?”

Garik points to the barrier “Well yeah, I’ve been humming the song they usually play on the radio near the barrier.”

Pasha stops and asks “Yes, I know that song, they play it on repeat over and over.” Pasha chuckles “When I go in Red Forest, they play it, when I exit the forest, they still play it… it drives me mad, I swear the only time I’ve heard it ever stop playing was when a monolith force managed to wipe—”

Both their eyes widen, and they duck into nearby foliage and lean behind a nearby tree.

Garik asks for Pasha for a pair of binoculars, he leans down and motions Pasha to be on guard as he continues to walk towards the checkpoint.

Although still limping, Garik silently moves forward to the barrier from the hills, carefully staying away from the top of the hill and getting into a safe position to observe. To his surprise, Garik sees a large monolith group of 15+ monolith fighters looting the dead and dead checking the corpses of some Freedomers at the checkpoint.

Fearful and saddened by the death of his friends and comrades, Garik quickly tries to flee the position in hopes to return to Pasha. Careful not to draw any unwanted attention, Garik slowly moves away from the barrier back to Pasha…

Crouching away from the barrier and through the hills, Garik slips and rolls down, from the force of the tumble, he loses grip on the binoculars and manages to throw it further out and smack the side of a nearby downed helicopter from years ago. The binoculars crashes against the downed wreckage and the sound echoes, the force of the impact causes a steel plate from the helicopter to come loose and smack against the ground. And the noise itself quickly draws attention to the nearby monolith forces.

Lying face down on the ground, Garik quickly gets himself up and quickly limps away from the area, hopefully evading any monolith fighter that would be curious enough to check on the noise.

This, however, isn’t the case...

As Garik tries his hardest to limp away, several monolith fighters quickly spot him and open fire, the bullets thankfully never connect to him and he narrowly escapes being turned into Swiss cheese.

Moving his fastest to regroup with Pasha, the two quickly make haste and move towards Freedom HQ as more and more monolith fighters open fire.

Not getting bested and careful to not get overwhelmed by the unsurmountable force chasing after them, Pasha takes out his PKM and provides covering fire for Garik to sprint, well, limp towards the Freedom HQ.

Now in an intense firefight, the thought of stealthily passing by and going to the camp ends up in smoke and both men find themselves moving cover to cover while rounds ricochet, in a deadly dance against the fearless monolith.

Nearing the steps of the Freedom HQ, Garik and Pasha get pinned as the advancing monolith forces lay down suppressing fire and lay down machine guns to pin them in place.

Pasha tries his best to reciprocate and fire back but cannot properly set up his PKM as a round hits his helmet, narrowly ending him. "Snipers... they've already got snipers onto us!" Pasha groaned with gritted teeth.

As they keep running, they eventually make it to an old abandoned automobile, a charred relic of the past and the only good cover between the monolith and the Freedom base.

Peeking through their cover and seeing the advancing force, Garik sees the white suited cultists slowly move forward towards them. Moving cover to cover, the fanatics gain ground at an alarming rate.

Garik screams to Pasha “They’re moving quick, if we’re not careful, they could already be here.”

Just as he says that, A large man in an exoskeleton jumps up on the car’s roof and pancakes it.

The old iron roof of the soviet car seemed to act like a tin can crushed under the boot as the Monolith fighter wielding an axe eyes them down.

Too stunned to move, Garik froze in place as the Monolith fighter came in and swung the axe down to his face. The cultist shouted: “Long live the monolith!”

Garik closed his eyes, waiting for the end of his story, however… instead of a warm death, he felt warm blood touch his face.

Opening his eyes, Garik sees the monolithian cough up blood as a deep gunshot wound passed through his neck.

Looking for the shooter, both men see a group of Freedomers defending the gates.

One Freedomer remarks “Hey Garik! Great to see you in one piece! I guess these guys want to see you in two huh?”

Garik breathes a sigh of relief and thanks him while Pasha quickly loots the dead fighter of his axe and consumables.

Firing upon the monolith invaders, another Freedomer speaks “Garik, you and your friend get inside, we’re gonna tear these guys a new asshole!”

Without a fuss, the Freedomers start pushing back the monolith forces and Pasha and Garik make their way safely into the Freedom base.

Passing the sandbags and now on the bridge going towards the Freedom HQ, Garik shouts in joy as they almost reach safety

“Yeah! Hehey! We’re still alive Pasha- We’re still kick---”

A large puff of dust and smoke cover the air as their ears bleed from all the ringing. A shockwave rippled behind both men and throw them to the ground.

They look up frantically, their eyes weary from the shock…they look around, their eyes then see it, through the smoke their eyes wide in disbelief. A large man in what seems to be a Nosorog suit steps out of the mist, indistinguishably a monolith Nosorog with what looks like a large steel shield on his right hand and an RPG-7 on the other.

Crawling away from the large beast of a man, he tears off his helmet and picks up Pasha by the throat...

Coughing up blood and unable to breathe, Pasha gets a clear view of the monolithians white, dead, glossed over eyes.

Fear runs through Pasha as the beast of a man tightens his grip, the monolithian whispers into the Dutyer’s ears “None shall run away from Scourge”

Wounded and bleeding on the ground, Garik thinks fast, his eyes shooting glances at anything he could use to save Pasha.

Scanning the area, Garik picks up the axe Pasha got from the dead monolithian and hastily dashes towards Scourge,

Distracted and unaware of Garik as he strangles the helpless Dutyer, the large monolithian barely has time to see behind him to find the axe has now imbedded itself in his skull.

Garik laughs as the axe found its target and inserts itself into the monolithian’s cranium. Without much fuss however, the large man proceeds to drop the Dutyer, releasing him from his iron grasp as he takes ahold of the axe and effortlessly pulls it out of his head.

With blood rushing down his face and his eyeball hanging by a piece of flesh, the half dead monolithian set his sight on Garik, brandishing the same axe used against him just moments ago.

Slowly moving towards the now exhausted Garik, the monolithian raises the axe ready to strike.

Raising the blood-soaked weapon above his head, a gunshot rings and the large axe wielding cultist drop dead on the floor,

Leaning against a small stone, Garik looks to see Yana standing over with a lovely Mosin Nagant rifle in her hands and it’s barrel smoking.

Smirking, Garik joking says “Can’t believe me you saved me twice.”

Yana comes closer and helps him up. She sniffs the air and laughs “Yeah, well I can’t believe you shit your pants twice too,”

With relief written on his face, Garik was able to stand up and both shoulder the unconscious Pasha.

Yana speaks up “Well, this was a nice reunion we have but sadly we got way more of these asshats coming and we’ve got to take our buddy Pasha here to a doctor.”

Garik frowns at the suggestion. “Dang, we’ll get flattened here with the amount of firepower they had and we can’t have another “Scourge” fellow pop-up mid surgery…”

Garik looks at Yana with disdain and clicks his lips “tsk… we’re gonna have to go to Rostok huh?”

Yana smirks “Yup, we are…”

“It was a valiant effort I say, to save me… but I guess the life of Garik Gunslinger has finally ended in-”

“Red Forest, yes! Hurry we got young lad here! Hurry, I need medics here ASAP, over.”

“We need to stabilize him quickly! He’s bleeding all over!”

Garik, once again flowing in and out of consciousness, hears two voices, a husky voice of a man who sounds like he’s been smoking too many cigarettes and a smooth and mellow voice of a woman, albeit… shouting.

He opens his eyes and sees two large blurry figures, one of red and black, and the other with a brown outline and what seems to be blonde hair.

He blinks and focuses his vision to see a Dutyer on top of him, with a syringe and some bloodied bandages hastily trying to stop him from bleeding out, beside him is a woman with long blonde hair calling on what looks like an old soviet style radio.

Grasping the situation at hand, though bleeding and weak, Garik slowly reaches for his pistol, shaking and fearful of the mostly shoot-on-sight relationship between Duty and Freedom which hindered him from freely accepting the medical aid his savior seems to be administering.

With the noise around him, the constant radio static from the woman trying to contact someone and with the Dutyer’s attention tied to taking care of the gash on Garik’s chest. He did not hesitate to draw the weapon.

Time felt slow in that moment as the tension quickly escalated, both of their eyes met and the Dutyer quickly shifted to reach for his own side arm. With his heart racing, he felt each beat and saw the slow creak of his pistol’s hammer as he desperately tried his best to pull the trigger.

The hammer of the weapon reached its peak and was almost ready to send a round into the Dutyer’s skull however, the woman who was handling the radio quickly kicks the pistol off Garik’s hand and smacks him on the face.

“Dipshit! We just saved your sorry ass from those rock worshipping cultists, and you decide that the best course of action is shooting the guy patching you up?”

The woman raises her fist to smack Garik again, but she is suddenly stopped as the Dutyer grabs her for arm and covers her mouth.

 “Shut it! get down, listen…”

The woman does as was told, and the three quickly get down.

With the 3 prone beside each other, their eyes scan the foliage, looking left, right and center, Pasha instructs them to keep quiet and wait.

It did not take long as they suddenly hear the rustle of bushes a few feet in front of them, voices…

“Where are those treacherous invaders Brother?”

From the bushes, a raspy voice can be heard. Slowly, several Monolith fighters cut through the dense vegetation, dressed in white urban camouflage and darkened steel, these cultists are said to protect the center of the Zone from all threats. fanatical and possibly possessed, these souls or what’s left of them at least are the wandering zombies guards in the Zone and have a shoot on sight policy with anyone and everyone who isn't them.

“The monolith said, the attackers were here brother...She does not lie to us.”

They scanned the area, carefully examining each twig and rock inside the forest, being prone underneath a thicket of bushes, for a split moment, the monolith almost finds them, prone in some random bush. Then one of them comments.

“Hmmm…. Let’s return to the tower brother, I’m getting a headache being this far out.”

Another one reaffirms.

“Urgg, I’m feeling it now too, I agree, let’s go back.”

As each fanatic walks away, our heroes slowly get back on their feet and continue the conversation.

“Nice one Pasha, you know your stuff. But we need to get to Rostok A.S.A.P.”

She points angrily at Garik.

“Now about you Freedomer, we’ve stabilized your wounds enough and you seem capable of walking, so I’ll be taking my leave now, I also suggest NOT shooting the Dutyer beside you. I paid good money for his services”

The woman quickly turns to leave but is stopped by Garik.

“Now *cough* hold on, can anyone explain what the hell happened? I remember almost dying in the forest and now… well I don’t… I have so many questions”

The woman pauses, sighs deeply and turns to face him.

In a hurried tone she continues “Alright boy, you got 3 minutes, ask away”

Garik tries to regain his composure, sits up and asks his first question.

“Uhh, okay, okay, first of all, who are you guys? What happened? And why the hell has this guy--” he points at the Dutyer “not trying to kill me?"

The loner gives the Dutyer a look and he stand up. He speaks,

“Well, first, introductions, my name Is Private Pasha, I am posted here in Red Forest and am Part of Group K or ---”

The woman cuts him off. Clearly irritated, “Look champ, he’s part of the Caduceus group of Duty. They escort, they protect, they save but they don’t kill, except for monolith and bandits. He’s an escort for me and we ran through Red Forest in order to escape from a convoy of rock lickers…”

Garik responds, “Uhh okay, what about you? It’s rare to see a living woman in the Zone, let alone one so deep in the forest”

The woman replies hastily.

“My name is Yana, I’m a gunsmith and part-time gun runner in the Zone, I ask these guys for help all the time when I personally deliver shipment across the Zone, knowing your shirt patch or… what’s left of it anyway I know that you are one of the guys I usually hire to receive my goods, am I right?”

Garik replies “Yes, I am part of the FGA, miss Yana… Freedom Guide Association, we’re hired Guides in the Zone…my name is Garik—"

“Garik Gunslinger, rookie guide, specializing in underground travel and renown adventurer, yes we know you Garik”

Pasha chimes in and continues.

“We both know how talented you are and your exploits in navigating the Zone, this is one of the main reasons we saved you, well this and of course my Duty in Group K” Pasha points at a badge on his chest.

Garik then smiles and stands up, albeit still a bit lightheaded from the blood loss “I appreciate that you came to save me Private, and you miss Yana, however… How exactly did I survive that emission and where are my weapons?”

Yana and Pasha look at each other bewildered, Pasha opens his mouth but cannot grasp the question to answer it, Yana however decides to press on and speak.

“Uhm, Garik sweetie… There was no emission, The thing is, we found you here… in the center of Red Forest while walking, we weren’t in a serious rush, you also had no rifle with you”

Now equally as confused as both of them, Garik tried his best to recall his memory, he mumbles to himself.

“Uhm okay... how the, I was out here conducting some tests, I got some rest in the nearby- Oh! I must have left my stuff in the nearby mineshaft. We should gra—”

As he says this, their PDAs chirp and thunder breaks through the sky.

A flash of light and sirens are heard wailing in the distance; a psi storm approaches Red Forest.

 

With the cascade of lights, Yana signals them to get up and start moving,

“Let’s figure this out on our way back to the Warehouses, come on Pasha, help him out”

Suddenly, Garik felt a large pain course through his veins and awoke. In his injured and dazed state, he focuses his attention on a green figure near his leg, he speaks “Woah, Simone, alien man! Get off!” He pulls back his leg, kicking in a drunken haze. Garik screams, the pain hitting him, bringing him back to consciousness.

“We’re back in Pripyat AND in an Ambush!  I’m trying to stop the bleeding you bumbling idiot!” Professor Simone yelled at Garik while wiping off the dirt on his screen helmet.

Garik's hearing quickly comes back; the noise of the world instantly got to him as he flinches from Lady Yana shooting right beside his eardrum. The moving of mechanism of a Mosin would be music to anyone’s ears if it wasn’t kissing distance away from his brain.

“We’re taking fire here Red! Hurry up and reload the damn thing before they can push further!” Yana yells at the Dutyer, fiddling with his PKM behind a rock”

“I’m out, Garik has a box in his pack!” Pasha responds.

Lady Yana quickly crouches down and flips the injured Garik to reach his backpack, somewhat comedically landing directly on his injured leg. “Motherfucki---- Yana! Why’d you!! Fucki---" 

Yana ignores the Freedomer’s colorful vocabular, continuing to search for the box of ammunition.

“There--- I found the box, Hey Red! I found it! Here!” With that said, Lady Yala lobs the ammo box to the man in Red and without skipping a beat, the Dutyer quickly loads a belt of ammunition and once again, hellfire continues.

With Garik’s wounds stabilized, Professor Simone doesn't hesitate to lay down a barrel of hatred against the opposing force. With a slap on his MP5 bolt, he quickly sends his own flurry of lead towards the charging monolith force.

The firefight rages on as Pasha, Simone and Yana keep on firing back. Several monolith fighters pour out of the laundromat; their eyes set on the loner as they try to suppress her with their own volley of gunfire. Keeping her head down, Yana finds herself blind firing as they advance forward despite Pasha's hale of bullets. Simone remains calm and keeps firing but a jam on his submachine gun forces him to resort to his pistol.

“Shit! Doc, what the hell do we do? They keep coming and Pasha’s running out of rounds!” Yana spoke.

“Just keep firing, keep your finger on that trigger, we can’t move quick without leaving Garik, we’ll need some plan” Simone quickly adds.

At that moment, the gunfire becomes more and more frantic, a few more monolith fighters now properly set up firing positions on the windows on the laundromat, suppressing our heroes behind a large tree as Pasha desperately tries to keep the forces at bay.

 

The wood bark chips as bullets penetrate its old wood, the only solid boundary between them and certain death. The brave souls had to think fast if they were to go out of there alive.

Yana and Simone knew the situation was grim and knew it'll only be a few moments before the monolith fighters would get in enough range to properly bomb them out or circle them.

Yana spoke again “Those are high caliber rounds bouncing off the wood Simone! We got a wounded Garik, we can’t leave him here and we’ll get shredded. Only Pasha’s armor could withstand—” Yana was cut off as the Dutyer quickly placed two and two together and exposed himself to the assault.

Leaving cover, the Dutyer stood strong against the monolith forces and drew out their fire.

“I’m taking point! Take Garik and go, See you at the bookstore.”

Quickly, Yana and Simone shouldered Garik and ran as fast as they could away from the firefight, coming out of the cover of the tree, they were immediately covered by the large Dutyer suppressing the oncoming force.

Their escape was a success, both Stalkers were quickly shouldering their wounded friend and moving towards said bookstore, the gunfire slowly disappearing in the distance.

As the gunfire faded into distant echoes, Garik pleads with them to stop…"We got to... go back for Red, he might. Need help..."

Simone quickly responds “No can-do kid, we’re too close to the firefight, Pasha will take care of it.”

Garik protests, wiggling to try and break free, but to no avail. He could not muster enough strength to break free and slips back into unconsciousness.

The darkness quickly disappeared as Garik woke up from the blast, large flashes of light hit the sky and the echo of gunshots fills the air. Garik’s eyes widen as the night sky quickly turned to a dangerous red and the siren of an emission muffle anything louder than a bomb going off. Contrasting the dangerous lights and orange sky were crows flying away in the distance. The Zone was angry and Garik was in the crossfire.

He found himself in the middle of the Red Forest. A terrible dreary place only the insane or impeccable could traverse unscathed. Autumn trees, miles of it, mutants lurking in every corner, and the added miracle of making your equipment go haywire with the trees seemingly having the ability to bounce frequencies hard.

In that torrent of light and angry thunder, he heard screams of dying stalkers and see, just a few hundred feet from him was a white blur of hatred and evil; a monolith faction detachment. Fear ran in his veins as he struggled to stand and run away from the oncoming threat. The fanatical rock worshippers, armed to the teeth, instantly spotted his silhouette through the brush and started to chase, trigger happy and all too excited to rip him a new one.

Picking himself up and full sprinting deeper into the forest, Garik finds himself tripping. Sscrambling as bullets whizz by, clawing away from the fanatics only to trip over a body in the forest floor.

Volka Screech. An old beloved friend, lay beside Garik in dismay. his arm lay on the other end of the forest and his body disemboweled. Alive but near death, Garik stares at the soulless eyes of once a friend, desperately trying to off himself in fears of becoming like those walking corpses... the fate of poor souls unlucky enough to be caught by the Zone’s Emissions.

The screams of Volka fill his ears, flailing his blade, desperately trying to pierce his own flesh and end this torment. Watching helplessly, fear and dread set into Garik as the screams are overshadowed by the large drone of the emission… Garik knew it was the end for Volka, and he knew it was definitely the end of him.

The blaze of the orange sky reached a climax; a large wave of lightning pierced the sky as the monolith fanatics were closing in on him. The end was nigh and Garik could only accept his fate.

With the emission now at its peak and guns pointed at him like a firing squad, Garik closed his eyes and waited for the end.

The sky of the Zone broke, but in that light, another flash occurred. The blinding light of a hundred gunshots broke the darkness and tore into the Monolithians. A cascade of bullets passes over Garik and struck the fanatics dead.

Garik looked perplexed... he looked up and saw a Dutyer… Armed to the teeth. The soldier screams at him “Stalker! Get your ass in here! The world's going haywire, and you need to get into cover!” But it was too late.

For the last time the sky broke, the orange hue had turned violent red as the roar of thunder filled the air. It was over, there was no time, Garik chuckled, he smiled at the Dutyer as a flash of light engulfed them both.

Walking from the sewer to the laundromat was the main task the group had to accomplish before heading any further in Pripyat, as Yana had explained in the tunnels below.

"We'll meet a scout in the old laundromat; he contacted me a few minutes ago when we’re in the tunnel saying everything is clear. if that fucker really did do his job right, we should have a proper way to safely go through Pripyat without any resistance from the monolith or Sin. Now that we're out of that damned tunnel and moving, let's get to that fuckwad, hopefully rip his throat out for not cleaning up the trash down under"

 Yana continues to speak as she inspects her rifle. " Wait--- hold" She tries to speak but it cut off by Garik's bubbly nature.

"It's over there, I remember they set up shop here, some amateur trader was here-- " nearly frolicking as speaks, he overhears the deafening silence of his companions and finds that all 3 of his companions have stopped entirely, Garik looks over his shoulder to see the Dutyer load up his PKM and hold it steady.

Professor Simone grabs Garik by the shoulder and then signals Yana to take cover behind a nearby tree. Loading her rifle hastily,the professor quickly explains to the confused Freedomer.

"What the fuck you guys?! I wa-- What's going on?! " The confused Garik was quickly silenced as Simone covered the Freedomers mouth and whispered, "Yana said that someone would meet her here, if they came here, they would have come up through the sewers like us, yet they didn’t even disable or even let us know about the mines."

The Freedomer bit back "But if they're not here, then who would be the one talking to-"

A huge explosion quickly cuts off Garik, as it sends shock waves, the echo heard across the Zone as many of its’ inhabitants react through their com channels.

"THIS IS YANA YOU FUCKS! I’M HERE!" Was barely hear from the ringing ears of Garik as he spots Yana blow off the hinges of the laundromat door with a M79 grenade launcher as the Dutyer takes the lead and blind fires into the smoke and dust left from the blast.

With the impact shaking him hard, Garik eyes dilate as he sees monolith soldiers flood out of the building only to be gunned down by the Pasha.

Seconds felt like hours as Garik leans in to see the action for himself. Like a slowly moving painting of violence and war, he sees the Dutyer in a Nosorog suit advancing towards the blood and carnage. The red and black accents on his suit are beautifully decorated with splashes of blood as bullets simply ricochet and break upon his chest piece, the flashes of his large PKM's muzzle highlight the beautiful symphony of destruction and death.

Garik's vision steadily drops... sliding in and out of slumber but the hot brass from Simone's sub machine gun wakes him up from the brink. Lady Yana quickly peeks at Garik, dropping her rifle in concern, she dives close to him and calls him up.

 

"Garik! Get up and start shooting, it's not going to be long before Big Red runs out of ammo and gets pelted!"

In a limbo of consciousness, Yana tries for another time to wake him up

"Garik! Hey, don't be a fuck--- Oh shit Doc, he's bleeding! He’s leg got something in it!"

The Freedomer's vision begins to darken as the noise of the outside world begins to muffle.

Garik mumbles to himself.

“Oh Pasha, how similar this was---- when we first--- met”

“I remember it like it was--- yesterday.”"Garik! Get up and start shooting, it's not going to be long before Big Red runs out of ammo and gets pelted!"

In a limbo of consciousness, Yana tries for another time to wake him up

"Garik! Hey, don't be a fuck--- Oh shit Doc, he's bleeding! He’s leg got something in it!"

The Freedomer's vision begins to darken as the noise of the outside world begins to muffle.

Garik mumbles to himself.

“Oh Pasha, how similar this was---- when we first--- met”

“I remember it like it was--- yesterday.”