The Zone

by Rostok

1: Beginning of the End

Luna felt the voices. The rest did not, they were too busy trying to sleep or to rationalize the recent events, but she could almost sense things approaching. Her natural affinity for all things hidden or concealed let her tap into her surroundings, perceiving the tiniest details. Being with blackened souls drew near. She dreaded to think what they were. Outside, rain was battering down, and trickling streams flowed into the rail tunnel as the ping of droplets hitting the metal surfaces below hissed. The voices were getting closer now; she could make out words,

“Get insi.... damn rain”

“...n't see a thing, hope you wha.... doing boss.”

“Kostyan, take p....”

Lights flickered on underneath her, a torch-beam sweeping around the gloom. Scrambling away from the edge of the suspended cabin they sat in, she landed heavily on the ancient controls, shattering the silence with a clang. Suddenly, the beam of light swung up to surround her hiding place, scanning for movement. The mutterings below were drowned out by the rain. Now would be a good time for Garry to return from his mysterious scouting trip.

Peering out once more, she got a better look at the intruders. They were huge and imposing, clad in pipes and metal plates, similar to those worn by that cadaverous thing that they had found in the city. She could see four of them, judging by their torches, spreading out through the tunnel, heading for the lone ladder that led to her. Ducking back down, her mind raced for a plan. In the background, clanking of rungs rang out.

She shut her eyes in preparation for the end.

=

“Blaaack raven, blaaack raven...”

From outside the Schevchenko, lighting, rain and thunder pounded the ruined vessel.

“Blaaack raven, blaaack raven...

“Shut up man, I don't wanna die in this shithole!”

Even when thunder receded and rain paused for but a moment, the pounding remained. Against the door. Louder now.

“Blaaack raven, blaaack raven...'

“What do you mean, for fuck's sake, shut with that weird mumbo jumbo, I got a life to live!”

The door was creaking in protest. The smashing against it was louder than the storm now. Howls and snarls accompanied each loud bang.

“Blaaack raven, black raven, circling above the grave... "

As the doors burst open the horrors of the night erupted into room in a torrent of flesh, ripping the stalkers limb from limb.

=

The old man sat there, at peace with the world, contemplating his life and the uncertain times they held. Admittedly he was worse for wear than usual. His current abode was dirty and unkempt; he himself was much the same. The weather here had been bad of late, all rain and fog. That and the constant interruptions of the hard times had meant he'd barely had time to go out to get food, stock up his daily doses of tablets he needed, and the local traders he got everything else from had all left. He was left alone in his little room, huddling by the fire, remembering days gone past. He felt like a pensioner, for fuck's sake, at 34. What was his life coming to?

At least his line of expertise gave a healthy mix of exercise and rest, but seeing life through crosshairs, counting the days by bullets left and the nights that he'd survived, it weighed on his mind. He had never taken pleasure in the killing, but even so his sights always unconsciously aligned on a skull.

As Uncle Yar sat staring out of the Pripyat window, looking west though his scope down to the land below, wet and hilly. Four figures were in view, hiding from the elements in the shelter of a tunnel. The mutants in the local area were drifting back to their lairs. Nothing was left visible on the horizon, except perhaps one shape that resembled a man, a very unlucky man to be stuck out in the rain.

=

The driving rain rushed over the exposed hillsides of the area around Yanov, swirling around Garry as he headed back to their shelter in the tunnel. Nothing would stop him, this place wasn't safe, and leaving the women alone in the dark was getting more risky by the second. His boots squelched through the muddy earth as he jogged east, under the imposing shadow of Jupiter.

He paused, tired, under a tree, trying to seek what little cover there was from the rain. Looking out over the factory, it resembled a dead concrete behemoth, it's corpse crumbling and decaying, still and lifeless under the battering of the elements. Suddenly, a pulse of subsonic sound shook him, ringing through his feet and chest. He looked up, as a blue glow started to envelope the buildings, harsh and unearthly, sliding off them onto the land and sky, spreading and shifting. It was all around him now, clawing at his vision, as the patter of rain became an intolerable ringing stabbing his mind, causing his vision to blur and shift. Psy-emissions. He turned and ran, staggering and swaying as the blue field intensified. Ghostly shapes of all sorts of horrors started to drift closer and closer to him.

He fell to the ground, holding his head in his hands, as trickles of blood started to seep from his nose and eyes. He couldn't even register trying to find psy-block meds, he just crawled on all fours, animalistic, pulling himself away from the nightmarish visions. Out of the factory entrance came a dark figure, exuding sheer blackness, seeming to absorb the blue field around him like a black hole. It strode up to his kneeling form, writhing at the pain in his head, standing at least two meters tall. Lifting a hand to his face, it sunk it's claws into his bloodshot eyeballs. Everything went red.

=

“The fuck....”

“What you got up there Kostyan? Speak to me.”

“Four weird girl... things, boss. Unconscious or dead, I dunno, but they aren't human. You've gotta see this.”

The rungs of the ladder clattered once more, followed by more clunking footsteps on the gantries.

“My word. I must be seeing things. Floating blue hair, and wings? That's a new mutation I haven't seen before. Check the others, this creeps me out big time.”

The footsteps receded, presumably headed towards Twilight and the others. She exhaled slightly, restraining her shivers of fear. They were at the mercy of those huge mechanical monsters. She would have no chance if they-

“Hey, boss, this one's like you!”

“Shut up, Kostyan. At least she's the only unmutated one here. They all seem to have unique features as well, unlike the Zone's spawn. This isn't it's work.”

“What do we do?”

“Go down to Hog and Sickle, tell them to set up camp for the night here. I'll be just a second.”

Luna opened her eyes as the slightly smaller giant made his way down. Carefully collecting herself, she enveloped a small screwdriver with her magic; better than nothing. Raising it above her, she prepared to stand, aiming it at the towering mechanical giant with it's back to her. A deep, raspy voice broke the silence.

“I would stop that if I were you.”

The skeletal visage and dead lenses of the man's mask turned to stare at her.

“Up slowly, no sudden movements.”

=

Hiker stumbled further and further between the twisted boughs. His supplies were low. For three days he'd trekked through the forest, a dark blight on Equestria's sterile cleanness. It had swallowed him, immersing him in it's shadowy world. Only scant beams of light penetrated or escaped. For three days, no sign of an edge, an end.

All the plants and berries looked wholly inedible, and nothing but a pointed stick, he was not much of the efficient hunter-gathers that he had evolved from. It was not like it mattered anyway. He was a dead man. The royal sisters had obviously had enough of the humans. Murk's rotting corpse was a perfect testament to that. Food wasn't going to help his situation much.

He briefly considered death here. He almost reached it here before, and it was starting to look like a promising prospect, even without the culture shock. It wasn't like anyone would miss him, he was a non-person. All stalkers were; outcasts of society, whether by choice or by fate, He was probably dying slowly of cancer already. The old men of the zone, people like Yar and Beard, they needed artifacts just to hold their bodies together properly; they deteriorated from the cancers caused by the panoply of radioactive sources in the Zone. It showed. Both were still in their thirties, already worn and world-weary.

Something held it back though, maybe the warm glow of the traitorous sun, the lack of revenge for Murk. What could he do? He was but a man, weak and fragile, ground to dust in the gears of time. Even so, he could still give the proverbial finger to the higher powers that controlled his fate. Go out with a bang.

Renewed with purpose, he continued ever on and on.

Comments

[RoadRunneR]

When you think things are bad... they get worse. And worse. And then, they get even worse. Then You're at the bottom of the pit, you think it's the end, nothing can be worse than what you're experiencing... and the ground caves in under you. And you fall. Again.

[Jack Kellar]

2206596 Hit rock bottom, and there's the debris of the crumbled floor. And the tunnel has no oxygen.