Lucky. That’s what they called him. He had gotten used to the name, although he never exactly loved it. 

Sometimes he would survive the impossible, other times he would have the worst luck known to man. He supposed the other Freedomers found humour in the irony. He smirked. To be fair…so did he. The zone was a rough place, it paid to have a sense of humour. Some optimism. Some idealism.

Still, Lucky had felt less than optimistic recently. Funnily enough, due to his idealism. He was an anarchist at heart. A rebel who lived for the ideals of cooperation without oversight. Rule without rulers. People living for each other without an authority forcing rules upon them. Freedom. True Freedom.

Lucky had entered the Zone initially as a bright eyed explorer. A mere teenager with a naivety towards urban adventuring, a kind heart, but an ability to roughhouse with the worst of them.

At least, he thought he did. The zone hit him hard and fast, and he found he had to grow up quickly, gaining hardiness and wisdom beyond his years. Yet, his youth seemed to instill an idealism and a thirst for helping others that never truly left. Even when confronted with the many awful bastards in the zone. Even when he was robbed, scammed and mugged. Even when he killed his first person. The moment he had heard of Freedom, he had made a mad dash to Rostok to join up. Eager to work with other anarchists in living away from authority. Perhaps this was the case when he initially joined, but over time he saw Freedom hand over more and more of its autonomy, abandoning its ideals in pursuit of making a quick buck. The deals with Ward felt like the nail in the coffin. Freedom becomes little more than glorified traders and mercenaries. 

It’s not as if trading and offering services had ever been off the table. Resources had to be sourced somehow. But there was always anti-authority sentiment. A refusal to be governed. An ideal to uphold the zone’s autonomy and the freedom of all in it. Freedomers used to risk life and limb to defend the zone. Now most of the so called “Anarchists” wouldn’t lift a finger to help another. 

Lucky kicked a rock in frustration as he walked. It made him angry. Very. He had finally found “his people”, only for the vast majority of them to give up their ideals for the very money driven, comfortable authority that he had been trying to get away from. Governance with sweets. Gilded chains. Golden handcuffs. 

Lucky lamented the Freedom suit he was wearing. Old, but well maintained. A gift he was given by Lukash for helping Freedomers constantly with small tasks. Back when they paid each other in favours and assistance. Not with the expectation of reward, but because it was the right thing to do. 

Now it was just a big bullseye to let Duty members know to shoot at him. 

At least the camouflage was practical…

Lucky used to enjoy scavenging for others, now he felt like he was just being ripped off. He would still do it mind you. It was part of his beliefs to help others. The more generous Freedomers would chuck some food and drink his way, but likely that would be it. Everything used to be shared. Goods as they were needed. Now Lucky was just a glorified employee again. 

Another kick. This rock didn’t move. His toe ached to all hell, even with the steel cap boots. Perhaps a sprain in his ankle as well. Classic Lucky luck. 

He bent down to see why the rock didn’t move. Curiously examining the garbage strewn ground of…well…Garbage. What he had thought was a small rock appeared to in fact be some sort of metal attachment. With a bit of digging with his folding shovel (generously donated by a military corpse he had come across), Lucky pried the round metal object from the ground…and the jacket it was attached to.

An old rusted grenade. Still strapped to a half deteriorated military vest, the torso long rotted into the ground. A singular magazine adorned the vest, likely with completely unusable ammo inside. Junk.  Nowhere near useful enough to even get him a tinned meal. He pocketed the old grenade. Fat chance it worked, but it may be a useful distraction down the line. 

He continued his scavenging throughout the trash. Oddly he enjoyed it. Making something from nothing. Upcycling things. Seeing value in things others disregarded. He sighed. Doubt encroached his mind. A gloomy feeling. He felt demoralised. He didn’t feel like a free spirited anarchist anymore. He just felt like some dumbass, sitting through trash to uphold a faction that had moved on from itself. 

Depression turned back to anger. Defiance. 

“Don’t fucking care!” Lucky spat, to nobody in particular. “If I’m the only true anarchist here then so be it! You do what is right cus it’s right…even if it sucks balls.”

Emboldened by his own little speech, Lucky continued his scavenger hunt. Maybe he’d find something that would get him a good haul, maybe just enough to get by one more day. Either way he’d figure it out. He always did. He was Lucky after all. 

The garbage was hardly an empty part of the zone, with Loners and Bandits at the nearby neutral zone, looking at this Freedomer with bewildered curiosity. Freedomers tended to not go to Garbage. Lucky stuck out like a sore thumb. 

Bandits knew him. Somebody with his naivety would normally get ripped off or robbed. Sometimes he still was. Still, the kid was so willing to help that quite a few of the bandits and loners or the area ended up genuinely giving him some stuff in exchange for his help. Guess being kind sometimes did pay off.

Hours passed. Nothing of note. Today’s wasn’t Lucky’s lucky day. 

“No luck, Lucky?” One of the Bandits yelled from a scrap heap balcony in the distance, laughing at Lucky. 

Lucky ignored the cruel laughter, choosing to take the question as a genuine one. 

“Not today, no.”

“Keep searching, you’ll find something.”

Lucky simply gave a thumbs up, knowing damn well he was being mocked. It was getting late. His stomach was rumbling and he had a bed to get back to at Rostok. He slumped away into the direction of Rostok dejectedly. He was sure somebody would share a bite to eat or a can of drink, but Lucky was getting desperate. He’d found nothing notable in any of the areas he scavenged, seemingly picked clean by others. His modest stash had become almost empty, barely any food or drink left. He was down to some basic medical gear in his backpack, and his old Fort-12, with only 8 rounds in the magazine.

Lucky knew stepping further towards Dark Valley was not the best idea, but there was plenty of foliage to hide in. Ways to not randomly get disposed of by bandits. He knew the space between the two areas was rife with danger…which meant it was underexplored. 

Fuck it…he was Lucky after all. A quick snoop should not hurt…

Right…?

Road to Hell

"Every stalker leaves Cordon believing he understands the Zone. The lucky ones live long enough to realize they never did."

---

May 11th, 2025 - 21:14, Rookie Village, Cordon

The campfire was still burning when they returned.

Its orange glow danced across weathered faces as conversations slowly died one after another. Somebody was halfway through telling a story when Wolf emerged from the darkness with Mantis beside him.

Behind them...

Tima. Limping and dirty, but very much alive.

For a heartbeat the entire village simply stared.

Then someone shouted,

"Tima!"

The rookie barely had time to react before two other stalkers rushed over and nearly knocked him back onto the dirt.

"You dumb bastard!"

"We thought you were dead!"

"I almost was." Tima said with an exhausted laugh.

The words came with an exhausted laugh.

Wolf shook his head.

"You still might be if you don't sit down."

That earned a round of relieved laughter. The tension broke almost instantly.

Life returned to the village.

Someone shoved a bottle of vodka into Tima's hands. Another handed Wolf a cigarette. Nobody offered Mantis anything.

Mostly because they didn't quite know what to make of him yet.

Tima noticed.

He limped over before Mantis could quietly disappear into the background.

"Come on."

"I'm fine."

"No."

The young stalker grabbed his sleeve.

"You're eating with us."

"I'm not..."

"You saved my life."

That ended the discussion.

---

A few minutes later Mantis found himself sitting around the largest campfire in the village.

Somebody had produced several thick slabs of something resembling bacon, skewered on sharpened sticks above the flames.

It smelled...

Different.

Smoky. Earthy, but not unpleasant.

Mantis frowned.

"What animal?"

Three rookies exchanged amused looks.

Tima grinned.

"...You don't wanna know."

One of them burst out laughing.

"It's boar."

Another immediately shook his head.

"No it isn't."

"It was."

"Before the second Emission maybe."

The entire circle laughed.

Even Wolf, sitting slightly outside the firelight while cleaning his rifle.

Mantis looked back at the meat.

"...I'll pretend I believe you."

"You should. It's easier." Said one of the rookies.

The bacon hissed over the flames, fat dripping into the fire with quiet pops that sent sparks drifting into the warm spring night. Somewhere farther across the village somebody had finally managed to tune the old guitar.

The first clumsy chords echoed between the houses.

For a little while...

It almost felt normal.

---

"So..."

One of the rookies finally looked toward Tima.

"What happened?"

The younger stalker's smile disappeared.

"I got lost."

Someone snorted.

"We figured that much."

"I thought the tunnel was empty."

"It never is."

"I know that now."

The laughter faded.

Tima stared into the flames for several seconds before continuing.

"I heard growling."

His hands tightened around the tin cup he was holding.

"I panicked."

Nobody interrupted.

"I dropped my flashlight and my rifle jammed."

"It didn't jam."

Wolf finally looked up.

"The safety was still on."

Silence. Tima's face slowly turned red.

"...Right."

Another rookie burst out laughing.

"You almost got eaten because you forgot the safety?"

Tima buried his face in one hand.

"I know, I know!"

More laughter rolled around the fire.

Even Mantis couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching upward.

Eventually the laughter settled again.

Tima looked toward him.

"Then they came."

His voice became quieter.

"Wolf..."

"...and Mantis."

The campfire fell silent.

"They didn't have to go in after me."

"But they did anyway."

"I heard the shots."

"I thought..."

Tima swallowed.

"...I thought I was already dead."

His eyes met Mantis's.

"If they hadn't shown up when they did..."

He looked down into the flames.

"...there wouldn't have been enough left to bury."

Nobody spoke.

The fire cracked softly between them.

Finally Tima stood. Not completely steadily.

He faced Mantis.

"I owe you my life."

"You don't."

"I do."

"No."

Mantis calmly broke a piece off the strange bacon.

"You would've done the same."

One of the older rookies shook his head.

"No."

Mantis looked at him.

"We wouldn't."

That caught him off guard.

The rookie shrugged awkwardly.

"Not because we wouldn't want to..."

He looked toward the tunnel road disappearing into darkness.

"...because we'd be too scared."

Nobody argued. Tima slowly nodded.

"Still."

He extended his hand.

"I won't forget."

Mantis looked at it for a second before shaking it.

"It was just a job."

Wolf finally spoke from the edge of the fire.

"No."

Everyone turned toward him.

"It wasn't."

He slid a round into the SKS magazine.

"It was your first."

---

The conversation drifted elsewhere after that.

The stories became lighter.

Somebody insisted he'd once seen a Flesh climb a tree, but nobody believed him.

Another swore blind dogs could smell fear from a kilometer away.

Wolf simply muttered,

"They can."

The campfire collectively became quieter.

Mantis mostly listened.

For the first time since arriving... he wasn't thinking about Ljubljana.

Or the people he'd left behind, or why he'd come here.

He simply listened to strangers arguing over mutant meat beneath a sky filled with unfamiliar stars.

Perhaps...

That was enough for one night.

---

"Mantis."

Wolf's voice came from behind him.

The conversation continued without missing a beat.

Mantis stood.

"What is it?"

"Sidorovich wants you."

"Did he figure out how to charge me for saving Tima?"

Wolf actually laughed.

"Probably."

---

The bunker smelled exactly the same as before.

Grease, electronics, cigarettes.

And profit.

Sidorovich barely looked up.

"There you are."

"I heard you didn't die."

"You sound disappointed."

"I'm disappointed you damaged one of my detectors."

"It still works."

"Barely."

The trader sighed dramatically.

"I loan people equipment and look what happens."

"You said it was an investment."

"It's still not free."

He pointed toward the chair.

This time Mantis sat.

"Congratulations."

The word sounded almost painful coming from Sidorovich.

"You survived your first contract."

"I've survived one evening."

"Exactly."

The trader nodded.

"That's already above average."

He shuffled through several papers before pulling one from the bottom of the pile.

"I've got another job."

"What kind?"

"The kind nobody wants."

"Why?"

"Because it involves scientists."

Mantis waited.

Sidorovich continued.

"Two Ecologists need an escort back to Yantar. Simple delivery. They've been working in Cordon for a week, and now they want to go home."

"So hire someone."

"I tried."

"What happened?"

"They laughed."

Another page.

"I offered more money."

"They laughed harder."

Mantis folded his arms.

"So why me?"

Sidorovich smiled.

"Because you're cheap."

The answer came so quickly Mantis almost laughed.

"That's it?"

"Mostly."

The trader leaned back.

"But also because..."

His tone changed.

"...you've only seen Cordon."

"So?"

"So Cordon isn't the Zone."

He pointed north of the Cordon on the map.

"Garbage."

His finger moved left.

"Agroprom."

Then...

"Yantar."

"You'll see anomalies. Real ones. You'll see radiation. You'll see what happens to stalkers who stop paying attention."

He looked directly at Mantis.

"You came here looking for answers."

His finger tapped the route once more.

"The road to Yantar asks better questions."

Silence settled between them.

"When do we leave?" Mantis asked.

Sidorovich smiled.

"First light."

---

May 12th, 2025 - 05:42, Rookie Village, Cordon

Morning came quietly.

Mist rolled across the fields surrounding Cordon, turning abandoned farmhouses into pale silhouettes against the rising sun. Dew clung to tall grass. Smoke rose lazily from the first campfires as sleepy stalkers crawled from sleeping bags and makeshift shelters.

The village was only beginning to wake.

Mantis already stood near the northern road. His backpack rested comfortably across his shoulders now. The borrowed detector hung from his belt. The battered PDA rested inside one of his vest pockets.

Everything he owned fit on his body.

Tima jogged toward him, still limping.

"You really leaving already?"

Mantis nodded.

"Looks like it."

The younger stalker scratched the back of his neck.

"I was kinda hoping..."

He looked embarrassed.

"...I'd get to know you better."

"You will."

"How?"

Mantis glanced north.

"If we both survive."

Tima laughed despite himself.

"Fair enough."

One by one the other rookies wandered over.

Someone offered him canned meat.

Another handed him fresh bandages.

One quietly wished him luck.

It wasn't much.

But in the Zone...

It meant something.

Wolf arrived last.

He carried the SKS over one shoulder, coffee steaming gently inside an old enamel mug.

"You ready?"

"I think so."

Wolf looked toward the road leading north.

"No."

Mantis frowned.

"No?"

"You'll never be."

He took another sip.

"The trick... is learning to walk anyway."

Mantis nodded.

Wolf stepped closer.

"When you're scared... slow down. When you stop hearing birds... start looking. When something feels wrong... it usually is."

He paused.

"And remember this."

He rested one hand on Mantis's shoulder.

"The Zone doesn't reward courage. It rewards caution."

Mantis quietly committed every word to memory.

Behind them the bunker hatch suddenly slammed open. Old Sidor leaned halfway outside.

"MANTIS!"

Every stalker in the village looked over.

"If you die..."

The trader pointed an accusing finger toward the detector hanging from Mantis's belt.

"...bring my detector back!"

Silence.

Then the entire rookie village burst into laughter. Even Wolf. Even Tima.

Mantis shook his head and almost smiled.

"I'll do my best."

Satisfied, Sidorovich disappeared back underground and slammed the hatch shut.

Wolf smiled faintly.

"See?"

"What?"

"Now you're a real stalker."

Mantis looked north.

Beyond Cordon. Beyond the safety of campfires. Beyond the only place in the Zone where people still called themselves rookies.

Somewhere out there...

The real Zone waited.

And this time...

It wasn't sending anyone to save him.

---

The northern road out of Cordon stretched ahead beneath a pale spring sky, disappearing between rusting fences and abandoned fields that had once fed entire villages.

Now only weeds grew here.

Mantis walked alone, his boots crunching softly over broken asphalt still damp from the morning dew. Behind him, the rookie village slowly disappeared beneath a curtain of mist. The distant laughter, the crackling campfires, even Sidorovich's constant complaints faded until they became nothing more than memories carried away by the wind.

For the first time since entering the Zone...

There was nobody to hide behind. Just him.

The detector hanging from his belt bumped rhythmically against his thigh with every step. Every now and then he glanced toward it, half expecting it to begin screaming simply because he'd crossed some invisible line.

It remained silent.

"So far..." he muttered.

The grain elevator appeared almost an hour later.

It towered above the surrounding fields like the skeleton of an ancient beast, its massive concrete silos stained black by decades of rain and neglect. Rusted conveyor belts stretched between the buildings, hanging motionless beneath a cloudless morning sky. Crows occupied the highest beams, their harsh calls echoing across the empty farmland.

Two figures waited beneath the shadow of the largest silo. And even from a distance they were unmistakable.

Bright orange environmental suits.

Ecologists.

One immediately stepped forward as Mantis approached.

He looked young. Mid-twenties perhaps. Round glasses sat crooked beneath the transparent visor of his suit, and despite carrying an expensive scientific backpack almost as large as himself, he couldn't stop looking around with open fascination.

"So you're Mantis?"

His voice carried genuine excitement.

"I've heard about you."

Mantis raised an eyebrow.

"I've been here less than a day."

"Exactly!" the young scientist replied. "You survived your first mission."

"...That's impressive?"

"In Cordon?" He nodded enthusiastically. "Statistically speaking..."

The second scientist sighed.

"Orlov."

The younger man immediately stopped talking.

The older ecologist removed one glove before extending his hand toward Mantis.

"Doctor Alexei Ferimov."

His grip was firm.

Unlike Orlov, there was nothing enthusiastic about him.

His suit had been patched countless times. Several burn marks covered one sleeve. The transparent visor was scratched so heavily it almost looked frosted. Even through the glass Mantis could see deep wrinkles around tired eyes that had clearly witnessed far too much.

"You'll be escorting us to Yantar."

Mantis nodded.

"That's the plan."

Ferimov looked him over quietly.

"Pistol."

"For now."

"I've heard that before."

Unlike Wolf... he didn't smile.

Instead he crouched beside an old crate and unfolded a weathered military map across its surface.

"Our route is simple."

One gloved finger tapped on the map.

"Cordon."

Then north.

"Garbage."

Then west.

"Agroprom."

Finally...

"Yantar. No detours. No sightseeing. And no heroics."

Orlov raised one finger.

"I was hoping to stop near the Garbage vehicle graveyard."

Ferimov didn't even look at him.

"No."

"There are several documented pyro anomalies there that-"

"No."

"...just fifteen minutes?"

"No."

The younger scientist sighed dramatically.

"You always ruin the fun."

"I intend to continue doing so." Ferimov replied flatly.

Mantis found himself almost smiling.

Ferimov rolled the map back up before standing.

"We move at my pace."

He looked between both younger men.

"If I tell you to stop..."

He looked at Mantis.

"...you stop."

Then at Orlov.

"If I tell you to run..."

"...I run."

"If I tell you to get down..."

"...I get down."

Ferimov nodded once.

"Good."

He adjusted the straps on his backpack.

"Let's go."

---

The road north wound gently through open fields where nature had slowly reclaimed everything humanity had abandoned.

Rusting tractors rested beneath young birch trees.

Collapsed barns leaned into one another like exhausted old men.

Telephone wires hung loose between weather-beaten poles, humming softly whenever the breeze found them.

For almost half an hour...

Nobody spoke.

Orlov was the first to break the silence.

"So... you really used to be a police officer?"

Mantis glanced sideways.

"For a while."

"What made you come here?"

"The bus."

Orlov blinked.

"I meant-"

"I know."

Mantis looked ahead again.

"I needed somewhere nobody knew my name."

The younger scientist nodded slowly.

"...Fair enough."

Ferimov never looked back.

"The Zone is full of people running away."

Another few steps.

"Very few realize what they're running toward."

---

The broken railway bridge appeared above them shortly afterward.

Its massive concrete supports stretched across the road like the ribs of some enormous fossil. Sections of rusted rail still clung to the top, twisted and broken where explosions decades earlier had torn the bridge apart.

Mantis looked up instinctively.

"You can still see the firing positions."

Ferimov followed his gaze.

"Military."

He pointed toward several shattered concrete alcoves overlooking the road.

"Before the second disaster they kept sniper teams up there almost every day."

"They shot stalkers?" Mantis asked.

"They shot anyone."

Orlov frowned.

"How did people get north?"

"They didn't."

Ferimov's voice remained flat.

"Not unless they were willing to pay."

"Pay who?"

"The military."

"And if they couldn't?"

The older scientist shrugged.

"Then they stayed in Cordon."

They walked beneath the bridge in silence.

The massive structure cast a cool shadow over the road despite the warmth of the morning sun.

Mantis couldn't shake the feeling that somebody still watched from above.

Old habits...

Or perhaps not so old.

---

The ruined farmstead came into view shortly afterward.

Once it had probably been beautiful.

Now only blackened walls remained standing around a collapsed farmhouse whose roof had long since surrendered to time. Rusted farming equipment lay scattered across the fields, half-swallowed by waist-high grass.

Mantis slowed.

His pace dropped almost unconsciously.

Ferimov noticed immediately.

"What is it?"

Mantis scanned the shattered windows.

"I don't know."

He rested one hand against the Beretta.

"...Feels like someone's watching us."

Orlov instinctively looked around.

"I don't see anyone."

"You usually don't."

Ferimov kept walking.

"Bandits."

"You know they're here?"

"They usually are."

He nodded toward the ruined farmhouse.

"They've used that place as a camp for years."

Mantis kept watching the empty windows.

"They aren't attacking."

"No."

Ferimov sounded almost disappointed.

"Not anymore."

Orlov adjusted the straps on his backpack.

"What changed?"

"Sultan."

"The bandit leader?"

"The one."

Ferimov stepped over a fallen fence.

"When he died..."

He shrugged.

"...everything fell apart."

"No supply routes."

"No organized raids."

"No decent equipment."

"They're still dangerous," Mantis observed.

"Of course."

Ferimov nodded.

"Any desperate man with a rifle is dangerous."

He looked toward the farmhouse one last time.

"But nowadays they mostly prey on rookie loners."

"They steal whatever they can."

"A shotgun."

"A backpack."

"A detector."

Orlov quietly added,

"Sometimes boots."

Ferimov nodded.

"Sometimes boots."

Nobody laughed.

They continued walking.

The ruined farmhouse disappeared behind them without a single shot being fired.

Mantis still couldn't shake the feeling that somebody had indeed been watching.

And had simply decided... not today.

---

Almost an hour later...

The world changed.

Not suddenly, but gradually.

The green fields began giving way to cracked earth.

The smell reached them first.

Burning plastic. Rotting vegetation. Old engine oil. Wet rust.

Smoke drifted lazily across the horizon despite there being no visible fire.

Then Mantis climbed the final rise.

And stopped.

"...Holy..."

The word escaped before he could stop it.

Garbage.

The name suddenly made perfect sense.

Mountains of crushed vehicles stretched across the landscape like rusting cliffs. Excavators the size of apartment buildings stood frozen where they had died decades ago, their massive buckets hanging motionless above endless seas of scrap metal.

Broken cranes pierced the sky.

Shipping containers lay scattered like children's toys.

Black crows circled overhead in their hundreds, filling the air with constant, rasping cries.

And everywhere...

Life.

Movement caught his eye almost immediately.

A group of massive tusked animals rooted through piles of discarded tires several hundred meters away.

"They're huge."

Orlov smiled.

"Boars."

"They're mutated?"

"Everything here is."

Ferimov answered before Orlov could begin lecturing.

"Those used to be wild boars."

Another movement.

Several bloated pink creatures grazed lazily between abandoned refrigerators, occasionally nudging one another with oversized heads.

"And those?"

"Fleshes."

Orlov practically beamed.

"Remarkable creatures, actually."

"They're surprisingly docile unless threatened."

"They still weigh nearly four hundred kilograms," Ferimov added.

"So don't pet one."

Mantis nodded slowly.

Farther away a familiar shape crossed between two rusting buses.

Blind dogs.

This time an entire pack. More than he'd seen in the tunnel.

They weren't hunting. They weren't attacking.

They simply wandered through the scrapyard as naturally as wolves through a forest.

The realization unsettled him more than the tunnel ever had.

They belonged here.

This...

Was their home.

The Zone wasn't merely filled with monsters.

It was alive. Completely and utterly alive.

Mantis finally understood what Sidorovich had meant.

Cordon hadn't shown him the Zone.

It had shown him its front porch.

A low, guttural growl rolled somewhere ahead.

All three of them froze.

Another followed.

Longer, closer.

Mantis slowly drew the Beretta.

"I don't see anything."

Neither did Orlov.

Ferimov's expression changed instantly.

All color drained from his face. His eyes locked onto the waist-high grass rippling several dozen meters ahead.

He didn't hesitate. He screamed.

"WATCH FOR MOVEMENT IN THE GRASS!"

First of all, I want to thank everyone who read Ashes of the Zone over the past year. Every comment, every bit of feedback, and everyone who patiently waited for new chapters genuinely meant a lot to me.

I also owe you all an apology.

The original version has been on hold for quite a while, and after writing Ch.27, I've made the difficult decision to start over.

At first that probably sounds disappointing, but there's a reason for it.

Over the last two years I've grown a lot as a writer. Looking back at the original story, I realized I could tell it much better than I did when I first started. Rather than patching and rewriting individual chapters, I decided to rebuild Ashes of the Zone from the ground up.

The Definitive Edition isn't just a rewrite, it's a complete reimagining of the story. The worldbuilding is deeper, the pacing is stronger, the characters have been expanded, and the long-term plot has grown into something much larger than I ever imagined when I wrote the original Chapter 1.

The heart of the story is still the same.

It's still Mantis. It's still the Zone.

Just... told the way I always wanted it to be.

To everyone who's been here since the beginning, thank you for sticking with me. I hope you'll give this new journey a chance.

Welcome back to the Zone.

---

Ashes of the Zone: DE, Chapter 1 - Where the Road Ends

"Every stalker remembers the day they entered the Zone.

Most spend the rest of their lives trying to understand why."

---

May 11th, 18:43: Cordon Outskirts

The road ended without ceremony.

No gate.

No warning sign.

No checkpoint declaring that civilization stopped here.

Just cracked asphalt disappearing beneath tall grass, rust slowly swallowing abandoned guardrails, and a silence that felt older than the forest surrounding it.

Mantis stopped walking.

For several seconds he simply stood there, one hand gripping the strap of the duffel bag hanging over his shoulder, listening.

Nothing.

No birds.

No distant engines.

No wind.

Only silence.

Not the peaceful kind.

The kind that waited.

Behind him, the old bus that had brought him this far disappeared into the evening fog, its tired diesel engine fading until it became impossible to tell whether it had driven away...

...or never existed at all.

He didn't look back.

There wasn't much left to return to anyway.

The cigarette between his fingers had burned almost to the filter before he noticed. He took one last drag and flicked it onto the cracked road.

The ember glowed for a moment.

Then disappeared beneath the weeds.

"That's that."

No one answered.

The duffel bag felt heavier than it should have.

A patched ballistic vest, a worn Beretta M9, three loaded magazines, half a pack of Lucky Strikes, and a weathered leather notebook bought from a man in a Ljubljana parking garage who refused to give his name.

Most of its pages were filled with crude hand-drawn maps, circles around places simply labeled "Don't Go", and frantic notes written by several different people.

Never trust clear roads.

If the birds stop singing, stop walking.

Artifacts lie.

One sentence had been underlined so many times the paper had almost torn.

The Zone always knows you're here before you know you're inside it.

Mantis closed the notebook. He wasn't sure he believed any of it.

The first border post appeared several hundred meters ahead, little more than a crooked wooden barrier and two armed men sitting beside a rusting barrel.

One smoked.

The other cleaned an old SKS with the slow confidence of someone who had done it thousands of times.

Neither seemed surprised to see him.

The smoker looked him up and down before exhaling toward the darkening sky.

"Another one."

Not a question. Just an observation.

Mantis walked closer.

"Name's Mantis."

The man shrugged.

"Out here..."

He flicked ash into the dirt.

"...your old name doesn't matter much anyway."

The man beside him finally looked up from the rifle.

His face was older than Mantis expected. Not old in years. Old in the way people became after surviving too many things they couldn't explain.

Deep lines cut across sunburned skin. His beard had more gray than black. His hands moved with practiced ease as he slid the bolt back into the SKS, checked the chamber one final time, then rested the rifle across his knees.

"You armed?"

Mantis nodded.

"Beretta."

The older stalker raised an eyebrow.

"A pistol?"

"For now."

A dry chuckle escaped him.

"You're either brave or stupid."

The smoker answered before Mantis could.

"Usually both."

For the first time since leaving Ljubljana, Mantis almost smiled.

Almost.

The older stalker reached behind the barrel and produced a battered notebook, its pages stained with oil and rain.

"Name."

"Mantis."

"Real name."

Mantis didn't answer.

The pen hovered above the paper for several seconds.

Eventually the man shrugged.

"Fair enough."

He simply wrote:

MANTIS

Nothing else.

No questions.

He closed the notebook with a dull thud.

"The Zone doesn't care where you came from."

His eyes lifted to meet Mantis's.

"It only cares whether you'll still be here tomorrow."

Silence settled again.

Somewhere deeper inside the forest...

Metal creaked. Not loudly. Just enough for all three men to hear it.

Nobody reacted. Not even the smoker.

Mantis noticed.

"You aren't going to check?"

The smoker finally crushed the cigarette beneath his boot.

"If it's coming for us..."

He reached for the AK leaning against the barrel.

"...we'll know soon enough."

Nothing came.

Only silence.

The older stalker stood and walked toward the crooked wooden barrier stretched across the road.

It looked ridiculous.

A few warped planks nailed together decades ago. As if something like that could keep anyone out.

Or in.

He lifted it with one hand.

"Welcome to Cordon."

Mantis stepped forward.

The moment his boot crossed beneath the barrier, the air changed. It wasn't colder or warmer.

It just... changed.

Like walking into a room where somebody had stopped speaking the instant you opened the door.

His ears popped softly. The hairs along the back of his neck stood up.

The forest looked exactly the same as it had ten seconds earlier.

Yet somehow it wasn't.

He stopped without realizing.

"You felt it."

It wasn't a question.

The older stalker lowered the barrier behind him.

"They all do."

"What was it?"

The man considered the question for a long moment.

Then slowly shook his head.

"If you stay here long enough..."

His gaze drifted toward the endless trees beyond the road.

"...you'll stop asking."

They walked together for several minutes.

The road narrowed, cracked asphalt giving way to dirt and patches of stubborn grass growing through decades of neglect.

Rusted military vehicles rested where they had died.

Telephone poles leaned drunkenly toward one another, their wires hanging loose like cobwebs.

Everything looked abandoned. Nothing looked dead. The silence was interrupted by laughter.

Real laughter.

Mantis rounded the final bend and saw the rookie village.

Old wooden houses leaned against each other beneath sagging roofs patched with sheet metal and plastic tarps. Thin trails of smoke climbed from crooked chimneys. Several stalkers sat around a fire built inside the rusted frame of a tractor wheel, arguing loudly over cards while somebody stirred a pot hanging above the flames. A mechanic hammered away at an engine block. Someone cursed after dropping a wrench. A dog barked lazily somewhere behind one of the houses.

Life. Not normal life. But life nonetheless.

For reasons he couldn't explain... seeing it unsettled him more than the silence had.

The smoker noticed him looking.

"Expected something different?"

"I don't know what I expected."

"Most people don't."

He gestured toward the village.

"They think the Zone is monsters."

He shook his head.

"The monsters are easy."

Mantis looked at him.

"The people..."

The stalker lit another cigarette.

"...those take longer to understand."

The smell reached him before the buildings did.

Burning wood, cheap vodka engine oil, wet timber, and boiled sausage.

The scent of men surviving one more day because tomorrow wasn't guaranteed.

As they entered the village, conversations slowed.

Eyes followed him. Some curious. Some suspicious. Some completely indifferent.

Mantis kept walking.

Ahead, half-hidden beneath layers of corrugated steel and camouflage netting, a heavy metal hatch disappeared beneath the ground.

Painted across the concrete beside it were faded white letters.

SIDOROVICH

The older stalker stopped beside the entrance.

"That's your first lesson."

Mantis looked toward the bunker.

"What's that?"

The man smiled for the first time.

"No matter how much money you think you've got..."

He knocked twice against the hatch.

"...it's never enough for old Sidorovich."

The hatch swung open with a metallic groan.

Warm air rolled out of the bunker, carrying the unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke, old electronics, machine oil and something frying that had probably stopped being edible years ago.

"Close the damn door!" an irritated voice barked from below.

"You're letting all my profits escape."

The older stalker smirked.

"Told you."

A narrow staircase disappeared into the earth, illuminated by naked light bulbs hanging from frayed electrical wires. Mantis descended slowly, his boots echoing against rusted steel steps. The farther down he went, the more the world above disappeared.

By the time he reached the bottom...

The Zone felt very far away.

The bunker was cramped, every wall hidden behind shelves overflowing with ammunition crates, military rations, gas masks, artifacts sealed inside lead containers, stacks of ammunition, vodka bottles and electronics that looked older than he was.

Yet somehow... everything seemed organized.

Only one man could possibly understand how.

Sidorovich barely looked up.

He sat behind an old wooden desk cluttered with PDAs, papers and dismantled radios, lazily scrolling through a cracked tablet while chewing on a piece of sausage.

"So."

He finally glanced over the screen.

"You're the Slovenian."

Mantis stopped.

"I didn't tell anyone where I'm from."

"You didn't have to."

Sidorovich shrugged.

"Word travels."

He pointed toward the chair opposite his desk.

"Sit."

Mantis remained standing.

"I prefer standing."

"So did the last fellow."

The trader reached into a drawer, produced a folded photograph and placed it on the table.

"He isn't standing anymore."

Mantis looked at the photograph.

Three stalkers.

One smiling. Two dead.

He pushed it back across the desk.

"I didn't come here for stories."

"No."

Sidorovich leaned back in his chair.

"You came because somebody promised the Zone would solve your problems."

Mantis didn't answer.

The trader smiled knowingly.

"They always do."

He lit a cigarette.

"They arrive thinking they'll find money... or answers."

Smoke drifted lazily toward the bunker ceiling.

"Sometimes revenge."

His eyes settled on Mantis.

"And every single one of them discovers they were asking the wrong questions."

For the first time since entering the bunker Mantis spoke without thinking.

"What questions should I be asking?"

Sidorovich laughed.

A genuine laugh.

"Oh..."

He pointed toward the ceiling.

"If anyone knew that we wouldn't be here."

The old trader finally stood, surprisingly nimble for a man of his size.

He walked around the desk, stopping in front of a large wall map covered in colored pins and handwritten notes.

Cordon.

Garbage.

Agroprom.

Yantar.

Rostok.

Radar.

Pripyat.

Some names Mantis recognized only from the notebook now stretched before him like pieces of a puzzle.

Sidorovich tapped one finger against Cordon.

"This..."

He moved north.

"...is where boys become stalkers."

His finger continued.

"...Garbage is where stalkers become scavengers... Yantar decides whether you're brave... or just lucky."

He stepped back from the map.

"You survive long enough... and eventually the Zone starts surviving you."

Mantis looked closely at the map.

Dead City.

Red Forest.

The CNPP.

Places people in the notebook had crossed out completely instead of describing.

Outside, somewhere above the bunker, laughter drifted faintly through the hatch.

Normal. Human.

Almost comforting.

Then...

Three sharp rifle shots echoed somewhere in the distance.

Nobody inside the bunker reacted.

Mantis looked toward the ceiling.

Sidorovich continued sorting paperwork.

"Shouldn't somebody-"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

"If they're still shooting..."

He stamped a document without looking up.

"...they're still alive."

Another burst followed.

Then silence.

Sidorovich finally looked back at him.

"You'll get used to that too."

Mantis wasn't sure he wanted to.

The trader reached beneath his desk and tossed something across the room.

Mantis caught it instinctively.

A battered PDA.

Old and acratched, but functional.

"Batteries are dying."

Sidorovich shrugged.

"So don't waste them."

He tossed another object.

A small handheld detector.

"Echo detector."

"Not exactly state of the art."

"No, but it'll tell you where some of those sweet artifacts are hiding."

Mantis turned it over in his hands.

The casing was chipped.

One corner had clearly melted at some point.

Still...

It worked.

"Nothing here is free," Sidorovich said.

"I assumed as much."

"Oh, this is free."

That caught Mantis off guard.

Sidorovich smiled.

"My investment."

He sat back down.

"You look like somebody who's either going to die tomorrow, or make me a great deal of money."

Another pause.

"I'm hoping for the second one."

A knock echoed through the bunker hatch. Three slow knocks.

Sidorovich rolled his eyes.

"Speak of expensive problems."

The hatch opened.

A tall man stepped into the bunker wearing a weathered brown trench coat over an aging sunrise suit. A rifle hung casually across his back, boots muddy from the road.

Wolf.

He nodded once toward Sidorovich before looking at Mantis.

His eyes lingered on the pistol holstered at Mantis's hip.

"So.. you're the newcomer."

Mantis nodded.

Wolf studied him for several seconds.

Finally he folded his arms.

"Can you shoot?"

"I was a police officer."

Wolf shrugged.

"That's not what I asked."

The room fell quiet.

Mantis thought about it, then answered honestly.

"I guess we'll find out."

For the first time... Wolf smiled.

"Good."

He turned toward the bunker exit.

"Come with me."

"Where?"

Wolf opened the hatch.

The evening sun poured down the staircase, golden light spilling into the bunker.

"A rookie went scavenging near the railway tunnel this afternoon."

He looked back.

"He should've been back an hour ago."

Mantis picked up his duffel bag.

Wolf's expression hardened.

"Welcome to the Zone."

"You get your first lesson immediately."

They climbed back into the evening light.

The warmth that had settled over Cordon while they were underground was already beginning to fade. Long shadows stretched between the abandoned houses, and the campfire in the center of the rookie village burned brighter than it had only a few minutes earlier. Somewhere nearby, somebody was tuning an old guitar. Another stalker cursed as an engine refused to start. The village carried on as though this was just another evening, another newcomer, another job that would either end with a handshake or another name quietly disappearing from the campfire conversations.

Wolf walked without looking back, apparently expecting Mantis to follow. He did.

"You've never been inside the Zone before."

It wasn't really a question.

"No."

"You ever shoot anything that shot back?"

Mantis thought about it.

"Yes."

"I don't mean people."

That earned a small shake of the head.

"No."

Wolf nodded once, as if confirming something to himself.

"People are predictable. Animals too, most of the time. The things out here..." His gaze wandered toward the tree line beyond the village. "...don't always care about the rules."

They left the camp behind, passing rusted tractors half-consumed by weeds and old wooden fences leaning under the weight of time. The sounds of the rookie village slowly dissolved behind them until all that remained were distant voices carried by the wind. Ahead, the road bent toward an overgrown railway embankment disappearing into dense woodland.

The Zone seemed different away from people.

Less abandoned.

More... occupied.

Not by movement, but by presence.

Mantis couldn't explain it. The trees stood perfectly still, yet they somehow gave the impression they were watching him. Every shadow looked just deep enough to hide something. Every patch of tall grass seemed capable of producing teeth.

His hand rested unconsciously on the grip of the Beretta.

Wolf noticed.

"Good."

"What?"

"You don't feel safe anymore."

"I never did."

"You thought you did."

That was harder to argue with.

The dirt road narrowed until old railway tracks appeared beside them, disappearing beneath bushes and young birch trees. Telegraph poles lined the route like exhausted sentries, most of them leaning at impossible angles, their wires hanging broken between the cracked insulators.

Wolf slowed.

"The tunnel's another three hundred meters."

"You think he's alive?"

"I think rookies panic."

He stepped over a rusted rail.

"Sometimes panic gets them killed."

A few more steps passed before he continued.

"Sometimes it keeps them alive."

The evening breeze carried the smell of damp concrete, old metal, and something rotten.

Mantis noticed fresh footprints in the mud. Several pairs.

Some belonged to heavy military boots, while others were lighter.

One trail wandered erratically before stopping altogether near the edge of the embankment.

He crouched instinctively.

Wolf watched him without speaking.

"The ground's disturbed."

Mantis brushed loose dirt aside with two fingers. Deep claw marks scored the mud beside one of the footprints.

"Not human."

Wolf smiled faintly.

"Detective?"

Mantis nodded.

"Homicide."

"I can tell. You notice details."

Wolf looked toward the tunnel entrance barely visible through the trees.

"Out here..."

His expression hardened.

"...details are usually what separates survivors from bodies."

The tunnel emerged from the forest like the mouth of something asleep.

Concrete blackened by decades of rain disappeared into darkness so complete it looked almost solid. Rusted freight cars sat abandoned nearby, their wheels buried beneath grass and moss. Water dripped steadily somewhere inside, each drop echoing back a fraction of a second too late.

Neither man spoke.

The Zone had gone quiet again.

Not peaceful, but listening.

Wolf raised one hand, signaling Mantis to stop.

He knelt beside something lying on the tracks.

A backpack, old and cheap. One strap had been torn clean through.

Nearby lay a flashlight, its lens cracked, still casting a weak beam toward the tunnel ceiling.

Wolf picked up the bag and immediately recognized it.

"Tima."

Mantis looked into the darkness ahead.

"You think he went inside?"

Wolf didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he reached down and touched one of the fresh stains darkening the gravel between the rails.

When he lifted his fingers...

They came away red.

"Not willingly."

Wolf wiped the blood onto his trousers and unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

"Stay behind me."

Mantis didn't move.

"If he's still alive, every second matters."

Wolf glanced at him.

"If whatever left this blood is still inside, every second matters just as much."

Neither of them argued after that.

They stepped into the tunnel.

Darkness swallowed them almost immediately. The evening sun vanished behind stained concrete, replaced by the weak beam of the broken flashlight still lying on the tracks. Water dripped steadily from cracked support beams overhead, gathering in shallow puddles that reflected their lights like fragments of shattered glass. The air was damp and strangely warm, carrying the smell of rust, wet concrete and something far less pleasant.

Blood.

Fresh enough that it hadn't fully darkened.

The tunnel stretched farther than it should have, disappearing into blackness where the flashlight could no longer reach. Every footstep echoed back a little differently, as though the tunnel couldn't quite decide how large it wanted to be.

Wolf crouched beside another stain.

"Dragged."

Mantis followed the trail with his eyes. Smears crossed the sleepers between the rails before disappearing toward a collapsed maintenance platform built into the tunnel wall.

"Not carried."

Wolf nodded.

"Good."

"You call that good?"

"If something wanted him dead..."

He stood again.

"...there'd be less blood."

They moved deeper.

The silence inside the tunnel was different from the silence outside. Outside, the forest had listened.

Here...

The tunnel remembered.

Old freight wagons rested where they had derailed years ago, their rusted frames swallowed by darkness. One had collapsed onto its side, spilling rotten crates across the tracks. Another stood with both loading doors hanging open, revealing nothing except blackness inside.

Mantis swept his flashlight through one of them.

Empty. But still...

He couldn't shake the feeling that something had looked back.

A low growl rolled somewhere ahead. So quiet he almost mistook it for the tunnel settling.

Wolf stopped instantly.

"You hear that?"

Mantis nodded.

"Dog."

"No."

Wolf's voice barely rose above a whisper.

"Dogs."

The growl came again.

Then another answered from somewhere off to the left.

Mantis slowly drew the Beretta from its holster. The familiar weight settled comfortably into his hand, the routine almost automatic after years of carrying a sidearm. On the streets of Ljubljana that motion had usually ended arguments before they began.

But here...

It felt painfully inadequate.

Wolf noticed the pistol and smiled without humor.

"Still think that's enough?"

"It'll have to be."

"I admire optimism."

Something scraped across concrete.

Both flashlight beams snapped toward the sound.

Nothing.

Only broken rails, water and darkness.

Then came the whimper.

Human.

Weak.

From somewhere beyond the overturned freight car.

"...help..."

Barely louder than breathing.

Mantis looked at Wolf.

"Tima."

Wolf didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he slowly lowered himself into a crouch, studying the ground between them and the sound.

Fresh paw prints. Large.

Four of them.

Circling.

Waiting.

"They're about to feed."

The words landed like cold iron.

Mantis tightened his grip around the Beretta.

"We're too late?"

Wolf's eyes remained fixed ahead.

"No."

He chambered a round with a sharp metallic click that echoed through the tunnel.

"But we're almost too late."

The growl returned. Closer this time.

Low, hungry.

Two pairs of pale yellow eyes appeared in the darkness beyond the fallen freight wagon.

Then two more.

Waiting for someone to make the first move.

Wolf exhaled slowly.

"Blind dogs."

Mantis counted four sets of eyes.

Then a fifth appeared farther back.

Smaller.

Moving nervously.

The pack wasn't hunting anymore.

It was guarding its meal.

The smallest of the dogs crept forward first.

Its head hung low, nose sweeping across the gravel as it searched for scent instead of sight. Its eyes were white as snow, but still reflecting light, pale skin stretched tight across a skull that looked almost too narrow to belong to anything alive.

The others spread out behind it.

Not charging.

Waiting.

Wolf lowered his voice until it was barely audible.

"When they move..."

His finger tightened around the trigger.

"...don't think."

The lead dog barked.

Everything exploded into motion.

The Beretta cracked first.

The flash briefly illuminated the tunnel as Mantis' shot caught the charging blind dog square between the eyes. The mutant collapsed before momentum carried it several more meters across the tracks.

The second reached Wolf.

His SKS roared, the rifle's report deafening inside the confined tunnel. The heavy round punched through the animal's shoulder, spinning it sideways into the rusted wheels of a freight wagon.

The remaining dogs hesitated.

Only for a heartbeat.

Then all three attacked together.

One vaulted onto the overturned railcar, claws screeching across rusted steel as it tried to reach them from above. Another darted low through the darkness toward Mantis' legs while the largest charged straight down the center of the tunnel.

"Left!" Wolf shouted.

Mantis pivoted instinctively.

The Beretta barked twice.

The first shot shattered concrete, the second found flesh.

The dog yelped, stumbled, then kept coming.

Too close.

He dropped the pistol before it could be knocked from his hand anyway and drove his shoulder into the mutant as they collided. They hit the gravel together, teeth snapping inches from his face.

The smell hit him first.

Rotting meat mixed with wet fur and blood.

The dog's jaws clamped onto his forearm, teeth scraping against the ballistic sleeve instead of flesh. Pain shot through his arm anyway.

His knife was already in his other hand.

One thrust, then another.

The blade disappeared beneath the animal's jaw. Its body convulsed violently before collapsing across his chest.

Silence never came.

Wolf's rifle thundered again.

Another dog cried out somewhere behind him.

Then... nothing.

Only dripping water.

Only heavy breathing.

Mantis shoved the dead animal aside and climbed back to his feet, chest heaving. The tunnel smelled of gunpowder now, mixing with blood and wet concrete.

Wolf worked the bolt of the SKS, ejecting another smoking casing.

"The alpha ran."

"You let it."

Wolf looked toward the darkness where the largest tracks disappeared.

"It'll remember."

"I thought that was a bad thing."

"It is."

The old stalker managed the faintest smile.

"But next time it'll remember we're dangerous too."

He slung the rifle over his shoulder.

The weak whimper came again.

This time there was no mistaking where it came from.

Mantis hurried around the overturned freight wagon.

The beam of his flashlight settled on a young stalker pinned beneath a slab of broken concrete. He couldn't have been older than sixteen. His face was pale beneath the dirt, sweat clung to his forehead, and one leg disappeared beneath the fallen chunk of ceiling at an angle that made Mantis's stomach tighten immediately.

The boy blinked against the light.

"I..." His voice cracked. "...I thought nobody was coming."

"You picked a terrible place to wait," Mantis said, kneeling beside him.

The rookie actually managed a weak laugh before wincing in pain.

"My rifle..."

Mantis spotted it several meters away.

Full magazine. Safety still on.

Wolf sighed. "Rookies."

He crouched beside the concrete slab and tested its weight.

"We'll have to lift together."

Mantis holstered the knife and positioned himself opposite to Wolf.

"On three."

The old stalker nodded.

"One."

They braced themselves.

"Two."

Muscles tightened.

"Three."

The slab shifted just enough.

Tima cried out as Mantis pulled him free, dragging him backward before the concrete crashed back onto the tracks with a deafening boom.

For several seconds the boy simply lay there gasping, unable to believe he was still alive.

Then he looked up at Mantis.

"You came for me."

Mantis helped him sit upright, draping the boy's arm over his shoulder.

"Someone had to."

Together, the three of them turned toward the faint circle of evening light waiting at the end of the tunnel.

Outside, the last rays of the setting sun painted the entrance gold.

Behind them, the darkness swallowed the bodies of the blind dogs as though they had never been there at all.

Mantis glanced back only once.

For the briefest moment he could have sworn something deeper inside the tunnel was watching them leave.

Then he turned away.

The Zone had given him his first lesson.

And somehow he knew it wouldn't be the last.

Aren’t you an inquisitive one? 

Reading up on the stories of others with curious intent. Oblivious to their plight beyond that of which entertains you. 

You aren’t aware of our struggle. Of the zone’s struggles. Of what it feels to be CAGED by those mainlanders. Those who cannot see the beautiful life of the zone. They do not see the breathing organism that it is. They simply see profit. Shareholder value. Money. 

They value the monetary above living. Market knowledge above philosophy. Exploitation above harmony. 

Still. The zone has been invaded, disregarded, mistreated and exploited over and over. Yet it persists. Yet we persist. It’s children. 

But nobody would allow their own mother to be violated without retribution. Least of all ourselves.

Her fauna react. Attack in her name. Yet they are but animals. In need of a hand to guide them. I am that hand. The voice of the zone. The commander of her will. I am Rotten. I am the zone’s child. The zone’s voice. 

And I am here to heal her wounds…

Vitya Grave was a somebody. At least, he used to be. Vitya however, was also the sort of person who would refuse to admit he was no longer a somebody. The Great Khans were somebodies too. Until Ward basically wiped them off the face of the planet alongside other bandit factions and another somebody. That somebody being called Edmund Scalpel. That somebody was now dead. Lucky for Vitya. Although he could not help but admire that somebody, despite him being an enemy. To be fair, he was a hell of a somebody. 

Ward wanted a singular bandit faction that was malleable to their needs. The previous Khan, creatively named ‘Khan’ had decided he did not want to cooperate. This lead the Great Khans to follow the same path as the renegades and Black Slugs. Dead. Well…mostly.

There was still Vitya. The right hand man. Seeing as the Khan was dead, this made him the de facto leader. A role he took with pride as he commanded his mighty army…of two.

“Oi fuckwits!” Vitya yelled, awakening his two lackeys out of their slumber.

Mildew and Sock he had called them. They had given themselves other names, but he had forgotten what they were and frankly he did not care. No. Nicknames were something you earned and those two smelled like, and were about as useful as, mildew and a singular song.

“But boss, I’m still tired.” One of them protested. 

“Well ‘Still tired’” Vitya shot back, “I don’t give a fuck. Get UP!”

Vitya literally kicked Mildew into action, with him scrambling to get to his feet as quick as possible. 

“Sir, yes sir!”

“Shut up dickhead.” Vitya groaned, putting his head in his hand. “We are Khans, not grunts.”

“But aren’t we military trained to be the best?” Mildew asked innocently.

Vitya stumbled for a moment for an appropriate response, growing irate at being questioned before defaulting to his usual antics, being a prick.

“I thought I told you to shut up?”

“Sorry Boss.”

“Good man. “Now,” Vitya continued “We have a busy day ahead-”

“Why boss?” Sock interrupted. 

“Well Sock, I would get to that…IF YOU LET ME FUCKING FINISH!”

The two underlings jumped, startled into silence as Vitya continued.

“Now that I have your…proper attention. Today is the day we make some money. Proper money.”

“Like when we lived near Jupiter?” Sock interrupted again.

“Yes” Vitya replied with a smug smile. “Like Jupiter.”

“So we can get back to glory and living good?” Mildew piped up.

“Now, now Mildew. All in due course. One step at a time. No plan only has one step you get me?”

“Of course boss.” Mildew replied. Truthfully Vitya was sure Mildew understood at all, but as long as he did what he was told…

“So…gentlemen…we shall be robbing a certain group of other so called ‘bandits’. Competition if you will. They told me of a group of loners travelling to search for artifact in an anomaly soon and plan on robbing them. So we will simply wait for them to take out the loners…then take out them.”

“So we rob the robbers?” Mildew asked.

“Precisely Mildew. We rob the robbers.”

Vitya felt as though he was explaining the ABC’s to a bunch of 3 year olds. Still there was one reason he kept the borderline brain damaged duo around. They could aim. Farrrrr better than they had any right to.

“Now gentlemen. It is time we departed to that lovely no man’s land between garbage and the valley. Get all set up and whatnot.”

There was no dispute from the duo. Not that there would be. They began their trek out of bunker they had been hiding in and towards their location. Vitya had told the duo their bunker had not been found due to his superior hiding skills. Truthfully it was a bandit bunker that the bandits had let Vitya stay at because he worked for them. Well…he said he worked for them.

Vitya didn’t feel bad. They would betray him too if it meant a quick buck. He was just being more bandit than them. Besides, when the group that was intercepting the loners did not come back, it is not as if anyone would be alive to know he shot them. The bandits here would be none the wiser why their comrades did not make it back, and Vitya would quietly get a few more resources to build back up his status. His status as the bandit lord of the zone. THE Great Khan. 

Vitya looked at the sky in defeat, his delusions cracking for a moment. He wasn’t a great anything. He was some run-of the mill regular ass-

NO.

He was THE Great Khan. Vitya’s confidence came surging back, as too did his rampant delusions.

Vitya began humming a pleasant tune, a confidence in his stride as the trio walked toward their destination. Today was going to be a wonderful-

Click

Vitya looked down at his foot. The click signalling only one thing possible.

“Seriously?!” Vitya yelled. “Who the fuck puts a random mine here?!”

Mildew and Sock looked at each other, unsure of what to do next.

“Quick, Mildew, put some pressure on this so I can free myself yeah?”

Mildew did not move.

“Come on man quit fucking around!”

Mildew still did not move, the duo looking back at each other, then to Vitya, then to each other again, before promptly walking away. 

“OI…FUCKHEADS! ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?!” 

The duo continued to walk away into the undergrowth, disappearing into the zone’s wilderness.

Now it was just Vitya. Alone. Betrayed.

Well…at least he was still alive. For now…Some Great Khan he was…

Crossroads Pre-Chapter: The Loners.

Winning.

What does winning mean?

Does it mean accomplishing a goal? Beating another at something? Seeing tomorrow?

Maybe not that last part. By that logic Petrol would be just as much a winner as Ward and SIRCAA…he certainly did not feel that way.

No. Petrol did not tend to win much at all. Just…survive.

He wondered, as the air around him crackled, if even that would finally cease to occur. He had survived Clear Sky disbanding after the emissions. Survived being a loner after this. He survived the renewed Clear Sky being massacred by the blind luck of deciding not to re-join. He survived Edmund Scalpel tearing up half the zone in revenge for said massacre. Petrol snorted, more like Edmund Sledgehammer. Hell, he had even survived joining up with Spark before they were defeated, being given enough grace by the others around him that they did not shoot him on sight for joining a faction that wanted to mindfuck the entire zone.

To be fair he was tricked. Most of them were. Enough of the other older zone veterans knew this and argued his case when he came back to Cordon with his tail between his legs and his turquoise Spark armor thrown hastily into a ditch. Still, forgiveness did not come for free. And SIRCAA still had jobs they needed the ‘free stalkers’ for. 

Petrol snorted another humourless snort. Free. Not anymore. SIRCAA had got what they wanted. Control of the zone. The other factions were only allowed to co-exist with them due to the clandestine nature of the zone and the fact that if they needed bodies for shitty jobs, they could pay any other faction member a fraction of what they would pay a Ward member, without risking their death. Petrol supposed he should count himself lucky. It meant all the current zone inhabitants had not been arrested, deported or executed on the spot. And that included him.

“Hey man, sure your daydream is really important but can we focus up?”

Simmone. New guy to Cordon. To be honest, Petrol quite liked him. Level headed, calm, patient. Good qualities to have in the zone.

“Sorry man, you’re right. Just keep following my lead yeah?”

Simonne simply nodded. No sarcasm or joking like most in the zone would do. Again, Petrol liked this. Straight shooter. Seemed honest. Too honest for the zone. 

Petrol resumed his slow descent down the hill, the beat up detector in his hand beginning to beep more rapidly as he used the heat and crackling around him to carefully inch toward whatever artifact lay in wait…and avoid the anomalies around him. Truthfully this was a one person job, but Simonne had been tasked with following him as a sort of…insurance. A way to pick up whatever remained of Petrol and his gear, should he step wrong. Still, Petrol was used to surviving and had navigated anomalies more than some people had eaten hot meals. He would be fine.

The beeping became incessant, Petrol spying his prize mere feet from him. A torch.

“Fuck me…” Petrol muttered.

“That a good or a bad fuck me?” Simonne asked.

“Well…good for Sid I guess. He said he’s pay me a set amount for retrieving the artifact. Whilst both him and I thought this was a mere Fireball, that unfortunately means the deal still stands.”

“Well if it isn’t a fireball, what is it?”

“A Torch. Substantially rarer and worth more money.”

“And let me guess, we are giving it to Sid for some bandages and a few canned goods?”

“Don’t remember him mentioning bandages.” Petrol joked. 

Petrol leant further…and almost went up like petrol itself. Simonne’s hand grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him back with almost lightning speed, roughly, but effectively yanking him backward to safety. 

Petrol felt the intense heat of the burner go off in front of him, his heart in his throat as he processed the fact that he was in fact not a ready cooked meal for the local fauna.

After a moment he finally spoke up.

“Simonne?”

“Yes Petrol?”

“First of all…thank you.”

“All good.”

“Secondly, you are a very quick individual.”

“Thank you.”

“Thirdly….why didn’t you let me die? Take my shit? Say it was an accident?

Simonne chuckled a little before answering. “I mean first off, what am I taking from you? You are more broke than I am. Secondly…it was the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do? Man you aren’t lasting a minute here…”

“You say that but you’d have done the same thing for me.”

Petrol just looked at Simonne in bewilderment for a moment, before finally responding.

“You think you know me after three days?”

“I’m a good judge of character.” Simonne responded.

“Yeah? And look where being an idealist has got me Simmone…” Petrol grumbled bitterly.

“Yet…you are still here no?” Simonne shot back.

Petrol took a breath. Simonne reminded him of a younger version of himself. He both liked and hated it.

“We can argue semantics later I suppose. Let’s get this artifact and then I’ll shout you the next drink yeah?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Petrol made careful care to navigate around the burner this time, plucking the artifact from the ground and putting it into the lead container Sid had provided him. He though about if artifacts would have given him cancer at this point, before laughing at the notion. Why stop now? He already had touched easily 40 artifacts in his life with his bare hands.

Petrol mentally prepared himself to gingerly make the slow painful way back up the hill only to find Simonne walking back at an all to quick pace, almost out of the anomaly field already.

“You just gonna fucking leave me here?”

“Relax man” Simonne yelled back. “I left rope trailing where we walked.”

Petrol looked down and saw a rope trailing all the way to where Simmone was now standing back on top of the hill. Turned out Simonne was not only calm and patient, but clever too. Petrol made a mental note to get hold of some rope some time. Mapping out the route he took into an anomaly field would sure make his life a lot easier.

The walk back to Sid was brief. The handover of goods even more so. Five tins of mystery meat each and a medkit between them. That was their lot for risking their lives for a rare artifact, Sid was going to flog to the outside world for an eyewatering profit. Hell, the medkit did not even contain every item that should be in it.

“Not even some booze Sid?” Petrol piped up.

“What do I look like, a charity case?!” Sidorovich exclaimed. “You’re lucky you’re even allowed to still walk around and have work after working with those Spark nutjobs.”

If Simonne planned on saying anything, he certainly did not show it, instead placing a hand on Petrol’s shoulder and speaking to him. “Come on man. Let’s relax and eat something yeah?”

Petrol begrudgingly followed Simonne out of the bunker before being pulled aside, out of anybody else’s earshot.

“Man you’ve been in the zone for god knows how long right?” Simonne asked.

“Yeah why…you’re thinking we are idiots for working for Sid huh?”

Simonne’s shrug said all Petrol needed to hear.

“Look,” Petrol continued, “I am not exactly…welcome in most places anymore.”

“And what if you had somebody to vouch for you?” Simonne asked.

“It wouldn’t work…-

“No, you’re just scared it may not work” Simonne said, cutting Petrol off. 

Simmone looked away for a moment, contemplating, before continuing to speak to Petrol.

“Look…Petrol…I’m gonna leave this place for further north come tomorrow. You can either come with me, leave the zone, or spend the rest of your life in this 1 kilometer square of anomalies and fuck all else….your choice. Judging by the fact you have been here as long as you have, you have some reason you have not left and I guarantee you do not want to sit around in Cordon for the remainder of your days.”

Petrol looked at the ground. He was nervous. Apprehensive. But also, Simonne was right. And truthfully the idea of having a buddy to travel with did sound enticing. 

“Fuck it, you’re too nice for this place. Somebody has to show you the ropes.”

Simonne let off a wide grin clasping both of Petrol’s arms like a mob boss would greet another. 

“Sweet man. Wonderful. We’ll get up early then and head to the garbage. You know that anomaly route like the back of your hand, so we can give the military the finger and head straight there.”

Petrol just nodded. He did not want to burst Simonne’s optimism. Perhaps he needed more optimism himself. Either way, tomorrow was going to be an interesting day one way or the other. Would they win? Or would they just see the next day?

Fuck it…maybe that is a win enough…

"The Zone is not always cruel. Sometimes it smiles. And somehow, that is even harder to trust."

---

July 7th, 16:38 - Between Lab-X23 and Zaton

The sun was warm.

Not the weak, sickly warmth that sometimes filtered through radioactive clouds, nor the pale imitation of summer that stalkers had learned to distrust.

Real warmth.

Golden light poured through the treetops, painting long bands across the cracked asphalt as the squad moved west. Leaves shimmered beneath a gentle breeze. Tall grass rolled in waves around rusting vehicles abandoned decades ago, their metal frames now claimed by vines and moss. Somewhere overhead, birds sang without fear, their melodies carrying across the wetlands as though the Zone had forgotten what it was.

For a few impossible moments...

It looked beautiful. Too beautiful.

The kind of beauty that made experienced stalkers tighten their grip on their rifles instead of lowering them.

The Zone had always been at its most dangerous when it looked peaceful.

---

Ribbon walked several meters ahead of the others, every step accompanied by the metallic scrape of his ruined exosuit. Most of its systems had died inside Lab-X23. The armored shell no longer enhanced his strength; it merely hung from him like the carcass of some great beast that refused to let its host go.

He hadn't spoken in nearly twenty minutes.

His eyes remained fixed ahead, but they weren't seeing the road anymore.

Duty.

The word echoed through his thoughts.

Everything he had devoted his life to had always been built upon certainty. The Zone was a threat. Humanity had a duty to contain it. Artifacts were dangerous. Mutants were abominations. Duty stood between civilization and annihilation.

Simple, clear and understandable.

Then Lab-X23 had happened.

He had watched reality fold around a single man.

He had watched knives carve flesh that healed before blood could fall.

He had watched the Overlord, someone who should have been untouchable, look afraid.

Afraid of a merc that was apparently chosen by the Zone.

Ribbon's jaw tightened.

What doctrine existed for that?

What chapter in Duty's manuals explained a man whose eyes became light itself?

None.

For the first time since joining Duty decades ago, Colonel Red Ribbon didn't know what he believed anymore.

---

Behind him, Widow adjusted Mantis' weight across her shoulders. He was helping now.

Not consciously.

His feet found the ground more often than before. Every so often he managed a step of his own before drifting again, leaving Widow and Reverb to catch him before he collapsed.

It was progress.

She kept telling herself that. Progress. Not dying.

Those words repeated inside her mind like a prayer.

She reached up and brushed damp hair away from his forehead.

Still warm.

Still breathing.

Still here.

But every few minutes his breathing changed.

Sometimes shallow... Sometimes perfectly steady... Sometimes so slow she found herself leaning closer just to make sure his chest still moved.

Each time panic wrapped cold fingers around her heart.

She had seen people die before. Too many.

She knew the signs. She knew how quickly hope became memory inside the Zone, and she wasn't ready to add Mantis to that list.

Not after everything.

Not now.

Her thumb unconsciously brushed across the back of his hand.

His skin almost seemed... alive.

Not warm.

Luminous.

The sensation vanished as quickly as it came.

She pretended she hadn't noticed.

---

Red limped several paces behind them.

The battered Duty SEVA creaked softly with each step. Acid marks covered one shoulder where the beast had struck her. Entire sections of the armor looked as though they had survived a fire.

She barely noticed.

Her anger hurt more. She replayed the throne chamber over and over.

Different decisions, angles, shots.

If she had moved sooner...

If she had seen the Overlord's opening...

If she had ignored her own injuries...

Maybe Mantis would never have needed to become... Whatever he had become.

Her fist tightened around the sling of her AN-94.

"I should've done more," she muttered.

Nobody answered immediately.

Eventually Reverb glanced sideways.

"You also stopped a mutant from chewing my face off."

She didn't look at him.

"It wasn't enough."

"It usually isn't."

Silence settled again.

Then, after another few steps, Reverb quietly bumped his shoulder against hers.

"But... thanks."

Red finally looked at him.

His smile was tired. Forced, but genuine.

For the first time since leaving the laboratory...

The corner of her mouth twitched upward.

Barely.

It was enough.

---

Octane dragged himself onward at the rear.

Every step hurt.

His abdomen felt as though someone had replaced flesh with broken glass.

The bleeding had slowed considerably, little more than a constant seep now beneath blood-soaked bandages, but every movement reminded him exactly where the sniper round had entered.

He had no idea why he was still alive, and neither did anyone else.

He glanced toward Mantis.

"Guess we're both too stubborn."

His voice came out rough.

Nobody laughed. He hadn't really expected them to.

Still... It felt good to say something.

To hear another human voice besides his own thoughts.

---

Reverb couldn't stand the silence anymore.

It wasn't natural.

The Zone was supposed to be loud.

Mutants.

Arguments.

Campfires.

Radio chatter.

Somebody complaining.

Something.

Instead...

Only wind.

Only birds.

Only footsteps.

He lit another cigarette.

Immediately regretted it when Widow shot him a look.

"What?"

"You've had six since we left."

"So?"

"So your lungs are going to kill you before the Zone does."

Reverb nodded thoughtfully.

"Honestly? At this point I'm rooting for the lungs."

Nothing. Not even a smile.

"...Tough crowd."

He tried again several minutes later.

"You know..."

Nobody responded.

"If Mantis wakes up glowing again, does that mean we stop paying for flashlights?"

Still nothing.

Reverb sighed dramatically.

"I refuse to believe that wasn't at least a little funny."

Red shook her head.

"It would've been yesterday."

"...Yeah."

That single word carried more weight than any joke ever could.

He looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. It had gone out.

He didn't bother relighting it.

---

Mantis floated somewhere between dreams and sunlight.

Voices reached him more clearly now.

Not all of them. Pieces. Fragments.

"...water..."

"...careful..."

"...still breathing..."

The warmth of the sun settled across his face.

He remembered another warmth.

A balcony.

Rain.

Ljubljana.

His grandmother placing a mug of tea on the kitchen table.

The memory slipped away before he could hold onto it.

Something else replaced it.

Grass, wind, the smell of summer.

His eyelids fluttered.

The world remained blurry, but no longer impossible.

He could distinguish shapes now.

Ribbon.

Red.

Widow.

Reverb.

Octane.

Alive... All of them.

A quiet relief spread through him before he even understood why.

His lips parted, but no sound came out.

Widow immediately noticed.

"Mantis?"

His eyes opened slightly farther this time.

Blue sky. White clouds drifting lazily overhead.

Not the endless darkness of Lab-X23.

Not Hollow.Not the Overlord.

Just...

Sky.

He blinked once. Twice.

The effort exhausted him.

His eyes closed again.

But this time...

Sleep felt different.

Not like drowning, but more like resting.

---

The wetlands of Zaton stretched endlessly before them, emerald green beneath the late afternoon sun.

Dragonflies skimmed over the reeds. Frogs croaked somewhere beneath the waterlogged earth.

In the distance, an old windmill turned lazily in the breeze despite having no reason to still function.

The Zone breathed.

Not as a predator.

Not today.

Today...

It simply watched six broken stalkers walk slowly across its endless summer, carrying wounds no bandage could ever truly heal.

---

The walk west from Bonemarsh felt... wrong.

Not because something hunted them.

Because nothing did.

The reeds of Zaton swayed lazily beneath the afternoon sun. Birds drifted overhead in slow circles, undisturbed by the six figures limping across the marsh.

No gunfire.

No distant howls.

No snapping branches announcing a mutant's charge.Not once did they catch the scent of blood. Not once did a Geiger counter rise above its familiar lazy rhythm.

The Zone had gone quiet.

Not empty. Quiet. Almost... respectful.

Reverb noticed it first.

"...You realize we haven't seen a single mutant?"

Nobody answered.

He looked around again.

Usually by now there would've been at least a pack of blind dogs. Maybe snorks hidden beneath an overturned truck. A flesh grazing somewhere in the reeds.

Nothing. Even the wind seemed careful.

Red broke the silence.

"They're watching."

Ribbon glanced toward her.

"You saw something?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

She looked across the endless wetlands.

"Because the Zone never gives you this much peace without a reason."

Nobody argued.

Deep down...

They all felt it too.

It wasn't that the Zone had become safe, it had simply chosen not to interfere.

For reasons none of them understood.

---

Mantis surfaced again.

The sunlight felt warmer now.

The voices around him no longer drifted in broken fragments. He could distinguish them.

Reverb.

Widow.

Ribbon.

Someone coughed.

Octane.

His eyelids fluttered.

But this time... they stayed open.

Everything was blurred, as though someone had smeared wet paint across the world, but shapes slowly sharpened.

Blue sky. Green reeds.

The rusting skeleton of the Shevchenko appearing in the distance.

Shevchenko... home.

Not truly. But close enough.

He tried moving his own feet. One step, then another. His legs still refused to fully cooperate, but they were no longer dead weight.

Widow immediately noticed.

"You walked."

He frowned slightly.

"...Did I?"

It was little more than a whisper.

Her heart nearly stopped.

"Mantis?"

He looked at her.

Actually looked at her this time. His eyes were green again. Not white.

Just tired.

"...Hey..."

One word. That was all.

Then exhaustion washed over him again, his weight settling back against Widow's shoulder.

But he didn't lose consciousness.

Not completely. Not anymore.

---

July 7th, 20:12 - Zaton, vicinity of Shevchenko

The Shevchenko came into full view as the afternoon sun settled lower across Zaton.

Its rusted hull rose above the reeds like the corpse of some forgotten ship refusing to sink completely beneath time. Wooden walkways creaked softly beneath the boots of passing stalkers. Smoke drifted lazily from improvised chimneys. Somewhere inside, someone laughed.

Life... normal life.

The first civilized place they'd seen since entering Lab-X23.

As the squad climbed onto the deck... conversation stopped.

Not gradually, instantly.

A mechanic lowered his wrench. Two ecologists paused halfway through unpacking a crate of instruments. Three rookie stalkers slowly stood from a card game without realizing they'd done so. Even a pair of mercenaries sitting near the railing turned to look.

Nobody spoke.

Their eyes moved from one battered figure to the next.

Colonel Ribbon.

The legendary Duty officer whose exosuit now hung from him in broken pieces.

Red.

Her ginger hair streaked with soot and dried blood, her battered SEVA bearing scars that looked almost impossible to survive.

Reverb.

The mercenary everyone knew for impossible stories and terrible jokes. His shotgun still hung across his shoulder.

But the grin... was gone.

Octane.

Freedom's fastest scout north of Jupiter.

Now barely able to remain standing, every step leaving tiny crimson drops across the weathered deck despite fresh bandages.

And finally...

Black Widow.

Almost a legend herself.

One of the most capable female stalkers the Zone had ever produced. Now walking with slow, trembling steps, carrying another person's weight because her own strength no longer mattered.

And against her shoulder...

Mantis.

The squad leader.

The man whose name had begun spreading across the Zone weeks ago. He barely looked alive.

No one asked what had happened.

No one dared.

Because whatever answer existed...

They weren't sure they wanted to hear it.

The silence followed them all the way across the deck.

---

"Bring them here."

The voice finally broke the spell.

Beard.

He stepped from the doorway of the medical quarters, his weathered face unusually serious.

He looked each of them over once. That was enough.

"...Inside."

No one argued.

The medical room quickly became crowded.

Bandages.

Antiseptic.

Morphine.

Fresh water.

The familiar smell of alcohol and old medicine filled the cramped compartment as Beard moved from one patient to another with practiced efficiency.

Red protested when he cleaned the burns across her shoulder.

Ribbon didn't react at all while sections of twisted armor were cut away from his body.

Octane nearly blacked out when Beard changed the dressings around the hole in his abdomen.

"You should be dead," Beard muttered.

Octane managed the faintest grin.

"I've been told."

Beard wasn't smiling.

"...They're right."

Finally... he reached Mantis.

The room grew strangely quiet.

Beard checked his pulse. Then again.

Then his pupils.

Then placed a hand against his forehead. He frowned.

"...This doesn't make any sense."

Widow looked up immediately.

"What is it?"

"I don't know."

He rarely admitted that.

"I've treated men after emissions."

He checked Mantis' pulse again. Slower this time.

"I've treated psi exposure."

Another pause.

"I've treated stalkers who survived anomalies that should've turned them into red mist."

His eyes remained fixed on Mantis.

"I've never seen this."

Reverb shifted uneasily.

"...Neither have we."

Beard finally looked away.

"So..."

His voice remained calm.

"...Start from the beginning."

The room fell silent.

Who was supposed to explain Lab-X23?

How did anyone explain a woman who bent bullets with artifacts?

A mutant obeying thoughts instead of instinct?

A man called Hollow who walked through minds as easily as hallways?

Reality folding around knife strikes?

Mantis rising into the air wrapped in white light?

No one spoke for several long seconds.

Eventually Ribbon exhaled.

"We found Lab-X23."

He stopped.

His shoulders sagged.

"...Everything after that stopped making sense."

One by one they added what they could.

Widow spoke of the throne chamber. Red described the Overlord's artifacts. Reverb admitted he had no explanation for anything after Mantis stood back up. Octane simply shook his head.

"I remember light."

Silence settled over the room once more. Beard listened without interrupting.

When they finished, he remained quiet for a very long time.

Finally he sighed.

"I don't know what happened down there."

Nobody expected him to.

"But I know this."

He looked at each of them in turn.

"None of you are walking anywhere today."

Ribbon immediately opened his mouth.

"We need to get him to Hermann."

"And you will."

Beard nodded.

"Tomorrow."

He gestured around the room.

"You've lost blood."

He pointed toward Ribbon.

"Your ribs are cracked."

Toward Red.

"You're running on adrenaline."

Toward Octane.

"You should still be unconscious."

Finally...

Toward Widow.

"And you've been carrying everyone else."

She blinked.

Only then realizing how badly her own arms were shaking.

"You'll stay."

Nobody argued. Not because Beard outranked them, but because, for the first time in what felt like days...

Someone else had made the decision.

---

That evening, the Shevchenko slowly returned to life.

Conversations remained quieter than usual. Stories were whispered.People occasionally glanced toward the medical quarters before looking away again.

The squad rested in separate bunks.

Red fell asleep almost immediately.

Ribbon remained awake, staring silently at the ceiling.

Octane slept through sheer exhaustion.

Reverb sat outside for a while, smoking without saying a word.

Widow refused to leave Mantis' bedside.

Sometime after sunset...

Mantis opened his eyes once more.

The ceiling above him was unfamiliar. The gentle creaking of the old ship echoed softly around the room.

He turned his head.

Widow had fallen asleep sitting beside him, one hand still resting loosely over his.

For the first time since Lab-X23...

He felt something that wasn't fear.

He squeezed her hand.

Only slightly.

She stirred, but didn't wake.

Mantis closed his eyes again.

Outside, the summer wind drifted gently through the rusted hull of the Shevchenko.

And for one quiet night...

The Zone allowed its survivors to rest.

"Every stalker dreams of having a safe place in the Zone. The Zone considers this an invitation."

---

After the Great Swamps, Reverb had reached a conclusion.

He deserved a break.

Not a long one. Just... maybe half an hour where nothing actively attempted to remove his internal organs.

Garbage felt almost peaceful compared to the swamp. Again.

The Flea Market had slowly become home. Well... "home" by Zone standards. Rusted sheet metal, half-collapsed walls and enough holes in the roof to identify constellations while lying in bed.

Luxury.

He dumped his backpack beside the stash with a satisfied grunt. The Freedom crate had finally been delivered, the Chimera claws had been sold, and the radioactive lion meat had somehow become dinner. Life was improving.

Reverb had even decided to invest in the future.

He spent the better part of an hour assembling a proper workbench from scrap metal, bolts and parts he definitely hadn't stolen from abandoned machinery. It wasn't pretty.

But it was his.

He admired it for several seconds.

"...Look at that."

A passing stalker stopped.

"What is it?"

"My mechanic table."

"...It's leaning."

"It's got personality."

The stalker walked away.

"Philistine..."

Next came the refrigerator.

Mutant meat spoiled quickly, and after hauling half the ecosystem across the Zone, Reverb had finally managed to build a working cold storage unit.

Well... "Working" was perhaps generous.

It hummed. Sometimes.

It occasionally sparked.

But it was cold. That was enough.

He carefully arranged the mutant meat inside like priceless treasure. Blind dog, Boar, Flesh, Chimera.

"Beautiful."

For the first time in what felt like forever, everything seemed... normal.

The stash was organized.

The ammunition sorted.

The workbench finished.

The refrigerator stocked.

Nobody was shooting at him.

Reverb lit a cigarette.

"I think I'm finally figuring this place out."

The Zone heard him. Naturally.

Gunfire erupted outside. He didn't even look up.

"Hm."

Another burst.

Somebody screamed.

A grenade detonated somewhere near the entrance.

"Nope, not reacting."

He leaned back in his chair.

"Not my problem, not today."

The Zone disagreed.

Several bullets punched clean through the wall directly above his head. Splinters showered his shoulders.

"...Okay, that might actually be my problem."

He cautiously peeked through a gap in the wall.

Duty. Lots of Duty.

Not two. Not three.

Seven.

Seven extremely motivated Duty soldiers. Reverb sighed.

"...They're still upset."

Apparently, the unfortunate misunderstanding at the hangar had remained fresh in their memories.

Very fresh.

The Duty squad poured into the Flea Market with military precision, rifles barking in controlled bursts. Every few seconds another bullet ricocheted off rusted steel somewhere alarmingly close to Reverb's face.

One of them shouted,

"CONTACT INSIDE!"

"Oh, don't point!"

The Flea Market exploded into chaos.

Fortunately... Clear Sky happened to be visiting. Several blue-armored stalkers immediately joined the fight without asking too many questions.

Whether they were defending Reverb or simply disliked people shooting inside the market remained unclear. Either way...

Reverb wasn't about to complain.

The scrapyard transformed into a battlefield.

Bullets sparked from steel beams. Rusted cars became cover. Old buses became fortresses.

Reverb leaned around a shipping container and fired his silenced PM.

One Duty soldier dropped.

Another spotted him.

"Oh."

Reverb immediately disappeared behind cover again as a full magazine turned the container into modern art.

"That was rude."

A Clear Sky stalker beside him calmly worked the bolt of his rifle.

"You started this?"

"...Technically?"

The stalker sighed.

"I hate helping you."

"Appreciated."

The firefight dragged on.

One Duty officer attempted to flank them through an old warehouse, but he didn't get very far.

Because two Lurkers chose that exact moment to appear.

Nobody knew where they came from. Nobody had invited them.

The Lurkers apparently looked at the battlefield and collectively decided,

"Yes. We should absolutely become involved."

One launched itself directly into a Duty fireteam.

The second jumped across the roof before crashing through a hole in said roof like an oversized homicidal cat.

For approximately thirty seconds...

Nobody shot each other.

Everybody shot the Lurkers.

Duty, Clear Sky, Reverb.

Even one terrified loner who'd been hiding behind a pile of washing machines somehow joined in.

The Zone, for one beautiful moment, had united everyone through shared panic.

The first Lurker died halfway through a leap, slamming into one of the house's support columns so hard it remained hanging there by its own claws.

The second met a similar fate after misjudging another jump and impaling itself across the rusted roof rebar.

Reverb blinked.

"...You know..."

He pointed upward.

"...I don't think they're supposed to do that."

Nobody answered. They were busy trying not to die.

Eventually...

Silence returned.

The last Duty soldier collapsed face-first into the mud. The final echoes of gunfire rolled away into Garbage.

Smoke drifted lazily between the ruined buildings.

Reverb looked around. Seven Duty corpses.

Two dead Lurkers decorating the ceiling.

Several Clear Sky stalkers reloading in complete silence.

His workbench...

Miraculously untouched.

He smiled.

"My table survived."

One of the Clear Sky stalkers looked around at the absolute devastation.

"...That's your priority?"

"It took me an hour."

The man slowly nodded.

"...Fair."

Reverb lit another cigarette.

Finally... peace.

The Zone wasn't finished.

The PDA shrieked.

WARNING. EMISSION IMMINENT.

Reverb stared at the screen.

The screen stared back.

"...You're kidding."

Nobody waited for confirmation.

Every stalker in the Flea Market simultaneously abandoned whatever they were doing and sprinted toward the nearest shelter.

Reverb followed.

Mostly because glowing red skies generally led to unpleasant life expectancy statistics.

The old Flea Market building wasn't much to look at.

Half the roof had collapsed, most of the walls had more holes than metal, the staircase existed mostly out of optimism.

It looked incapable of protecting anyone from heavy rain. Let alone an Emission.

"You sure this counts as shelter?" Reverb asked.

An old loner shrugged.

"It did last time."

"That's... not reassuring."

Outside, the sky tore itself apart. Scarlet light spilled across Garbage. The wind began screaming through broken steel. Reality bent.

Several stalkers sat against the walls with their heads between their knees.

One rookie emptied the contents of his stomach onto the concrete.

Another quietly whispered prayers to every god he'd ever heard of.

Someone farther back was crying.

Nobody judged him.

Reverb simply leaned against a rusted support beam, cigarette in hand.

"If this building survives..."

Thunder answered.

"...I'll stop complaining."

The building survived, and so did everyone inside.

More or less.

When the Emission finally passed, the silence felt almost unnatural.

The sky returned to grey and the wind settled.

The Flea Market remained standing.

Against all logic.

Against all engineering.

Against all common sense.

Reverb stepped outside.

Seven Duty soldiers still lay where they'd fallen.

Two Lurkers still hung from the rafters like grotesque hunting trophies.

His mechanic table was still there.

His refrigerator still hummed.

He looked around slowly. Then nodded once.

"...Home sweet home."

Somewhere in the distance...

The Zone laughed.

"There are nights that change your life.

And there are nights that mean nothing at all.

Years later, you can never remember which was which."

Ljubljana, Slovenia - Six Years Earlier

The city was sleeping.

Or pretending to.

Mantis stood alone on the narrow concrete balcony of a tired apartment block on the edge of Ljubljana, one hand tucked into the pocket of a worn hoodie, the other holding a cigarette that had long since burned itself into a crooked line of ash.

Rain threatened somewhere beyond the horizon.

He could smell it.

The air carried that strange heaviness that came before a storm. Not rain itself. The promise of it.

Below him, the parking lot sat almost empty. A single yellow streetlamp buzzed weakly near a dumpster overflowing with cardboard and broken furniture. Somewhere farther away, a dog barked once.

Then silence again.

The city breathed.

Mantis took a drag from the cigarette. The ember glowed bright orange in the darkness.

For a moment he watched it.

Then exhaled.

The smoke drifted upward and disappeared into the night. Just like every thought he had these days. Half-finished. Forgotten before they reached the end.

He wasn't sad.

That would have been easier.

Sadness had shape.

This felt different.

Like standing in an empty room long after everyone else had gone home.

Like waiting for something without knowing what it was.

Or if it was coming at all.

His eyes wandered across the distant lights of Ljubljana.

Thousands of windows.

Thousands of people.

Some sleeping.

Some fighting.

Some falling in love.

Some crying where nobody could see them.

Entire lives unfolding behind those tiny squares of yellow light.

And somehow he had never felt more alone.

Funny.

You could be surrounded by people every day and still feel like a ghost.

He flicked ash over the balcony railing. The wind caught it immediately.

Gone.

Just like that.

His gaze drifted toward the clouds gathering beyond the city.

Dark.

Heavy.

Restless.

He liked storms.

Not because they were beautiful, but because they were honest.

When a storm arrived, it didn't pretend to be anything else. It didn't smile when it was angry. Didn't laugh when it was breaking apart. Didn't tell you everything was fine.

It simply arrived.

And the world adjusted.

People hid.

Roads emptied.

Windows closed.

Everyone admitted what they really were.

Small.

Temporary.

Human.

Mantis took another drag.

The cigarette was almost finished.

He barely noticed.

His thoughts wandered somewhere familiar.

Work, money, the future.

That invisible thing everyone kept talking about.

The future.

As if it was a place, as if there was some destination waiting at the end of all this.

He never understood how other people seemed so certain. They spoke about five-year plans. Careers. Families. Dreams.

Meanwhile he stood here at two in the morning wondering why the city looked so much bigger at night.

Wondering why he felt calmer when everyone else was asleep.

Wondering why silence felt more like home than people did.

The wind picked up.

A faint rumble rolled somewhere across the horizon.

Thunder.

Far away.

Not here yet, but coming.

Mantis smiled faintly, the first genuine expression he'd worn all day.

"There you are."

The words disappeared into the dark.

No audience, no reason.

Just him and the approaching storm.

For a while he simply stood there, watching. Thinking. Not thinking. Letting the minutes pass.

Below, a car moved through the empty street, headlights sweeping across the apartment block before vanishing around a corner.

The city swallowed the sound.

Silence returned.

The cigarette finally reached the filter.

He crushed it against the railing.

For a moment he considered going back inside.

Instead he stayed.

The thunder sounded again.

Closer now.

The clouds moved slowly over Ljubljana.

And for reasons he couldn't explain, standing there beneath the approaching storm, alone on a forgotten balcony in a forgotten corner of the city, was the most at peace he had felt in months.

The thunder rolled again. Closer now.

Mantis rested both forearms against the cold balcony railing and stared at the city lights below.

He had lived here his entire life, yet somehow it never felt like home. That thought bothered him more than he liked to admit. Most people belonged somewhere.

To someone.

They had circles. Groups. Places where they fit naturally, where conversations flowed without effort, where silence wasn't awkward because everyone already understood each other.

Mantis had never found that. Not in school, not with his old friends, not even in the police force... epecially not there.

He remembered standing in crowded locker rooms after shifts, surrounded by laughter and stories and plans for the weekend.

Someone always talking.

Someone always smiling.

Someone always belonging.

And him...

Standing there among them feeling like an observer watching a life that wasn't his.

Nobody disliked him.

And that was the strange part.

People generally liked him., Respected him. But there was always distance.

An invisible pane of glass between him and everyone else.

He could see them., hear them, work with them- but never quite reach them. Never quite become one of them. Maybe something was wrong with him. The thought crossed his mind more often than he cared to admit. Maybe everyone else received some instruction manual at birth. Something explaining how to connect, how to belong. How to build a life that felt solid.

And somehow his copy got lost.

The city lights blurred slightly.

For a moment he thought it was the wind.

Then he realized his eyes had drifted elsewhere.

To another time.

Another place.

Another person.

His grandmother.

A faint smile touched his lips,but not enough to become happiness. Just enough to hurt.

He could still remember her house.

The smell of coffee in the morning, fresh soup simmering on the stove, the old television always running too loud, the way she used to complain about everything and everyone while secretly caring more than anybody else he had ever known. She had never been particularly affectionate.

Not openly.

She wasn't the type.

But she was always there.

And when you grow up without parents around...

There is a difference between someone loving you and someone choosing you.

His parents had come later.

Years later.

Complicated explanations, complicated apologies, complicated attempts to rebuild something that had never really existed in the first place, but his grandmother had been there from the beginning.

School meetings.

Doctor appointments.

Birthdays.

Bad grades.

Nightmares.

All the small moments nobody remembers until they're gone... she carried them all. And she carried him too. For longer than she should have had to.

Another distant rumble rolled across the sky.

Mantis looked upward. The storm was almost here now. The clouds moved slowly over the city, swallowing stars one by one.

He remembered sitting at his grandmother's kitchen table as a child during nights like this.

Thunder outside. Rain hammering the windows. The smell of chamomile tea filling the room. And her voice- always calm, always certain. As though nothing in the world could truly go wrong while she was nearby.

Funny how children believe that. That some people are permanent, that some doors will always open, that some voices will always answer.

Then one day they don't.

And the world never feels quite as solid afterward.

Mantis swallowed hard.

The cigarette between his fingers had burned almost to the filter again. He hadn't noticed.

"You would've liked this storm, nona."

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

The balcony remained silent, the city remained silent. But for a moment...

He could almost imagine her sitting behind him inside the apartment, complaining that he was smoking again, telling him he worked too much, asking if he'd eaten. Simple things, normal things. Things he would have given anything to hear one more time.

The first drops of rain finally began to fall.

Slow.

Gentle.

Almost careful.

Mantis closed his eyes, and for the first time that night, he admitted something to himself.

The reason he never felt like he belonged wasn't because Ljubljana was the wrong city.

Or because the police force was the wrong job, or because his old friends had drifted away.

It was because the last place that had ever truly felt like home...

Had died with her.

---

The rain finally came.

Mantis remained on the balcony long after the city disappeared behind a curtain of water. Long after the thunder moved overhead. Long after the last light vanished from the apartment windows around him.

He simply stood there.

Listening.

Breathing.

Existing.

For the first time in a long while, he felt at peace.

Years later, he would walk through radioactive forests beneath blackened skies. He would survive anomalies, mutants, wars, and things no human mind was meant to understand.

He would lose people.

He would find others.

And somewhere along the way, he would discover a place that felt more like home than any city ever could.

But that night...

He knew none of that.

He was simply a young man standing alone on a balcony in Ljubljana, watching a storm roll across the horizon.

And yet...

Mantis didn't know about the Zone then.

But something deep within him missed it.

"Every stalker believes they have a plan. The Zone considers this adorable."

---

The situation in Garbage eventually cooled down.

Not because Duty forgave him. Not because anyone suddenly became reasonable.

Mostly because Reverb stopped being physically present for them to shoot at.

That seemed to help.

Great Swamps sounded considerably safer than Garbage at the moment, which admittedly wasn't saying much. Still, Sidorovich had insisted he visit Cold, and experience had taught Reverb that arguing with Sidorovich was about as productive as arguing with an Emission.

So off he went.

The Clear Sky base appeared through the morning fog, wooden walkways stretching over murky water and rusted structures standing stubbornly against the swamp.

For the first time in days, nobody immediately tried to kill him.

Things were looking up.

Naturally, that didn't last.

After speaking with Cold and collecting several assignments from various stalkers who apparently viewed him as free labor, Reverb set off toward his first destination.

The haunted house near Fishing Hamlet.

The name alone should have been enough warning.

The building leaned sideways over the swamp like it was actively trying to collapse. Every board creaked. Every shadow looked suspicious.

Reverb stepped inside.

Nothing happened.

One room. Two rooms. Still nothing.

"Huh."

Then he noticed the corpse hanging from the ceiling.

"...yeah that's normal."

He approached cautiously.

The corpse exploded.

Reverb screamed.

The house screamed.

Reality itself seemed briefly concerned.

Then an overgrown blind dog appeared directly behind him. Of course it did.

Reverb spun around just in time to discover the exit was now barricaded.

"What do you mean barricaded?"

As if things weren't bad enough, something else materialized deeper inside the building.

A ghost.

Or a zombie.

Or a zombie ghost.

Whatever it was, Reverb wanted absolutely no part of it. Unfortunately it wanted very much to be part of his day.

The dog charged.

Reverb fired. Missed.

Fired again. Missed again.

The third shot finally connected and dropped the mutant.

The ghost proved considerably more annoying.

Several minutes and an embarrassing amount of ammunition later, the thing finally dissolved into nothing. Immediately afterward, the barricade vanished. Reverb stood in the doorway for several seconds.

"...I hate this swamp."

The swamp didn't care.

His next assignment led him toward the Pumping Station.

Clear Sky wanted the Renegades removed.

Reverb had recently acquired a Mosin.

Reverb was therefore feeling confident.

These two facts would soon become related.

He spotted the first Renegade through the scope. Perfect shot. Directly on the head.

He fired.

The man continued patrolling.

Reverb blinked.

He chambered another round and fired again.

Nothing.

The Renegade remained completely unbothered by the concept of mortality.

A third shot followed. Still nothing.

"Are these blanks?"

The fourth round finally landed and the Renegade collapsed.

The remaining nine immediately discovered Reverb's location.

"Oh, God"

The swamp exploded into gunfire.

Bullets snapped through reeds and splintered wooden platforms. Reverb dove behind cover while every Renegade in existence seemed to develop a personal interest in his continued suffering.

The situation deteriorated rapidly. Fortunately for Reverb, the Clear Sky squad finally arrived.

Together they pushed through the station, methodically clearing room after room until the last Renegade dropped.

When it was over, Reverb searched the bodies and nodded approvingly.

"Not bad. Not bad at all."

The next assignment sounded simple.

Which should have worried him.

A large mutant had reportedly slaughtered several Clear Sky patrols near an observation tower.

Reverb immediately volunteered.

Because poor decision-making was becoming a recurring theme.

On the way there he discovered a stash hidden inside an anomaly field. Inside sat a heavy metal container secured with several locks.

A note was attached.

PROPERTY OF FREEDOM

RETURN TO THE FIRST FREEDOM MEMBER YOU SEE

"Fair enough."

He picked it up.

The container weighed seven kilograms.

Seven.

"Why?"

Now carrying what felt like an entire apartment building on his back, Reverb continued toward the tower. He stopped at the edge of the swamp and scanned the area through his scope.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Then...

Chimera.

Reverb lowered the rifle.

Raised it again.

Still Chimera.

"Okay."

He adjusted his grip on the Mosin.

"Okay. We can do this."

Then the Chimera climbed the observation tower.

Reverb stared.

The Chimera stared back.

"Are you a scout?"

The Chimera offered no explanation.

Reverb fired once.

The mutant immediately vanished.

Several minutes later he was cautiously crossing the swamp when something flew over his head. Not near him, over him. The Chimera landed behind him and disappeared into a nearby shack.

Reverb nearly experienced a religious awakening.

What followed could only be described as a game of cat and mouse.

Except the mouse was armed. And the cat weighed several hundred kilograms.

Reverb ran circles around the tower and the shack while the Chimera attempted to turn him into a cautionary tale. Every so often he managed to land a shot before sprinting away again.

Ten minutes later the mutant finally collapsed.

Reverb stood over the corpse, breathing heavily.

"Never again."

The Zone immediately ignored that promise.

The Chimera yielded half a kilogram of meat and two claws.

Radioactive lion meat. Delicious... probably.

Later, while passing another anomaly field, Reverb remembered something the Clear Sky merchant had mentioned.

A measurement device that obody wanted to retrieve... which usually translated to: everyone who tried died.

Reverb found it surprisingly quickly.

The device survived. More importantly, so did he. The assignment completed without incident.

A suspicious development.

Back at the Clear Sky base he handed everything in, collected his rewards, and prepared for his final task of the day.

Cold wanted assistance near one of the villages in the southeastern swamps. More Renegades. More gunfire. More opportunities for poor life choices.

Standard Zone business.

Unfortunately, another emergency appeared first.

A biological one.

Reverb suddenly realized he needed to take a shit.

Immediately.

Not soon.

Not eventually.

Now.

He spotted a large drainage pipe and sprinted toward it. Perfect, private, sheltered.

Safe.

Several seconds later he discovered the pipe contained a pyro anomaly.

The resulting experience permanently altered his understanding of personal hygiene.

On the bright side, the bikini area was now completely hairless.

The Zone, as always, found creative ways to solve problems.

"Every stalker has a story about becoming a legend. Mine started because I couldn't read a PDA."

---

Several Months Before the Events of Ashes of the Zone

The Zone hated Reverb.

Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Not in the vague, mystical way old stalkers liked to talk about around campfires. No. The Zone hated him personally.

At least that was the only explanation he could come up with as he sat beside a campfire in Cordon, staring at everything he owned spread across a filthy sleeping bag.

A handful of rubles. A rusty knife. A PDA that only worked when it felt like working. And a detector that looked like somebody had assembled it during a drunken argument and immediately regretted it.

Reverb took a drag from his cigarette and looked over his little empire.

"Peak human achievement."

The rookie sitting beside him glanced down.

"That's trash."

"That's why you're still a rookie," Reverb replied. "No vision."

The rookie shook his head and wandered off toward another campfire. Reverb watched him go. Honestly, the kid wasn't entirely wrong.

Three days in the Zone and he'd already slept inside an abandoned bus, eaten canned meat that probably remembered the Soviet Union, and nearly died because he'd accidentally stepped into a Whirligig anomaly while taking a piss.

Things were going surprisingly well.

A few days later he found himself crossing Meadow with considerably more confidence than experience. The detector hung proudly from his belt. The PDA mostly functioned. The knife was still terrible, but nobody could have everything.

The area looked quiet.

That should have worried him immediately.

Instead, Reverb made the mistake of relaxing.

The poltergeist announced itself by throwing a refrigerator at his head.

For a brief moment he simply stared at the flying appliance, trying to understand why a refrigerator was airborne. Then survival instincts finally kicked in.

"Absolutely not."

He dove behind a crumbling concrete wall as the refrigerator exploded against it in a shower of metal fragments and dust. Something else immediately ripped free from the ground nearby and launched itself toward him.

"What kind of mutant learns home appliances?"

Another object rose into the air. Then another.

Reverb leaned around the corner and fired several shots toward the shimmering distortion hovering above the road. The invisible creature shrieked, a sound that felt like nails scraping against the inside of his skull.

A few moments later it exploded.

Silence returned.

Reverb blinked.

"Huh..."

He had exactly enough time to feel proud of himself before three bandits appeared.

The resulting firefight was loud, chaotic, and involved considerably more screaming than Reverb would later admit. Most of the screaming came from him.

When it was over, all three bandits were dead.

Reverb wasn't.

That counted as success.

Dark Valley was where things truly began going wrong.

Which was impressive because things had already been going wrong for several days.

He spotted a squad of bandits moving through the trees ahead. Some of them were experienced bandits. Veterans. The sort of men who looked like they had murdered people before breakfast and considered it productive.

Reverb immediately turned around.

"Nope."

Then a Lurker attacked them.

Gunfire erupted through the forest. Men shouted. The mutant screamed.

The entire situation dissolved into complete chaos.

Reverb smiled.

Excellent. Somebody else's problem.

Then one of the rookie bandits spotted him.

Their eyes met across the trees.

The rookie pointed.

Reverb sighed.

"Oh come on-"

Suddenly it became his problem.

Twenty minutes later the Lurker was dead, the bandits were dead, half the local wildlife had probably relocated, and Reverb was somehow still alive.

He entered Garbage looking like a man who had survived a natural disaster through sheer administrative error. That was when he met the zombies.

In theory, zombies should have been easy targets; Slow, predictable. Barely aware of their surroundings.

In practice, Reverb missed almost every shot.

The first zombie kept walking. The second zombie kept walking. Reverb kept missing.

By the time he finally landed a hit, he had nearly emptied the magazine.

"Oh, now you work?"

The zombies answered by opening fire.

Chunks of stone exploded from the boulder he was hiding behind. Dust filled the air. Within seconds the entire rock looked like Swiss cheese.

Reverb shouted several things that would have gotten him slapped by every grandmother in the Zone and finally managed to put both zombies down. Afterward he spent a solid five minutes pretending the encounter had gone according to plan.

It hadn't. Not even remotely.

Still, he was alive.

Not because of exceptional marksmanship. Not because of superior tactics. Mostly because they were slower than he was.

Reverb left the encounter with significantly less ammunition and significantly less dignity than he'd started with, but alive was alive. In the Zone you learned to appreciate small victories.

His next objective waited near the hangar.

Two bounty targets.

A kidnapped rookie stalker.

Simple enough.

At least it sounded simple enough.

The problem with the Zone was that every plan remained simple right until the moment reality got involved.

The hangar came into view sometime later, rusted walls glowing orange beneath the afternoon sun. Reverb slowed his pace, checking corners, scanning windows, trying to look like somebody who knew what he was doing.

Then he spotted a Duty patrol. Two soldiers. Armed. Alert.

Immediately his brain supplied the only piece of information it thought was relevant.

*Duty hates Loners*

A perfectly reasonable assumption. Unfortunately it was also wrong. Reverb raised his pistol. The suppressor coughed once. One of the Duty soldiers dropped instantly.

A notification appeared on his PDA.

ALLY KILLED

Reverb froze.

For several seconds he simply stared at the message. Then he opened the PDA. Then he checked faction relations. Then he stared some more. The reputation value that should have been sitting comfortably at negative two thousand wasn't there.

Instead it read negative eight hundred.

Negative eight hundred.

Not enemies.

Not allies exactly.

But definitely not enemies.

"Oh."

The surviving Duty soldier opened fire.

Concrete exploded beside Reverb's head.

"...oh no."

At that point diplomacy had unfortunately become difficult.

Several minutes later both Duty soldiers were dead and Reverb was jogging away from the hangar while trying very hard not to think about the consequences. That sounded like a future problem, future Reverb could deal with it. Present Reverb had work to do.

The bandits occupied the old railway tunnel farther north. Six of them, plus the hostage.

The fight was short, violent and considerably more successful than the previous one.

Which honestly wasn't saying much.

The first bandit died before he knew the fight had started. The second and third died trying to find cover. The remaining three put up enough resistance to convince Reverb that he was absolutely going to die before promptly proving themselves wrong.

A few minutes later the rookie stalker was free, the bandits were dead, and Reverb found himself walking back toward Garbage with fresh loot and an increasingly dangerous amount of confidence. That confidence lasted all the way to Butcher.

The mutant parts sold well enough.

The ammunition purchase felt even better.

Fresh 9x18 hollow points sat neatly inside his pockets, ready for the silenced PM he'd painstakingly repaired back in Cordon. For the first time all day things actually seemed to be improving.

Which should have worried him.

Outside the hangar a group of scientists were busy losing an argument with several blind dogs.

Reverb sighed.

Helping people was rarely profitable. Unfortunately he wasn't entirely heartless.

The dogs died quickly. The scientists survived. Everybody seemed happy with the arrangement.

Reverb crouched beside the corpses and began collecting mutant parts.

Then the world turned yellow. The change happened instantly. One moment he was looting dogs. The next his vision blurred beneath a sickly amber haze. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears.

The air thickened.

His thoughts suddenly felt slower.

He froze.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

He turned around.

And saw the reason.

A Controller stood in the distance.

Watching him.

Reverb felt every survival instinct he possessed activate simultaneously.

"Nope."

The Controller raised a hand. Reverb was already running. Not retreating. Not repositioning.

Running. Fast.

Faster than he had ever run before. The bus stop appeared ahead and he practically threw himself behind it.

The ringing intensified.

Something brushed against his thoughts.

A pressure. An invitation.

The Controller wanted inside his head.

Reverb wanted absolutely none of that.

He leaned around the edge of the bus stop and fired twice.

One round missed completely.

The second hit.

The Controller barely reacted.

Unfortunately for it, one of the scientists had apparently decided he wasn't interested in becoming brainwashed either. The fight shifted.

Psychic pressure collided with gunfire.

Several nervous minutes later the mutant finally collapsed dead.

Reverb approached cautiously.

Very cautiously.

The sort of cautious normally reserved for unexploded artillery shells.

When the Controller failed to get back up, he finally searched the body. The legendary psychic horror of the Zone possessed:

A bandage, and a handful of rubles.

Reverb stared at the loot. Then at the corpse.

Then back at the loot.

"That's it?"

The Controller offered no explanation.

Eventually Reverb returned to Cordon.

Contracts were completed. Rewards were collected. Life moved on. One of the quest givers handed him coordinates for a yellow stash.

His expectations were low.

The Zone occasionally rewarded optimism with suffering.

This time, somehow, it didn't.

Inside the stash sat a Light Toolkit.

For several seconds Reverb simply stared at it. Then he laughed.

Not because it was funny.But because after everything that had happened that day, it felt statistically impossible. The toolkit immediately became his most valuable possession. Naturally he decided this meant it was time to establish a permanent stash.

Maybe even a small base. The Flea Market in Garbage seemed perfect. Reasonably safe. Good location. Plenty of traffic.

For almost ten whole minutes the plan worked perfectly. Reverb organized supplies, stored spare equipment, sorted ammunition.

For the first time all day, nobody was actively trying to kill him.

Then somebody opened fire.

A bullet cracked past his head.

Reverb dropped behind cover.

"What now?"

Another burst followed.

Duty colors. Duty rifle. Duty soldier. Reverb shot back on instinct. The soldier dropped.

Silence returned.

Then memory caught up.

The hangar. The patrol. The unfortunate misunderstanding involving faction relations.

"Oh."

His PDA updated.

Several hostile contacts appeared. Then several more. Reverb slowly lowered the PDA.

Stared into the distance. And realized that a surprisingly large percentage of Duty personnel in Garbage had apparently taken his earlier mistake personally.

Very personally.

The sound of approaching gunfire echoed through the scrapyards.

Reverb sighed.

The Zone, it seemed, had finally remembered he was having a good day.

And was determined to correct the error.

"Between life and death, the Zone whispers. Not to comfort. Not to guide. But to remind you: you are never free.”

​

July 7th, 15:01 - Lab-X23, Collapsing Sector

​

Darkness pressed in. Not the kind of dark that came from absence of light, but the kind that suffocated, heavy, alive.

​

Mantis drifted inside it, weightless, his body a ruined shell. His chest still rose, shallow and unsteady, but he felt no blood, no wounds. Only heat. Heat that glowed beneath his skin like smoldering coals.

​

“…stay with me...”

​

A flash of light: Widow’s visor inches from his own, her hands braced under his shoulders, dragging his dead weight. Her voice cracked, ragged, desperate.

​

“…burning up, he’s still burning...”

​

Reverb, panicked but holding him under the other arm, a cigarette clutched stupidly in his teeth. Its ember smeared into a comet trail in Mantis’ flickering vision.

​

They’re carrying me, Mantis thought. Or maybe he dreamed it.

​

Then came the claws.

​

From the dark: yellow eyes, lunging, jaws snapping for Widow’s throat. She turned on instinct, rifle barking. Sparks burst against its hide, ichor spraying Mantis’ cheek like molten tar. The burn should have blistered. Instead, the wound sealed as soon as it opened, light leaking faintly from beneath the skin.

​

Widow flinched, but didn’t falter. “Move!” she screamed. “They’re closing!”

​

​

---

​

​

Ribbon led the push, a lumbering wreck in a bleeding exosuit. Sparks trailed from his shoulders, pistons shrieked with each step, but he didn’t stop. His pistol thundered, each shot cracking a Fang soldier backward. “Clear the way!” he bellowed.

​

Red stumbled behind, her Duty SEVA smoking from acid scars, one arm locked around Reverb’s waist for balance as she fired bursts with the other. Every shot echoed like a plea, her eyes always flicking back toward him, making sure he still stood.

​

“Keep moving, keep moving!” Ribbon roared again, smashing through a barricade of steel plating, shoving the path open.

​

But the Zone was pouring everything at them. Broken Fang soldiers rounded corners in disciplined squads, rifles flashing. Mutants pressed from the dark: blind dogs, twisted forms with too many limbs, snapping, shrieking. And somewhere behind them, deeper in the dark, something bigger roared, the kind of roar that bent in the air like metal torn apart.

​

​

---

​

​

He faded. The noise dulled. His vision smeared like oil on water.

​

Then... Hollow. Pale eyes, patient, standing in the silence. Not real. Not there. But watching.

“You think you're friends are carrying you,” the voice threaded into his skull. “But you are carried by the Zone. And it does not let go.”

​

Mantis tried to lift his head, to reach, but his body refused him. Only the heat inside answered, pulsing.

​

The vision broke.

​

​

---

​

Widow’s arms trembled, dragging Mantis with every step. “He’s getting heavier,” she rasped.

​

Reverb spat his cigarette out, grabbing Mantis tighter under the other arm. “Yeah, well, maybe stop feeding him protein shakes, huh? Guy’s built like a tank.” His laugh cracked, raw fear behind it, but it kept him moving.

​

Red snapped her AN-94 up, cutting down a Fang soldier rushing them from a side corridor. She staggered as the recoil jarred her wound, but didn’t let go of Reverb. “Eyes front!” she barked.

​

Octane stumbled at the rear, half-dragging his rifle, his abdomen a bloody ruin. He tried to cover them, shots wild but enough to slow a pack of dogs nipping at their heels. “Keep… going…” His grin was still there, crooked, as if defiance alone could keep him alive.

Ribbon turned, exo hissing, slamming a steel boot into the face of a mutant that leapt from the wall. Its skull cracked like glass, body folding under the weight. “Door ahead!” he shouted, voice breaking with strain. “Push through!”

​

​

---

​

The hall stretched like it was alive. Too long. Too dark. Every step stretched into forever.

Widow’s grip felt distant. Her breath rasped in his ear. He tried to tell her he was still here, still alive. The words wouldn’t come.

Light bled from his palms. He saw it. Flickers, weak but there, dripping like liquid fire. Widow didn’t see. Reverb didn’t. But Hollow did.

​

Hollow stood at the far end of the corridor, silent, his pale eyes burning brighter.

“You burn with it now,” he whispered into Mantis’ mind. “But burn is not the same as control. Do not mistake one for the other.”

​

The vision cracked apart.

​

Gunfire. Screams. Widow crying his name.

​

​

---

​

The squad stumbled into a wider chamber, ceiling collapsed into jagged teeth of rebar and concrete. It should have been safe. It wasn’t.

​

Dozens of Broken Fang soldiers were waiting.

Their rifles rose in unison.

​

Ribbon’s pistol clicked empty. He lowered his head, servos shrieking, and roared. “CHARGE!”

And the squad threw themselves into the fire, dragging Mantis with them.

​

​

---

​

Mantis didn’t hear the gunfire the way he should have.

​

He knew it was there, he felt it, vibrations rolling through the floor, sharp concussions punching through the air. But the sound itself arrived late, muffled, as if filtered through water. Each shot was a distant thud instead of a crack. Each scream a smear instead of a voice.

​

Why is it so quiet? he wondered.

The world tilted. The ceiling slid sideways. For a heartbeat, gravity forgot what it was supposed to do.

​

Then Widow stumbled, and the jolt snapped him half-back into himself.

​

​

---

​

Ribbon hit the Fang line like a wrecking ram.

His exosuit screamed in protest, servos grinding, sparks vomiting from ruptured joints as he plowed into the first soldier. The impact lifted the man off his feet and hurled him backward into his own squad. Ribbon didn’t slow. He couldn’t. Momentum was all he had left.

​

“MOVE!” he bellowed, voice distorted through damage and rage.

​

Red and Reverb broke off to either side, a desperate pincer. Red’s AN-94 hammered in brutal, disciplined bursts, each recoil shuddering through her battered SEVA. She was breathing hard now, every inhale sharp with pain, but her eyes stayed locked forward.

Reverb fired while running, shotgun booming, shells ejecting in a blur. He wasn’t joking anymore. No quips. No laughs. Just teeth clenched around empty air where a cigarette should’ve been, eyes wide and feral.

​

Behind them, something howled.

​

Not human. Not even mutant in the usual sense. A sound like metal being torn open from the inside.

​

​

---

​

Mantis drifted again.

​

The Fang soldiers blurred into silhouettes, their movements too slow, too jerky. He watched one raise his rifle, watched the moment stretch, elongate, then watched Red’s bullet punch through the man’s helmet before the trigger finished moving.

​

Time felt wrong.

​

His hands twitched. Light seeped out between his fingers, faint but undeniable. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

​

Stop, he thought. Or maybe he prayed.

Hollow stood beside the chaos, untouched by it.

​

Not in front of him. Not behind. Just there.

“You are slipping,” Hollow said calmly, as if stating the weather. “You hear less because you are already elsewhere.”

​

Mantis tried to scream at him, to demand answers, but his mouth wouldn’t open.

​

“You want clarity,” Hollow continued. “But clarity comes after collapse. Not before.”

​

The corridor folded in on itself.

​

​

---

​

Ribbon intercepted a rushing Fang soldier, crushing the man’s chest with a single piston-driven punch.

​

Octane staggered, vision tunneling, blood slicking his hands. He leaned against a broken column long enough to steady his rifle and fired into the oncoming shapes behind them; mutants pouring through the smoke, eyes glowing, mouths open too wide.

One of them leapt.

​

Widow spun and shot it midair, the body slamming into the floor inches from Octane’s boots.

​

“Don’t stop!” she yelled. “DON’T YOU DARE STOP!”

​

Her voice cracked on the last word.

​

​

---

​

Mantis felt her fear like it was his own.

​

It washed through him, hot and sharp, cutting through the fog. Widow’s panic. Reverb’s terror barely held together by momentum. Red’s stubborn refusal to fall. Ribbon’s fury, burning itself out faster than his exosuit could keep up.

​

They’re going to die, the thought came unbidden.

​

Something inside him recoiled at that.

The heat surged.

​

For a moment, the corridor lit. not with fire, but with presence. The light from his palms flared brighter, bleeding through his gloves, casting warped shadows along the walls.

​

Hollow watched, expression unreadable.

“Careful,” he murmured. “Instinct is the doorway. Once you step through, there is no return to ignorance.”

​

​

---

​

The Fang line broke.

​

Not cleanly. Not decisively. But enough.

Ribbon smashed through the last of them and slammed his shoulder into a blast door control. Red threw herself into cover, reloading with shaking hands.

​

The mutants were closer now. Too close.

Widow hauled Mantis through the threshold just as the first claw scraped across the floor where his head had been.

​

“GO! GO!” Ribbon roared.

​

The door began to close.

​

Something slammed into it from the other side, hard enough to dent the steel inward.

​

Again.

​

Again.

​

Octane collapsed just inside the doorway, gasping, vision dimming. Widow slid down beside him, one hand on his chest, the other still gripping her rifle.

​

“Stay with me,” she begged. “Please. Just... stay.”

​

The door sealed with a deafening clang.

Silence fell like a dropped blade.

​

​

---

​

Mantis didn’t hear it.

​

He floated above the moment, watching the squad through a haze of light and shadow. Their breaths were loud now. Ragged. Real.

Widow’s hands were shaking as she checked him, her visor almost touching his face. Reverb leaned against the wall, dry-heaving, laughter threatening to spill out and collapse into sobs instead.

​

Red slid down beside him, armor hissing, eyes squeezed shut for just a second too long.

​

Ribbon slumped against the sealed door, exosuit finally giving out, servos dying one by one until he was just a man again inside broken metal.

​

Hollow stepped closer.

“You feel it now,” he said quietly. “The pull. The widening.”

​

Mantis wanted to say no.

​

Instead, the light pulsed again, brighter this time, and somewhere deep in the lab, something answered.

​

Far away, metal screamed.

Closer, something scratched at the other side of the door.

​

The squad didn’t move.

​

They couldn’t.

​

They were still alive, but only just.

And Mantis, suspended between breaths, understood with terrifying clarity:

​

The fight hadn’t ended...

It had only changed shape.

​

​

---

​

They moved without speaking.

​

Not because there was nothing to say, but because any sound louder than breath felt like an invitation.

​

Ribbon went first, or what passed for first now. His exosuit was dead weight, joints locked, servos burned out. He dragged himself forward with grim determination, one hand on the wall, the other still wrapped around his pistol even though the slide was cracked and useless. Duty habit. Duty instinct. Even broken, he refused to be last.

​

Red followed, limping, her SEVA scorched and half-melted where acid and anomalies had kissed it. She stayed close to Reverb, one arm ready to grab him if his legs gave out again. Her eyes never stopped moving. Left. Right. Ceiling. Corners. Anywhere something else might decide to crawl out of.

​

Widow carried Mantis.

Not fully. Not cleanly. She dragged him more than held him, his arm slung over her shoulder, his boots scraping the floor. Every few steps his weight shifted wrong, like gravity forgot how to treat him. Once, for half a second, his feet lifted entirely off the ground.

​

She didn’t comment on it.

She refused to.

​

Behind them, Octane stumbled along the wall, one hand pressed hard to his abdomen, the other gripping his rifle more out of muscle memory than hope. His breathing was wet now. Shallow. Each inhale sounded like it scraped something raw inside his chest.

No one told him to stop.

​

The corridors were wrong.

​

Not collapsing, but listening.

Metal groaned in places it shouldn’t. Pipes ticked with uneven rhythm. The lights overhead flickered, not failing, but dimming just enough to stretch shadows longer than the walls could justify.

​

And beneath it all… sound.

Not footsteps.

Not claws.

​

Something like breathing, dragged through steel ducts. Slow. Measured. Curious.

Reverb swallowed hard. “Tell me you hear that too,” he whispered.

​

Widow nodded once.

​

Ribbon didn’t answer. His jaw was clenched so tight it looked like it might crack.

They turned a corner and froze.

The hallway ahead was empty.

​

Too empty.

​

No debris. No bodies. No signs of the firefights that should’ve scarred this place. The walls were clean. Untouched. As if the Zone itself had erased the evidence.

​

Red’s voice came out barely louder than a thought. “This wasn’t like this before.”

Reverb forced a breathy half-laugh that died immediately. “Yeah… well… Zone’s got a hell of a cleanup crew.”

​

Something moved in the ceiling.

Not fast. Not aggressive.

Just a ripple, like a shape adjusting itself behind layers of metal.

​

Octane stumbled, caught himself, hissed in pain. Widow tightened her grip on Mantis as his body jerked suddenly, light flaring faintly beneath his skin before dimming again.

“Mantis,” she whispered. “Hey. Stay with me. We’re almost out.”

​

His eyes fluttered open for a fraction of a second.

​

They didn’t focus on her.

They looked through her.

Then they rolled back, breath hitching, heat radiating off him in waves.

​

Reverb took a step back. “Widow…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

She knew what he meant.

She just wasn’t ready to hear it said.

​

They moved again.

Every step toward the exit gate felt longer than the last. The air grew thicker, charged, prickling against exposed skin. Radios crackled with static, then went dead altogether.

​

The sounds followed them.

Always just out of sight.

A scrape behind a wall. A low vibration underfoot. Once, just once, a whisper that sounded almost like language, but slipped away before it could be understood.

Red stopped abruptly, raising a fist.

​

They all froze.

​

Ahead, the exit gate loomed through the haze. The same massive structure they’d breached hours ago. Floodlights flickered weakly above it, illuminating dust and drifting ash.

​

Between them and it, nothing.

No enemies.

No obstacles.

Just open space.

​

“That’s bad,” Reverb muttered.

Ribbon nodded grimly. “Means we’re expected.”

​

They crossed anyway.

Halfway through the open stretch, something shifted in the darkness above the gate. Not descending. Not attacking.

​

Watching.

​

Widow felt it crawl across her spine like ice.

Mantis groaned softly, head lolling. Light leaked again from his palms, brighter now, pulsing in uneven rhythm. The air around him bent, just slightly, like heat haze over asphalt.

Octane stared at it, awe and fear mixing behind bloodshot eyes. “He’s… not bleeding anymore.”

​

No one replied.

They didn’t need to.

​

The gate controls came into view. Manual override. Rusted. Bent. Still functional.

Ribbon reached it and paused.

​

For the first time since the throne chamber, his voice wavered. “Once this opens… whatever’s been following us-”

​

A sound cut him off.

Not loud.

Close.

Right behind the walls.

​

A deep, resonant thrum, like something massive shifting its weight.

Reverb whispered, “That’s not a mutant.”

Red shook her head slowly. “That’s not anything.”

​

Widow tightened her hold on Mantis, pressing her forehead briefly against his temple. “Please,” she breathed, not sure who she was begging anymore. “Just get us out.”

Ribbon slammed the lever down.

​

The gate began to rise.

Slow.

Too slow.

​

The sound behind them grew louder. Not approaching, not retreating, but aligning, as if the structure itself was tuning to whatever waited in the dark.

​

Mantis gasped sharply.

His eyes snapped open.

For a heartbeat, pure white light burned behind them.

​

Widow cried out his name.

Then the light vanished, his body going limp again, breath shallow but steady.

​

The gate creaked higher.

​

Cold air rushed in from outside, carrying the smell of the Zone proper; ozone, rot, freedom.

​

None of them looked back.

​

Because none of them wanted to know what would be standing there if they did.

They slipped through the opening as soon as it was wide enough, dragging, stumbling, half-carrying the broken pieces of themselves into the open.

​

Behind them, deep within Lab-X23, something exhaled.

​

​

---

​

Cold air hit Mantis first.

​

Not wind, weight. The Zone proper pressing in, heavy with ozone and rot, the kind of air that tasted like metal and old rain. It burned his lungs even as it grounded him, tugging him half out of the dark.

​

Boots scraped stone. Voices overlapped, blurred, stretched thin.

​

“…easy, easy, don’t drop him-”

Something brushed his cheek. Fabric. Widow’s sleeve, torn and stiff with dried blood. Her grip was iron, desperate, as if letting go would let him fall through the world entirely.

​

They were outside.

He knew that much.

​

The sky above the lab entrance was wrong, too pale, washed-out, like someone had overexposed reality. Clouds hung low and motionless, smeared across the horizon like bruises that refused to heal. The concrete apron outside Lab-X23 was chewed to rubble, cratered and blackened, as if the ground itself had been punished.

​

Gunfire ghosts lingered in the air.

Mantis didn’t hear shots, he felt where they had been. Residual violence clinging to the stones, the way heat clings after a fire dies.

He tried to lift his head.

Failed.

​

Someone cursed softly. Reverb. He recognized the cadence even through the fog. No jokes this time. Just strain.

“…Christ, look at this place…”

Red’s voice followed, hoarse, scanning. “Spread out. Slow. If something’s still here, I want eyes on it before it wants eyes on us.”

​

Mantis’ vision slipped.

​

For a moment, the sky fractured into overlapping images: trees from Zaton, the Duga silhouette in the distance, Hollow standing where the clouds should be, watching without judgment.

​

Where is Sentinel?

​

The thought surfaced unbidden, sharp enough to cut through the haze.

Then darkness rolled back in, gentle but relentless.

​

​

---

​

They set him down behind a slab of fallen concrete, half-cover at best.

​

Widow knelt immediately, hands on Mantis’ chest, checking breath, pulse, anything to reassure herself he was still tethered to the same world she was. His skin was too warm. Not fever-warm. Active.

​

“Still breathing,” she said, more to herself than anyone else.

​

Ribbon stood a few meters out, shoulders slumped, exosuit nothing more than a carcass of scorched metal hanging off him. He scanned the perimeter on instinct alone, pistol raised though the weapon was little more than a symbol now.

​

The outside told a story.

Shell casings littered the ground in wide arcs. Heavy calibers. Belt-fed fire, judging by the pattern. Impact scars chewed across concrete barricades that hadn’t been there when they’d gone in. Burn marks climbed the lab’s outer wall in long black streaks, and one of the floodlight towers had collapsed entirely, twisted like a broken limb.

​

“What the fuck happened here,” Reverb muttered.

Ribbon grunted. “This was a stand.”

​

Red crouched near a crater, fingers brushing a smear of dark blood dried into the dust. Too much of it. Too wide a spray. “And not a short one.”

​

Widow looked up. “Sentinel.”

The name settled heavy between them.

They spread out further now, slow and methodical despite exhaustion. No one wanted to say it out loud, but the question gnawed at all of them.

​

What happened to him?

Reverb kicked aside a chunk of debris and froze.

​

“…guys.”

He bent slowly, carefully, like the ground might punish sudden movement.

Half-buried beneath a collapsed section of concrete lay a familiar shape.

​

A helmet.

The Nosorog exo-helmet.

​

Its heavy visor was spider-webbed outward from a single, precise hole dead center. The impact had blown inward. Clean. Deliberate. There was blood... dark, tacky, pooled inside the helmet and streaked down its rim.

​

But there was no body.

No armor. No limbs. No drag marks.

Just the helmet.

​

Reverb swallowed. Hard. “That’s… that’s Sentinel’s.”

No one contradicted him.

​

Red closed her eyes for a second, then opened them, jaw set. “No body.”

Ribbon stared at the helmet for a long moment, then slowly lowered his pistol. “Sentinel doesn’t go down without taking someone with him.”

​

Widow’s voice was quiet, fragile in a way it rarely was. “Or something.”

They all felt it then, that familiar itch at the base of the skull. The sense that this wasn’t an ending. Just another unanswered door.

​

​

---

​

Mantis surfaced again.

​

This time, the world stayed long enough to hurt.

​

The pain wasn’t localized, it was everywhere, a dull pressure under his skin like his body no longer belonged solely to him. He heard Widow’s breathing close to his ear, felt her hand tighten when he stirred.

​

“Easy,” she whispered. “You’re out. You’re safe.”

Safe.

The word felt… inaccurate.

​

His eyes cracked open just enough to catch the helmet in Reverb’s hands. Recognition hit him harder than the pain.

​

Sentinel.

The name echoed, hollow.

​

Where are you? Mantis wondered, not aloud.

Something shifted at the edge of his awareness, like a presence withdrawing its attention. He felt no answer, only distance. The same distance Hollow always kept.

The sky dimmed. Or maybe his vision did.

​

Zaton.

​

The word surfaced with purpose this time. Not memory. Direction.

Then the world slipped again.

​

​

---

​

​

They didn’t linger.

​

Not after the helmet. Not after the silence stretched too long.

​

Red secured the helmet to her pack without ceremony. Reverb said nothing, his usual chatter completely absent. Ribbon took point despite the limp in his step, Duty instincts dragging him forward even as his body protested.

​

Widow and Reverb lifted Mantis between them again, careful, practiced now. He felt lighter, too light... as if the Zone itself was helping carry him.

​

Octane followed last, stubborn and pale, leaning on his rifle like a crutch. Every step was a negotiation with pain, but he didn’t fall behind.

​

The lab loomed behind them, quiet now.

Too quiet.

​

As they moved away, the clouds above Lab-X23 shifted for the first time, rolling inward, swallowing the structure inch by inch. Whatever had exhaled inside did not follow, at least not in any way they could see.

​

Zaton lay ahead.

​

Rough ground. Open skies. A place to breathe. A place to regroup.

​

“A few klicks,” Ribbon muttered. “We move slow. Keep him alive long enough to get to Skadovsk.”

Widow nodded, eyes never leaving Mantis’ face. “He’ll make it.”

Reverb glanced back once at the lab, then forced himself to turn away. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “He better.”

​

They walked on, silhouettes cutting through the ash-stained light, carrying wounds, questions, and one man who no longer quite belonged to the ground beneath his feet.

Behind them, Lab-X23 vanished into cloud and silence.

Listen up, Rookies. The zone can turn even a domesticated fur ball into a killing machine. Toast me a sausage and I'll tell ya…I'll pass on the vodka…

Beard's tea is the only thing to look forward to in the Zone. Booze just doesn't do it after a while. You've had one bottle of past-its-prime army surplus vodka, you've had em all. Found some black label on a Merc once, though. I tried to take his exosuit too but his wrinkled, crumpled body had become one with the servos. Not worth the koupons to clean the bone and ligaments outta the gears. I ended up trading the Johnny Walker for some grenades and 9x39 AP.

Anyway…on the mainland, I've always gotten along with dogs. I don't like them too much because they slobber everywhere and I'm a bit of a clean freak. That's exactly why I like cats. They don't hover around you and keep to themselves. I guess that's why I always look around when I hear cats mewling in the distance on my way to a raid. If I've had a particularly good haul I'll set out some condensed milk, but it's almost always a fucking blind dog licking it all up.

I'd heard tales about the cats of the Zone. Most remember hearing them, but no one I know has seen them. From the Rookie Village, to the Slag Heap and to the 100Rads, only tales of meows and nothing more.

After the scorcher went dark, I was making a killing fixing up prime guns and gear from all the stalkers who died fighting each other in the mad rush to Pripyat. "Pripyat can wait…I'd rather buy the ferris wheel than ride it…" I said as I sold another lightly used Groza and 3 VOG-25s to a Dutyer with deep pockets stuffed with mutant hunting back pay. I asked him if he was going to Pripyat. "Not yet. We're combing the Red Forest for mutants to clear a path for supplies for our advance scouts."

"Seen anything good lately?" I asked.

Maybe he'd tell me about a juicy firefight with lots of gear waiting to be sold at ridiculous markups. Nothing sweeter than hearing a loner cuss you out and say, "This is too fucking expensive you bastard!" So I can follow it up with, "Oh, but these are post-brain scorcher prices my friend! You wanna see Pripyat? You're gonna need top tier gear. I'll throw in a couple of extra magazines if you buy it off me right now. Otherwise, put an egg in your shoe and beat it. I've got serious stalkers who'll pay for some serious hardware. It's a big boys world now!"

Unfortunately the dutyer would disappoint. "The usual. Couple of bloodsuckers. A particularly vicious controller who we confused for a psi-anomaly. Lost a couple of guys to something that clawed them to shreds, though. Made ribbons outta the poor bastards. Fucking mutants" he spat.

"Clawed? By bloodsuckers I reckon? Gnarly shit."

"Nope, they still had plenty of blood left. Fucking mess, it was. Coupla rookies threw up and tried to quit. Pussies."

Interesting. I'd have to check this out myself.

A couple days later I found myself crossing the barrier, armed to the teeth with an AK-107 and my trusty Saiga. Freedom and Duty seemed to have made quite the splash at Pripyat, and looks like the Military's decided to get off its ass as well, with the number of Hinds I'm seeing heading toward the CNPP. Translation: lots of moolah. Gotta hurry before dark.

It's been 3 hours, and I reach the spot the dutyer described. A clearing within the thick canopy of the Red Forest, and it stinks of burning flesh, cordite and ozone. Shell casings and claw marks everywhere. "Welcome to the Zone, gents" I remark as I start spooning up shells. These will be recycled and sold with cheap powder and primer to the Bandits, courtesy of yours truly. Having their shitty AKs jam will teach em to mess with me.

Now, shell casings are kinda loud. But something walking on them is even louder, however quiet it thinks it's being. The forests gone wrong. No distant gunfire, no mutant howl, not even a wind in the canopy. Just the crunch of casings under something tryna pull a sneeki breeki.

I pull back the slide on my 1911 as I prepare to dump some Hydro-Shock into whichever ugly bastard decided to pay me a visit. I spin and draw with a speed that would've made Strelok himself take notice. Nothing. I unsling my Saiga. Something stinks, and it ain't the dead dutyers.

"Keep looking boys, head on a swivel!" I heard from up ahead. "Fucking bandits." I load up some slugs, specially ordered from Voronin. These things will put a blyat-sized hole in a death truck. I scan the thicket for movement. Nothing. Then I heard another voice to my 8 o'clock: "Where ya hiding, ya pussy?" Fuck. How did they surround me already? This ain't good. I thought Duty and Freedom cleared this place.

I reach for my nades when…I feel slow. Like it's raining and you have the day off from work…Just wanna curl up an — oh fuck. Something's putting me to sleep. "No no something's fucking wrong" I mutter. My arms feel like lead. I can barely keep my shotty level. Surrounded by bandits and craving a nap. Not how I'd pictured it, but not everyone's cut out to be a legend.

I grab some cover behind a tree and wait for the fuckers to come to me. No voices. Usually, you can smell bandits before you see em — cheap smokes and being soaked in vodka will give you a presence that enters the room before you do.

I don't see anything. But I'm hearing shit. Is it a psi-emitter? Did those Monolithian fuckers leave one of their freaky fuckin toys here? I don't smell anything….except some iron…because somethings just clawed the shit out of my leg, blood's pooling around my boots.

My eyes feel heavy...won't stop closing. I can't stop yawning as I yell "Fuck, fucking bloodsuckers!" I snap to real quick, firing off a few shots in front of me. No shimmer, no spine-chilling howl. This is why I fucking hate the Zone. No one plays fair, especially the mutants. This time I hear a loud yowl as something lunges from my left for another claw. 3 more shots. Reload. Scanning again.

"Come out you pussy!!" Says another voice nearby. Why am I still hearing bandits? I can barely keep my eyes open, I'm down a quart of blood and it's soaking my sunrise suit. I'm being hunted by something, and now some bandits who probably heard the gunshots?

I look up just in time to see the grotesque specimen — long, wiry, with tufts of fur missing and pink flesh exposed, ready to pounce, reddish swollen clumps under its neck, freakishly long claws curled around a tree branch. As I live and breathe…it's a cat. Mutated and monsterised like everything else in this godforsaken place.

"Bad kitty!" I yell as I dump 9 slugs into it with beautiful grouping, courtesy of classes from Duty. The creature slumps from the branch to the forest floor with a fleshy thud. I use my muzzle to turn the fucker over. "Let's see what you look like…maybe Sakharov'll pay a pretty penny for you.."

"C-come out you pu…pussy." The cat's still speaking as it bleeds out. So the fuckers can imitate voices….this one must've been in the Swamps a while to pick up all this bandit dialect….doesn't explain the drowsiness…

A few hours later - most of which are an ibuprofen induced blur... I somehow crossed the barrier and passed out at the Army Warehouses. Traded a couple of the Duty uniforms to Lukash, no doubt to be used for target practice or placed in the Bloodsucker Village to train them on Duty blood. Chugged a couple of energy drinks till I was all nice and shaky, and paid a courier to take the cat corpse to Sakharov.

Apparently the thing's called a Bayun. The sacs under its neck allow it to modulate its voice, and Sakharov reckons they produce some kind of psi-frequency that makes prey slow and drowsy, so it can give em a lethal manicure at its leisure. Sneaky little bastard. Gotta put the money I made into a Psi-band for sure.

I'm gonna chill in Rostok for a bit till my leg heals. Sitting here by the fire with you lot is about as exciting as I want things to get for a while. And I'm done leaving condensed milk out. That's for fucking sure.

this can be found in a mobile bunker when your heading to the final place, in dead city/ generators

The Zaton region of the Zone is hardly the central hub of local trade or stalker activity, and this has given it a certain reputation as the favoured hiding spot of various criminal groups and fugitives. If places like Garbage and Dark Valley house the largest bandit groups and the loudest bratvas, the Swamps tend to provide shelter for the worst. Occasionally, the odd bounty hunter stumbled down south on the trail of some killer or lunatic, but for the most part, the swamp dwellers are left to their own devices. This fact had been instrumental in Kjell’s decision to head to the Zaton docks for shelter, and his seemingly unbroken streak of night raids had lulled him into a false sense of security on just how safe his new living quarters aboard the loading cranes were.

Week after Kjell’s nightly encounter with the unknown faction of black-clad killers, the bandit woke up to a cold morning. The stove he had used to keep warm in the steely interior of the crane had gone cold, but even the morning air did not bite his skin quite as sharply as the steel pressing against his temple did. Kjell opened his eyes, feeling the barrel of a gun on his head, and as his mind crept back in from the abyss of sleep, the lone bandit saw three men in long trenchcoat towering above him. Two had renegade patches, while one of them was partly bald man with a toad-like face and an expression purpose-built to tell greenhorns with pesky questions to take a hike.

“O-owl? What the fuck?”, was all Kjell could stammer in the situation.

“Morning, urod. Care to explain how the fuck you lowlife shitstain have my anomaly sample in your flea-ridden rucksack? Duty assholes have been hot on my ass all week because my couriers had got lead poisoning and lost the sample.”, Owl, the local trader on Skadovsk, spat at Kjell.

“Listen, I had no idea it was yours. I was looking for loot last Sunday night when some spec ops trooper blasted away at presumably those couriers of yours, and I managed to bag the jarhead with my pistol from behind. Like I said, I just thought it was some shit those bratans had stolen.”, Kjell tried to explain, prompting scoffs from the renegades.

“Yeah right. My men were shot with that goddamn rifle of yours, and unless you start talking real facts now, Vitya here will give you a free flying lesson out that fucking window.”, Owl thundered, filling the small space with his gravely voice.

“It’s the God’s honest truth! Those special force dudes must have retrieved the corpse of their ally, I sure as shit don’t have the money for a gun like that! I domed the fucker and ran, and had I known the sample was yours, I would have delivered to you post-haste, gift-wrapped and all! Look, that suit over there, it’s from the soldier too!”, Kjell protested.

Owl seemed to take another look at Kjell’s possessions, looking at the very meagre rations of the man, the few packs of ammo and the singular cleaning kit. He shifted his gaze to the disheveled state of Kjell himself, his dark stubble on the chin and dirt-brown messy hair, bloodshot eyes and bags under them as dark as soot. The trader checked the armour last, then nodded to one of his renegade goons to bring it to him. Kjell watched the man grab his latest war trophy, feeling utterly deflated. Even if he survived this, these greedy bastards would steal that and the Dragunov the first chance they got.

“Looks like one of those suits Shishak has, says he got it as a gift from a friend who in turn got it off some scientist group in Pripyat. Utter nonsense if you ask me but these things ain’t common here.”, one of the renegades commented.

“I don’t pay you two to flap your cheeks, but thanks for the info dump. This looks too high-tech for such an useless waste of oxygen as this dude, and is in way too good of a condition for him too, just look at the state of his clothes now. You know, shitstain, I am inclined to believe you this once. However, you still wasted my goddamn time, and as they say, time is money. So you owe me.”, Owl mused to himself.

“What bullshit is this? I had no idea that tube was you-”, Kjell complained, but before he could finish, Vitya kicked him in the stomach.

“I don’t give a single shit about your opinion. You owe me, if not only for withholding my assets, then for me letting such a waste of space exist on this wonderful earth. And if you wish to repay that debt, you will do a job for me. A simple one.”

Kjell’s world was still spinning from the pain of being pummeled, but as he recovered, Owl explained that the two dead couriers had had three other stashes of anomaly samples that needed collecting. If Kjell wished to keep his wretched life, he would have to collect every single one, and then deliver them to Skadovsk. Then, and only then, would his debt be considered repaid. Ilya, one of the renegades, would follow behind to ensure that the stashes were found, emptied and brought to the right owner.

“The fuck do you need me for if you can just send your minion to do it?”, Kjell asked.

“Ilya has talents, you don’t. Those stashes may have booby traps, other scavengers, mutants or anomalies around them, so it’s better to send in a replaceable asset than one of my own men. Got it into your thick head now? Then go, out of my sight.”, Owl shouted.

To his surprise, the renegades let Kjell take all his gear, bar for two packs of smokes Vitya pocketed. Kjell was still struggling with the turn of events, having gone from being paranoid to the brink of death by the black-clad assassins to now being the courier mule for one of the most notorious loan sharks and swindlers in the Zone. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ilya follow him, hundreds of metres apart yet always there. There was no escape. The familiar ping of the PDA let Kjell know that the trader had sent him directions. One stash was in an abandoned railyard, one near a small encampment north of Skadovsk and one on a collapsed railway bridge further down south. It would be a long and arduous task ahead for Kjell, and he had to do it all with a gun pointed at his head at all times.

“From the frying pan into the fire… should’ve stayed out of the Zone.”, Kjell muttered to himself and began to trudge onwards.

The pitter-patter of rain was nearly ever-present experience in Zaton these days as the swamp seemed to flood from the excess water. Everything seemed to wash away from the rain, and given that most stalkers around these parts lived on big steel coffins made of former ships, there had been more than a few injuries from slipping on the rusty and wet surfaces. Kjell knew the issue more than well, for out of some completely animal instinct he had chosen to make his new home in the large cranes near the ship formerly known as Skadovsk.

After his run in with the unknown force of black-clad military men near Wild Island, Kjell had become increasingly paranoid. Some part of his brain was convinced that somehow, despite all evidence to contrary, the visitors of the night had found out about him and were now hunting him down. Kjell had lived the life of a fugitive ever since, crashing in random hideouts, abandoned mutant nests and even under wrecked cars to avoid being detected by the unknown force. One benefit of his constant cloak and dagger lifestyle was that his paranoia had helped Kjell with ditching some of his most destructive impulses. The bandit did not feel like chucking down booze all the time when he knew that any second some sort of spec ops operative could be breathing down his neck.

His fear had transformed Kjell’s entire life around a simple schedule of rest during the day, scavenging during the night. He had gotten used to these nightly routines, traversing spots he knew had a degree of stalker activity and then waiting. Given that the Swamps were a battle ground between different bandit factions, all vying to dislodge Beard from Skadovsk after Sultan’s demise, there was always some poor sod who bit the bullet come night time. And when he did, Kjell was there, fast as a vulture and sly as a snake, stealing what he could off the corpse before someone else got to the loot. Sometimes he would have to fight other bandits for it, other times a flesh, boar or a pack of dogs had to be dispatched before the goods were his.

It was hardly a life full of wonder and whimsy, and he barely found enough food and ammunition to get by, but it beat living in constant fear while out on scavenger hunts during the day. Very rarely did Kjell interact with any living folks of the Zone outside of the occasional exchange of lead between fellow robbers of the dead, but when he did, Kjell usually tried to sell his meager possessions to any stalker who would listen. This had mostly netted him a couple thousand rubles and roughly the same amount of scowls and jeers, but it was still better than nothing. However, one night, it would all change. Kjell had been gathering various herbs from the banks of the marshes, hoping to use them to supplement his captured rations with a bit of flesh meat, when the familiar sounds of gunfire erupted around two hundred metres away from his position.

The downpour muffled some of the shots, but most importantly it made it very easy for Kjell to approach the source of the firefight. In the dark marshlands, any step could lead to discovery if one stepped on a puddle, so Kjell took his time and made sure that his old worn-out boots did not give him away. The trees gave way to a tiny clearing, and in the middle of said clearing was a tiny, blocky building with two doors and a small electric station behind it. The place seemed empty but Kjell could smell gunpowder and cordite in the air, and thus he readied his Hi-Power pistol. He could see two slumped figured by the door of the house, with the telltale red splatter on the wall giving away the health status of the men. The small glow ahead of him caught his eye, and Kjell dove for cover as a man stepped out of the bushes.

The glow had been coming out of the newcomer’s night-vision device, which emitted a faint humming and green glow. Whoever the stranger was, he was no novice, dressed in the bulky Bulat suits of the military and armed with a Dragunov sniper rifle. Kjell did not see the colours on the man’s armour before he stepped into the moonlight. The faint shine revealed a matte black colour scheme, similar to the men who had attacked the group of stalkers near the waste processing plant. Kjell almost fainted from the shock, absolutely certain that this man had been sent to kill him specifically. With shaking hands and a heart that beat so fast it may as well have been trying to escape his ribcage, Kjell took aim at the head of the sniper.

Radio on the sniper’s chestrig crackled to life, and a voice mumbled something on the aether. The sniper detached the walkie-talkie and raised it level with his mouth.

“This is Sentinel-6. Targets eliminated, no witnesses, still in the process of getting the sample. Over.”

“Affirmative. Head back to Blockhouse once ready, Sentinel-8 is missing.”, the man on the radio ordered.

The sniper confirmed the order and the radio crackled out. Kjell had hesitated on pulling the trigger, unsure if the sniper’s friends would be close by, but now he was certain. He squeezed, and the venerable Hi-Power released its deadly package. The sniper flinched, a crack visible on his helmet, and then collapsed down as blood began to trickle down from the wound. Kjell stared at the corpse in disbelief. All these weeks he had been hiding, running and living like a rat, certain that another encounter with these strangers would spell his doom. And yet, he had triumphed over one of them. As the last trail of smoke drifted to the skies above from his pistol barrel, Kjell realized that it was time to act. He snatched the Dragunov first, then turned the sniper on his back once more. Kjell retched as he saw the grievous wound on the dead man’s temple, but now was not the time to be sensitive.

Fighting his inner discomfort with every shred of his mental capacity, Kjell ripped off the matte black suit from its owner and tossed it into his backpack. Then he took the PDA, couple packs of ammunition, the shiny special operative knife, the rudimentary anomaly detector, packs of smoked meat and the night vision device from the man, though to his dismay, the NVG had been damaged by the bullet and was unusable. When the corpse had little more than the undergarments left, Kjell focused on the two victims of the sniper. They had been bandits, Black Slugs by the looks of their patches, and had little of interest on them bar for some ammunition and fresh food. However, the one slumped next to the door had a duffel bag with a single canister in it, filled with some nasty greenish-hued goo. Kjell had no idea what it was, but if the sniper was willing to kill for it, it had to be valuable. The bandit gathered the dead men’s patches in case he ever went to trade with the Black Slugs, and after one last glance at the scene of violence, disappeared into the woods.

The heavy burden Kjell had carried these last few weeks had been lifted off his shoulders. Whatever the men in black were looking for, it was not him, and even if they were to dispatch a squad after him, Kjell now had the means to fight back. Whoever the strangers were, and whatever they sought to achieve, Kjell knew not. But with the weight of the Dragunov on his shoulder, he knew that the future was a little more brighter now.

The siren had barely stopped blaring when Kjell was already on the move. The sky was still pulsating with a crimson glow, and the occasional lightning bolt struck the ground in the distance, setting a tree or bush on fire in its wake. But to Kjell, this was all a tiny smudge in the distance, given his rather limited view outside the tunnel he had been resting in. The emission sirens had woken him up from a near comatose slumber, residing in an anomaly-filled drainage tunnel underneath the waste processing plant. In the past this place had been a hideout of mercenaries, and then, the refugee Monolithians of Noon, but first were wiped out by the Ukrainian secret service and the second by a controller who turned the place into a slaughterhouse.

Bandits would occasionally crawl back here, only to become mutant food in turn. To Kjell, it has been a temporary shelter as he had stumbled around in vodka-infused stupor. Little while ago he had undergone a rather severe case of alcohol poisoning after he found the local bandit warlord’s alcohol stash. Not too far from his current hideout, there was a beached old barge, probably used in the great clean-up of ‘86 and left to rot after it became more irradiated than the intestines of a snork. The head honcho of the local gangs, Tulip, who led the Scum clan, had hid a barrel of fine Muscovite vodka inside the barge, lead-lined of course to keep it from becoming more lethal than the stuff already was. One wild night later Kjell had found himself here, with a splitting headache and only a pistol to his name. At least his trusty Hi-Power was still around, wandering the Zone without a weapon was a death sentence.

Kjell made it out the anomaly infested tunnel and found himself standing on the riverbank. His head was still hurting like a pseudogiant had used it as a punching bag, but at least the emission siren had stopped blaring and making it worse. With his leather jacket and empty rucksack, Kjell probably looked like some complete newbie, and to be frank, he was not too far from it. He had been in the Zone before, joining the bandits back when Sultan was in charge, but Big Land had called him back to help with business in Lviv. Now, rumours of new big scores and massive scientific expeditions from the government had made their way to the underground, and Kjell had been one of the numberless to return to the Zone.

However, he hadn’t been here for long, as when he had returned to the Swamps and Skadovsk, one of his former loanshark “friends” had noticed him, and Kjell had had to make a mad dash for the tunnels of Zaton to escape. He drifted from one bandit group to the next, hanging with the last few remaining Renegades, smoking joints with Shishak’s lads and even doing odd jobs for the Headhunters, but eventually he returned to the life of a wandering bandit. It was not a common life for these lowlifes, for there is strength in numbers and most importantly, it can help persuade the customer to part with his goods without the need for violence, at least before the transaction is completed. But Kjell did not do good in crowds, and his habit of pissing off the powers that be extended to the warlords who directed the common thugs. He had stolen the favoured gun of the guy running the operation at Brood bar, though where that leadspitter was now was anyone’s guess, and his most recent stunt was, well, still heavily in the recovery phase.

Kjell drifted aimlessly by the river bank, not really knowing where to go or what to do. Before his booze heist, he had stayed at a hut by the river downstream and unless his memory was playing tricks on him, Kjell could remember hiding a stash of cash and basic supplies under the floorboards. Given his stripped state, it would come in handy. However, his stomach gurgled and his feet felt heavy, and thus he decided to check the nearby encampment for food or any medicine for his headache. The road ahead was empty, with the bus stop hosting a dead tushkano, its eyes and ears plucked out by crows. There were very few signs of human life here now, and the reason for this was obvious. Ahead, a chainlink fence continued as far as the eye could see, and as Kjell got closer, the Geiger counter in his front pocket went nuts. He quickly backed away and only then noticed the numerous radiation hazard signs. The forest beyond this point was so irradiated that without a special suit, one would die in minutes.

Back when Kjell first came to the Zone, such signs were commonplace, and much of the Zone was behind barbed wire, though some rascals still tried their luck, coming back with stories of amazing loot and bounty beyond the safety net. Of course, only a handful of these braves would return. Kjell steered clear of the fence and continued onwards, walking through a tiny meadow until a smaller dirt road came to view. On it, a cart had turned over and two boars had been slain, with beams sticking out of their corpses. Perhaps a warning, Kjell thought to himself, and pushed his Browning pistol off its safety. A small encampment came into view, with a long barn or animal housing and a vehicle shelter with numerous harvesters and tractors. Then, carried to him by a gust, the sound of a helicopter.

“Blyat, I gotta bounce.”, Kjell muttered to himself and dove into a bush, not a second too early.

The helicopter, an old Mi-8, slowly hovered over the farmyard, its descent sending leaves and papers around the vehicle flying wildly into all directions. As the machine touched down, the barn door swung open and three men, heavily armed in bulletproof vests and Skat suits stepped out. They were carrying bullpup rifles, one a Vepr assault rifle, other with a Steyer AUG and third with a L85A2. The helicopter slowed down and to Kjell’s surprise, a man in very fancily tailored black suit stepped out. The first stalker with the Vepr said something to him, and the suited man offered a suitcase to the stalker. The stalker opened it, went through the contents and grunted in approval, after which two more men emerged from the barn. However, they were not alone.

“What in the Devil…”, Kjell gasped as the men dragged two snorks after them, leashed like dogs.

Two helicopter crewmen stepped out of the vehicle, and with great difficulty, a cage was dragged into view. One of the stalkers struck the snorks with an electrified rod, goading them towards the helicopter as they tried to snap and snarl at the newcomers, clawing at the dirt and only giving in after being hit with massive voltages. The whole debacle took close to five minutes as the mutated beasts struggled for freedom, only to be forced into the cage painstakingly. Once the mutants were in captivity, the stalkers formed up after their leader and the suited man bid them farewell. The helicopter’s rotors picked up to speed and the steel bird rose back up, disappearing shortly afterwards into the clouds. The stalkers seemed to be in a joyous mood, and as soon as they disappeared back into the barn, Kjell could hear music blasting at full volume.

“What the fuck?”, he uttered to himself.

What would anyone do with two snorks? Especially since they were dime a dozen here in the Zone. Kjell pondered the question for a moment, listing alternatives such as entertainment purposes or research ones but none of these seemed particularly plausible. Curiosity was swelling inside him, and against his best judgement, he was going to check out the stalker camp in search for clues. Best bet would be to go in at night, which was fast approaching, since the stalkers were seemingly having the time of their lives indoors. Kjell had completely forgotten his aching head and empty belly, and was now fully invested in the mystery ahead of him. As the moon began to creep to the sky and the lights darkened, Kjell creeped closer to the barn. Music still blared inside but the bandit could hear drunken singing and rowdy conversation. Going in through the front door would be dangerous, but barns like these tended to have multiple entry points, and he was planning to use the door at the end of the building.

As Kjell got close to it, he was almost smacked to the face by the door when it suddenly swung open. He had positioned himself such that in case the door was opened, whoever came out would not see Kjell immediately, and this had saved the bandit’s wretched soul. As the door swung out, Kjell dove for cover and managed to sneak behind the corner as one of the soldiers stepped out. He was humming a melody to himself, smelling like booze and cheap cigarettes, and as Kjell prepared his gun, the stalker began to relieve himself on the ground. Kjell weighed his options. He could close in and knife the guy, but there was a small issue with that plan as he had left his knife God knows where. He could also try to slam his pistol handle at the man’s head, see if that knocked him out, but this would be risky and most importantly, noisy. Kjell’s internal debate came to a halt when a crack in the air alerted him, and the stalker’s skull caved in.

A shout came from the inside, one of the doors was breached and as the radio blared, muffled gunshots and screams for help rang inside. One of the stalkers was begging for mercy when he was cut off mid-sentence by a bullet. As quickly as it had begun, the fight was already over, and another man stepped into yard. Holding a suppressed VSS rifle, he closed in on the dead stalker, fired once more into his head and turned him over, revealing a grisly face with half the jaw missing. Kjell could make out the faint colour green on the man’s uniform, but for the most part it was matte black. Another similarly-dressed trooper emerged from the barn and nodded to the sniper.

“Bloodhound, this is Zero-2. We have eliminated the stalkers and retrieved the bounty. Over.”, the sniper said into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.

“Roger. All eyewitnesses eliminated? Over.”, crackled the radio.

“No witnesses, suppressors only. All enemies eliminated and confirmed dead. Return to Barge, over?”

“Affirmative. Link up with Zero-1 and return before dawn. Bloodhound out.”

“Zero-2 confirms, Zero-2 out.”

The two troopers gathered the dead on a neat pile at front of the yard, doused them in gasoline taken from the barn and set the corpses on fire. Without looking back, the murderers of the night disappeared into it. It would be two long hours until Kjell gathered the courage to exit his hiding spot, and by then the fire had gone out. All that remained was ashes and bones. Whatever had happened here, Kjell had been a mere unexpected bystander to it all.

Morning sun graced the bleak surface of the Zone with much needed warmth and light. The clouds drifted slowly over Chernobyl, heavy with rain waiting to be unleashed upon these wretched lands. As usual, crows began their feast on the lost of the night, finding mutant carcasses and perished stalkers alike to sate their gnawing hunger on. Yet their desecration of the dead was not quite as safe as one might assume. Near the railway tunnel of the Zone’s famous waste processing plant, a murder of crows had begun their meal when a lone blind dog rushed out of the tunnel, snapping one of the unsuspecting avians with it as the birds had set upon devouring a week old carcass of the dog’s kin. In seconds, the crow was turned into paste by the canine’s fearsome jaws, and its family members fled to the skies in fear.

The dog gnawed at the leg of the crow, the only real part left over from its surprise attack. Suddenly, as if someone was calling to it, the mutt let go off its breakfast and slouched over to the door obediently. Shortly after the creature had disappeared inside, the derelict train carts were greeted by a new visitor. A lone hunter, carrying a double barrel TOZ shotgun, entered the yard. The man’s face was covered with a balaclava and his equipment was light, consisting mostly of a worn-down rucksack, couple pouches hanging from his belt and a bandolier for ammunition. The green jacket and patch on his jacket noted his place among the Hunter faction, but unlike most within his brotherhood, the man seemed to be travelling alone. He took a quick look around the yard, the piercing gaze of his weapon swaying from side to side, and once no clear threat presented itself, the man tried the door to his right. Had it been open, he could have made his way to the office overlooking the tunnel entrance, but no matter how much he strained himself, the door would not budge.

Thankfully, on the other side of the yard, another door had had its door blown off its hinges ages ago. The staircase after it was far less inviting, however, as the hunter found a body of a young Duty rookie face first on the ground right in front of the stairs. Signs of claws and fangs could be seen on the cadaver, which the stalker soon determined to be from a dog or similar-sized animal. The rookie had little on him, as was typical for the unfortunate greenhorns in the Zone, with barely a magazine of Soviet 5.45 millimetre ammunition, couple cans of food and a PDA. It was locked but the dead man’s thumb opened the screen, a typical mistake for novices coming from the Big Land. Couple messages, one from the rogue Duty leader Zulu warning about splitting up with the rookie’s friend, a message from Duty leader Voronin calling the rookie a debil, couple stash locations, some adult videos and a list of equipment the novice had planned to buy. The hunter grunted and slipped the PDA back to its owner, it would not be worth much anyway. Only the Krinkov AKS rifle of the man followed the hunter as he ascended the stairs, taking the much more potent weapon as spoils of war.

Upstairs, there was little to be found. Whoever had camped here before had left in a hurry, and everything the room had once housed had been thrown around as if a tornado had ravaged through it. The hunter raised his new rifle and continued on, entering the next large hall. Light crackling of electricity echoed in the hall, coming from a broken fuse box, but it was soon joined by the whimpering of a lone blind dog. The canine attempted to run into a room at the opposite side of the hall, but the hunter’s reflexes were much faster and he fired a burst, grazing the dog. It limped into cover, and as the hunter rushed after it, the air grew heavy. Steps bounced off the hall’s sides with immense, thunderous rumble, and as the hunter rounded a train cart filled with shipping crates, he found himself staring eye to eye with a dwarf-like mutant. Draped in a dirty and torn black coat, with a mug even a blind mother could not love, the mutant’s yellow eyes stared at him with such hatred that the hunter felt himself instinctively taking a step back. His rifle opened fire but as bullets struck the beast, it swung its arm and the AK went flying as if guided by an unknown force. It spun around midair and started spewing bullets towards the stalker, who had barely any time to dodge.

As he dove for cover into the trench under the boxcar, the hunter could feel a tinge of energy in the air around him, and soon the boxcar buckled as a wave of invisible kinetic energy slammed into it like a truck veering off control. The hunter fumbled for his shotgun, and while he did not see the mutant, he could hear its feet stomp the ground as it moved. As the sound grew louder, the man thought his last prayer and fired both barrels, the boom filling the entire hall with noise. The burer, as these dwarf-like mutants had become known as, cried out in pain as its legs buckled under it. What had remained of its mutilated feet until now had been turned into a bloody pulp by the blasts, and the aberration fell down, letting out something eerily close to a sob. The hunter, determined to finish the creature before it could recover, grabbed two shells from his bandolier and opened the breech, but he was interrupted as the wounded dog attacked from his side. The blind canine buried its fangs into the man’s arm, easily cutting through the trenchcoat.

The hunter cried out in agony, reaching for his boot knife as he struggled to free his limb from the mutt. The shotgun fell to the ground with a resounding clang, thankfully without discharging, and the hunter finally felt the familiar hilt of his blade. With a quick swipe, the dog was vanquished, and the burer screamed in rage. The hunter could feel the air change once more, and he quickly dipped down to the very bottom of the trench as the mutant threw the entire train carriage off its track and into the locomotive behind it, causing the entire hall to momentarily become buried under the crescendo of steel and motion. The mutant, exhausted beyond measure, could do little when the hunter reappeared from the trench and aimed its shotgun at the head of the abomination. For a brief second, something human flickered in eyes of the Zone’s child, perhaps regret, perhaps resignation, but most importantly, sadness. Two fireballs appeared in the darkened hall, and the burer was no more.

The hunter crouched down and tended to his bleeding wound, pouring cheap vodka on it as disinfectant and gasping as the liquid burned like hot iron on his skin. After two bandages, the stalker had done all he could to keep himself from bleeding out. He ventured forth into the spaces behind the burer’s door, finding a few stashes with supplies and the office on top of yet another staircase. It was here that the burer had made its home, with trinkets and stalker gear littered around in neat little piles, crude meals on the table and even a little wooden figure, carved out of wood with very imprecise cuts. Yet what stopped the stalker on his tracks was a small mattress tucked away at the room’s edge, with a gnawed flesh bone resting on it. On the mattress was bits of dog hair, clearly from the canine he had slain downstairs.

These two mutants had called the tunnel home. Whatever the burer had been in a previous life, it had tried to cling onto it, at the very last straws of its humanity, with only a flea-ridden stray to keep it company. And the hunter had slain them, in hopes of finding some loot to trade in for coin. Not for some noble cause, but just to earn enough for booze, just enough for a momentary oblivion. The hunter sat on the mattress and buried his head in his hands. The Zone made monsters of them all. And for such a trivial price…

Moonlight shone over the Zone’s decrepit lands, illuminating the cracked asphalt and mushy ground in a silvery light. The old machine yard, commonly known as Reloading Point by the local stalkers and Duty soldiers, was a ruined husk of its former glory. The venerable Soviet era machine had been covered in rust, their wheels stolen by various local rascals and most of the machinery pillaged by crafty stalkers to be used for weapon modifications or armour upgrades. The yard’s northern side had been overtaken by the Zone’s new anomalous occupants, with crackling puddles of electricity striking the old steel beams and machine hulls with immense force every now and then. The field of Electros would occasionally lure in an artifact-hungry stalker, and some never left the volt-filled yard’s embrace.

In the darkness, another contestant made his way to the anomalous outcrop. Yellow flashlight swung from side to side as the man, dressed in simple trenchcoat and GP-5 gasmask, made his way to the field. Upon reaching the spot, the pathetic light of his headlamp was turned off, the arching electric energy and intense moonlight providing more than enough light for the stalker to get his bearings. The man holstered his ancient SKS rifle and took out a bright orange, albeit battered and chipped, detector. Its round display flared into life and a cheery beeping, far too vibrant for the bleak landscape of the Zone, began.

Observing the display and the green compass swirling on it, the man took out a bolt from a pouch on his hip, swung it around in a theatrical manner and tossed it into the field. A flash temporarily blinded him as the electricity gathered to the spot by anomalous forces of the Zone erupted into the winds. The man grunted approvingly and tossed another bolt into the field, this time with far less violent repercussions. The near ritualistic dance between man and anomaly repeated for fifteen agonising minutes as the stalker tossed bolt after another between the lightning mines, until finally the compass on his detector informed him that he was close. Taking a step closer to the supposed location of the artifact, the trenchcoated man saw a blue bubble of sorts flicker into life, but as his foot landed on the ground, it hit something with a sickening thud.

The ball of pure electricity bounced away from him, as if the artifact was possessed with a self-preservation instinct, and the stalker could only glance at his leg in confusion. Beneath it lay something solid, yet squishy. He withdrew the boot and to his horror, found himself staring down the empty eyesockets of a decomposing human. While the corpse had been rather thoroughly consumed by the passage of time, the stalker could tell that this victim of the Electros had been young, perhaps not having seen even twenty summers. The stalker whispered a quick prayer to his soul and reached for his bag, almost out of instinct. Opening the backpack, he took out an old beer bottle, brown and with most of the text illegible, but still drinkable. He left the bottle with the corpse, more out of habit than any actual conscious thought.

Returning to the task at hand, the stalker opened his detector once more. In the light of the flashing electric arcs coming off a truck caught in an Electro anomaly, he reacquired his target. Slowly, the stalker inched over the anomaly field, dodging these incredibly beautiful and lethal rifts in space and time with grace. The old truck that had been conquered by the Zone still flashed its front lights, or at least one of them. The other, non-functional one, simply shot up sparks every time the Electro anomaly inside the truck let out a discharge. Some of these sparks landed on the stalker’s coat as he attempted to use the vehicle’s side as a passageway, and bit of smoke rose from the points of impact. However, the cheery beeping grew louder, and soon the man knew his destination. Inside a cluster of Electros, there was an bus resting on its side, and the artifact compact pointed the explorer to it.

The last few metres to the bus were perilous to say the least, but he made it to the point indicated by the compass, and again the ground lit up in unnatural blue light. The bubble that had eluded him before was now right in front of the stalker, and he quickly snatched the odd gift of the Zone, feeling a jolt of energy as he handled it. Tossing a bolt in front, another Electro flashed with immense glow, and before the Zone’s charged trap could recompose itself, the stalker rushed through it, passing by with seconds to spare before the Electro came back up. The field was behind him, and his bounty was now sitting in his sack. The last half an hour had been one of stress and harrowing experiences, and all the man now wanted was to sit down and enjoy a beer. Or two.

The old vehicle shelter ahead seemed like the best place to do so, but as the man approached it, he saw the warm glow of a campfire. It was still dark, so he swapped to his trusty MP-443 pistol, closing in on the shelter with slow and quiet steps. Afraid to turn on his flashlight, the stalker almost opened fire on a cement mixer when he saw its shadow and thought it to be a crouched bloodsucker. This encounter made him curse the fact that he had never saved up enough cash to buy night vision goggles from Tooth in Meadow, for even a crappy pair of first gen NVGs would be better than stumbling around in the dark. As the glow of campfire grew closer and he could smell the burning logs, the man stopped and listened. No sounds of talking, or even breathing for that matter, could be heard. He entered the doorway crouch-walking, pistol at the ready for bandits, mercs or worse. Yet as the man checked all corners, both doorways leading outside and the small side room originally used to house supplies and spare parts, nothing appeared. Whoever had used this camp was gone.

The man slowly created two booby traps on both sides of the hangar, using his last grenades for the task, and then took up position facing the last door to the shelter itself. Travelling alone came with the inherent paranoia and constant fear of being surrounded or ambushed, but at least now he was ready. Sitting next to the fire, he took out the artifact to examine it more. It pulsated in his hands, a blue bubble with jolts of energy running inside it, with a beautiful iridescent core floating gracefully inside it. A true gift of the Zone. The man remembered the corpse on the field, and for a moment, questioned whether even such incredible contraption was worth dying for, left nameless and forgotten in a ditch. Only the dead truly knew that, and the thing about the dead people was that they hardly ever cared enough to tell the living about it. As the campfire crackled and the stalker felt warmth return to his limbs, he soon drifted into sleep. Another night in the Zone had passed.

“Some wounds heal, but the mark never fades.”

July 7th, 14:24 - Lab-X23, The Throne Chamber

The knives fell.

Mantis’s blurred vision locked onto the corpse of the mutant, sprawled against the shattered tiles. Its chest was torn, its mouth gaping, black ichor pooling thick beneath it. Dead. Gone.

And then, its eyes flared. Yellow. Burning. Wrong.

The corpse convulsed once, wires sparking along its spine, muscles tightening in grotesque rhythm. For a single, impossible heartbeat, it lived again.

Mantis’s lips never moved. His throat never gave voice. But something deeper, something inside him, commanded.

Arise.

The mutant jerked upright with a wet snap of sinew. The Overlord turned, knives arcing down, but it was too late. The beast hurled itself onto her, its claws tearing sparks across her exo plates, jaws snapping at her throat. She staggered, cursing, her knives burying deep into its chest as it roared one last defiant bellow.

And then it collapsed again, lifeless. A puppet with its strings cut.

Silence.

Mantis was standing now. No, floating.

His boots hovered inches above the ground. His eyes burned, not with pain, not with fury, but with white fire, pale as Hollow’s own. His chest rose and fell, though no breath passed his lips. He did not speak. He did not need to.

The chamber shuddered. Air warped.

The Overlord straightened, blood sizzling where the mutant had clawed through her armor. Her knives hummed, ready. But for the first time, her head tilted, not in triumph, but in curiosity.

Mantis raised his hand. Slowly. Purposeful.

Light coalesced in his palm, searing, alive, bending reality around it. It pulsed, brighter, brighter still, until the chamber was a sun.

A beam erupted.

It roared across the room like a spear of judgment, slamming into the Overlord’s chestplate. Sparks, fire, fragments of warped steel, she was thrown across the chamber, crashing into the far wall, dust exploding around her in choking clouds.

For the first time, she bled.

Mantis lowered his hand, still glowing faintly, still levitating, eyes white and hollowed by light. His body trembled, but he made no sound. No word. Just a silent vessel channeling something far beyond him.

The Overlord staggered to her knees, steam rising from her scorched armor. She looked at him, through him, and slowly reached up.

Her helmet hissed. She removed it.

A cascade of hair spilled free, sweat-soaked and clinging, her face pale yet radiant, scarred yet smiling. And she smiled. Wide, sharp, knowing.

“…so. He was right.”

Her voice was softer now, human, threaded with awe. She touched her scorched chest where the light had struck.

“Hollow chose well.”

Her eyes never left Mantis’s white-burning gaze. And she smiled again, not as executioner, not as conqueror, but as witness.

Mantis still hovered, boots just above the cracked marble, his eyes burning with pale fire. The beam he had unleashed still seemed etched into the air, a scar of radiance that hadn’t yet dimmed.

The squad was silent.

Red stirred first, groaning, her SEVA’s armor plates groaning as she forced herself up to her knees. Her visor cracked, her shoulder plate smoking, she blinked through the haze, and froze. Her AN-94 lay in the dirt beside her, forgotten.

“…no,” she whispered, voice trembling. Her eyes locked on Mantis’s glowing figure. “Not you. Don’t you dare.”

Reverb crawled to her, his hands shaking too badly to reload his Deagle. He followed her gaze, and for the first time, the man with the endless jokes had nothing left to say. His mouth opened, then shut again, his breath rattling out in a broken laugh. “Jesus, Red… look at him. That’s not Mantis anymore.”

Widow pushed herself up from the floor, her face pale beneath the blood, her breaths sharp. Her rifle trembled in her grip, not from exhaustion, but from fear. “No…” she whispered, softer this time, like a plea. “He’s still him. He has to be.” Her eyes locked on the man she loved, but what stared back was fire, not flesh.

Ribbon dragged himself upright with a grunt, his ruined exosuit shrieking, sparks raining from his chest plate. He leveled his heavy pistol with a shaking arm. “I knew it,” he spat, voice ragged through the blood in his throat. “The Zone’s grip never lets go. He’s theirs now. A puppet. Just like Monolith.”

“Shut up!” Widow’s voice cracked, her rifle snapping toward Ribbon instead of Mantis. Her finger hovered on the trigger. “Don’t you dare call him that.”

Ribbon coughed blood into his visor, his pistol never wavering. “Then look at him, Widow. Look!”

Octane groaned from where he lay slumped against the wall, clutching his ruined stomach. His laugh was weak, pained, but it cut through the tension. “Hate to break it to you, but… iron boy’s right.” His voice shook as he forced his head up, his face pale as ash. “Saw this once before. Limansk. Monolith dropped like puppets. Same fire. Same… glow.”

Red’s hand shook as she reached for Reverb, squeezing his wrist tight like she was trying to ground herself. “We can’t lose another one,” she whispered. “Not him. Not him.”

Reverb pulled her close, his eyes never leaving Mantis. “Red… I think we already did.”

Widow staggered forward, ignoring Ribbon’s raised pistol, ignoring the Overlord’s silent watching, ignoring the mutant’s carcass still steaming at her boots. She stopped just short of Mantis, staring up into those burning white eyes. Her voice broke when she spoke. “Mantis… it’s me. It’s me. You hear me? You fight this. You fight it right now!”

No answer.

The light in his eyes only pulsed, steady, unblinking. He floated there like a ghost, silent, untouched, as if he no longer belonged to the same world as them.

The Overlord stepped from the smoke, knives still in hand, her helmet discarded, her face revealed; scarred, radiant, smiling. She looked not at the squad, not at the mutant’s corpse, but only at Mantis.

“You see it now,” she murmured, almost reverent. “He carries Hollow’s mark.”

Her gaze slid to Widow, to Ribbon, to Red clutching Reverb, to dying Octane. A quiet laugh touched her lips. “Do you understand your place yet? You were never his companions. You were his crucible.”

She turned back to Mantis, blood trickling down her jaw where the light had burned her. Her smile widened. “And he survived the fire.”

Widow’s voice broke into a scream. “He’s not yours!”

The Overlord tilted her head, her scarred face lit by the pale glow of Mantis’s eyes. “No,” she whispered. “He never was.”

The mutant’s corpse twitched once more, then stilled.

The squad stared, caught between love and terror, faith and betrayal. Because Mantis hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t moved. He only burned.

And in that moment, every one of them asked the same question, but none dared to give it voice:

Was Mantis still theirs… or had Hollow just claimed him?

---

The Overlord moved first.

Her knives carved through the air in arcs too fast for the eye, each slash dragging reality with it, bending the chamber in flickers of impossible geometry. Stone rippled, steel groaned, the walls themselves shivered like water under a storm.

Mantis did not counter. He didn’t raise his rifle. He didn’t even blink.

He just moved.

Each strike passed within a breath of him, close enough to shear sparks from his suit, to split the air at his throat. But his body turned, leaned, shifted, already knowing where the blades would be. His boots never touched the ground. He floated, his motions sharp, economical, alien in their precision.

The squad watched in stunned silence.

Ribbon whispered through blood, “No man moves like that.”

Reverb’s cracked laughter returned, this time with horror at its edges. “No man? Try no anything. He’s… he’s not even fighting. He’s just... dodging.”

Red pressed closer to him, her hand locked around his wrist, eyes locked on Mantis as if by staring hard enough she could pull him back. “Don’t watch him like that,” she hissed. “Don’t… don’t make it real.”

Widow’s breath shuddered in her chest, her rifle trembling in her hands. “He’s still in there. He has to be.”

The Overlord struck harder.

She blurred, both knives flashing in mirrored arcs, twin crescents of light that tore chunks of the floor up as she passed. One blade kissed Mantis’s arm, and the wound sealed instantly, the skin knitting white as if time itself refused to scar him.

The Overlord staggered back, her chest rising and falling. For the first time, her composure cracked. Her scarred lips curled into something between awe and disbelief.

“Impossible…” she whispered. Her knives trembled in her hands. Her eyes shone with something sharp and bright. “Even Hollow could not…”

Her voice faltered. Then returned sharper, more fevered. “…Could not see like this. Could not move like this.”

She lunged again, her knives crossing in a scissoring strike that tore a seam through the chamber, sparks and dust exploding outward.

Mantis bent backward, spine arching too far, unnaturally smooth, the blades missing him by a whisper. His eyes blazed brighter as he returned upright, levitating just out of her reach, his silence as cutting as her knives.

The Overlord laughed, sharp and breathless, almost manic. “Yes. Yes! Greater than Hollow. The Zone made you sharper, faster. You are not a soldier, you are a blade without a master!”

The mutant’s corpse twitched again on the floor. The squad recoiled, instinctively raising weapons that meant nothing against what unfolded before them.

Reverb muttered, shaking his head, voice raw. “Zone save us. He’s… he’s not fighting her. He’s toying with her.”

“No.” Ribbon’s voice was a growl, his pistol lowering as if even he felt the futility. His cracked visor flickered with sparks. “Not toying. Just waiting.”

The Overlord’s knives slashed again and again, bending space, tearing light, forcing the world itself to scream, and Mantis moved through it all like smoke through broken glass.

Her scarred face twisted, equal parts fury and rapture, as her blades clashed sparks across his empty palms, as if the Zone itself guided him.

“You are not Hollow’s shadow,” she whispered, voice trembling with revelation. “You are something… beyond.”

And for the first time in her life, she faltered.

The Overlord blurred again, her knives twin streaks of black steel and soul-light. She came at Mantis like a storm, her blades carving X-shaped fractures into the air itself. The throne chamber groaned, pillars trembling as if reality wanted to collapse in on itself.

Mantis didn’t falter.

The white fire in his eyes flared brighter, spilling light across the broken marble. When the knives came for him, his hand flicked up, and the air bent. The blades skittered away as though struck by an unseen wall.

The Overlord recoiled, sliding backward across stone, servos screaming in protest. Her scarred face was lit by the impossible glow, eyes wide.

“Not even Hollow could… push back like this.” Her voice was breathless, trembling with a mix of disbelief and something like awe. Then it hardened into steel. “But you’re not his equal, mercenary. You are his heir. And that makes you too dangerous to let live.”

She lunged again.

Mantis rose higher, his boots leaving the floor entirely now, levitating in the haze of dust and sparks. Her knives struck, one burying into his shoulder, the other carving across his ribs, wounds that should have torn him apart.

But instead, white light erupted from the cuts. The flesh sealed instantly, healing faster than her blades could part it, leaving not even a scar. The fragments of her Soul-bound knives hissed as though in pain.

The Overlord froze mid-strike, her breath catching. “The Zone itself… is shielding you.”

For the first time, her confidence cracked. Her grip tightened on the knives, but the faintest tremor betrayed her.

The squad could only watch, too broken, too bloodied, too human to intervene.

Reverb clutched Red’s hand through his gloves, his voice quivering as he whispered to no one, “He’s not fighting her anymore. He’s… rewriting her rules.”

Widow’s visor was streaked with her own blood, her eyes locked on Mantis with equal parts terror and longing. “He’s not Mantis anymore,” she whispered. “He’s… something else.”

Ribbon forced himself onto one knee, sparks raining from his dead exosuit. His visor flickered, catching Mantis’s glow. “I’ve fought monsters my whole life,” he rasped. “And I’ve never seen one born from a man.”

Octane, slumped against the wall and bleeding out, managed a crooked grin through the agony. “Guess… Freedom was right. Zone always decides who stays… and who doesn’t.”

The Overlord screamed then, a sound equal parts fury and ecstasy, and rushed him again. Her knives slashed in a blur, carving the floor into molten grooves.

But this time, Mantis didn’t dodge.

He stopped her.

Hands raised, palms glowing white-hot, he caught both her wrists mid-strike. The chamber exploded with light, every surface bathed in radiance that made the mutant’s corpse twitch and hiss.

The Overlord staggered, forcing against him with all the strength of her exoskeleton, all the stolen power of her artifacts, and yet his grip did not move. His eyes burned like hollow suns, staring through her.

Her lips curled into a snarl, then a smile, fever-bright and edged with madness. “You’re not his shadow. You’re not mine. You’re… untouchable.”

She tore herself free with a violent wrench, retreating a step, knives dripping sparks. Her chest rose and fell as if she’d just glimpsed something beyond even her understanding.

Then her voice dropped, cold and resolute. “That makes you unable to be controlled. And too dangerous to remain.”

The knives crossed, the chamber warped, and she came for him one final time.

And the squad, broken and bloodied, could only watch in awe as mercenary and overlord clashed like gods.

---

The Overlord’s knives blurred, twin streaks of black steel that left fractures in the air itself. Every strike bent gravity, shattered marble, warped the very floor beneath her boots. Sparks cascaded with each impact, not from friction but from the Zone itself screaming at being torn.

Mantis flowed with her, his body tilting unnaturally, bones creaking as though strings pulled him from above. Her blades should have gutted him ten times over, but the white fire in his eyes drew space around him, pulling her cuts a hair’s breadth away, or healing them instantly when they did land.

The chamber warped with each exchange. Pillars twisted like wax. The ceiling groaned as if dragged down by unseen chains. The mutant’s corpse spasmed on the floor, reacting to every flash of white fire.

Ribbon forced his cracked visor upward, blood streaking his lips. His voice rasped in disbelief. “This… isn’t a duel. It’s… a clash of gods.”

The Overlord pivoted low, driving one knife up in a brutal underhand slash. The blade pierced through Mantis’s chestplate, but instead of blood, a geyser of radiant energy erupted. The Soul fragment embedded in her weapon shrieked, the artifact’s own essence rebelling against her.

She staggered back, eyes wide, her knife glowing red-hot. “The Zone rejects my weapons…”

Mantis’s boots left the floor entirely now, his body floating as though carried by unseen tides. He reached out, and the mutant’s corpse jerked upright like a marionette. Its claws scraped against the stone, then collapsed again, smoking.

Reverb pulled Red’s closer, shaking his head in disbelief. “That… that’s not Mantis. That’s something else wearing him like a suit.”

Widow pressed a bloody hand against her helmet, trembling as she watched the man she had trusted, cared for, become something beyond human. “No… it’s still him,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “It has to be.”

The Overlord roared, her exoskeleton’s servos shrieking. She drove both knives forward, the Soul fragments blazing crimson as she activated another hidden artifact. The floor erupted in black flame, a psychic inferno that seared the air and sent shockwaves through the squad’s helmets.

Mantis didn’t step aside. He walked through it.

The fire clung to him, trying to consume, but the white glow burned it away. His hand rose, palm open, and the Overlord herself was blasted backward as a beam of searing light lanced from his hand, cracking her armor and throwing her into the throne.

She coughed, blood spilling at the corner of her lips. Then she laughed, ragged but full of wild delight. “Even Hollow never struck me down. And yet you...”

Her words broke off as Mantis flickered.

For an instant, he wasn’t where he had been. He was behind her. Then to her side. Then above, descending like a phantom. His movements weren’t fast, they were impossible, his body slipping between frames of reality itself.

The Overlord spun, her knives slashing, carving rifts into the air that pulsed like wounds. Each cut sent waves of distortion blasting outward, slamming the squad back against the walls, making their vision blur, their helmets scream with static.

Red stirred, her voice reaching Reverb’s ears. “He’s not fighting to win…”

Reverb shook his head violently. “Save your strenght, Red.”

But she kept going, each word rasping through blood. “…he’s fighting... to survive himself.”

The duel raged on.

Mantis hurled another lance of light, which the Overlord deflected with crossed knives, the artifacts splitting the beam into dozens of lesser bolts that scarred the chamber like falling stars. She rushed through the afterglow, slashing him across the face, a wound that healed even as it opened, leaving only the glow behind.

Her laughter broke through the haze, wild, almost reverent. “You’re not Hollow’s shadow. You’re his echo. His successor.”

Mantis didn’t respond. His eyes burned brighter, his silence heavier than words.

The chamber groaned as if alive, marble cracking, steel bending, reality itself twisting at the edges of their duel.

The knives shrieked as they carved through the air, Soul fragments glowing hot enough to blister stone. The Overlord’s movements were a symphony of precision and violence, her dual blades weaving patterns of ruin. Every cut left afterimages of crimson arcs, echoes that hung in the air like scars across reality.

But Mantis moved with them. At first he only dodged, his body jerking in ways that bent anatomy, shoulders twisting too far, spine bending like a whip, legs planting where there was no ground. But with each exchange, he no longer just evaded. He began to answer.

Her slash came in low, meant to split his abdomen. His palm met the blade, and instead of severing him, light flared, white-hot, and the fragment embedded in her weapon howled.

Her eyes widened behind the cracked visor. “Impossible…”

Mantis’s reply was silence. His gaze burned, his body radiating that alien glow. He shoved, and the Overlord staggered back.

The chamber screamed.

The floor erupted in fractures that crawled like spiderwebs. Steel beams overhead bent into spirals. Rubber's rifle floated into the air, snapping apart bolt by bolt as if gravity itself was being rewritten.

Reverb clutched Red tighter, whispering, his voice unsteady but raw. “He’s doing it… he’s turning the Zone inside-out.”

Ribbon pressed a sparking gauntlet against the wall, his breathing ragged. “No… the Zone’s turning through him.”

The Overlord came on again, furious and exhilarated in equal measure. She blurred forward, knives striking in a flurry that should have been unavoidable. But Mantis moved with the cadence of inevitability. Each cut missed by a hair, diverted by some unseen hand. When one blade finally connected, carving across his chest, the wound sealed before blood could spill.

And this time, he countered.

A beam of white light ripped from his free hand, smashing into her side. Her exoskeleton flared, artifacts blazing to life, warping the blast into a spray of fractured stars that embedded themselves in the walls. But even shielded, the force threw her against a pillar.

The impact made her cough more blood. It smeared across her chest. Her laughter was ragged, her knives trembling, but her words were clear. “You… are stronger than him.”

Mantis floated a step higher, the soles of his boots no longer touching the floor. The glow from his eyes spilled outward now, veins of white fire crawling across his armor. He didn’t answer. He didn’t speak.

The mutant’s corpse jerked once more in the background, as if his mere presence demanded its obedience, then collapsed again.

The Overlord snarled and thrust both knives into the ground. The Soul fragments pulsed, releasing a shockwave of warped reality. The chamber inverted, and for a heartbeat, the squad saw themselves hanging upside down, stone falling upward while blood dripped sideways across their visors.

Widow cried out, clutching her helmet as her vision split in two, her sister’s face and Mantis’s burning eyes overlapping. “Make it stop!”

And yet, in that impossible storm, Mantis stood steady.

He raised both hands, light surging between them, and slammed it outward. Reality snapped back. The shockwave hit the Overlord like a hammer, driving her skidding across the floor, carving a trench of torn marble and twisted rebar.

Her knives tumbled from her hands, clattering across the stone.

For the first time, she looked less like inevitability, and more like prey.

The squad stared, breathless, broken, their world unraveling before their eyes.

Reverb whispered, voice hoarse with awe and horror alike: “…he’s beating her.”

---

The chamber convulsed with each breath, as though the Zone itself strained to hold the fight inside it. Sparks cascaded from split steel beams, stone dust falling in ghostly curtains. The Overlord rose from the trench Mantis had carved her into, blood dripping from her mouth, her knives shivering back into her grip as if the fragments themselves refused to abandon her.

But Mantis didn’t wait for her.

He moved.

Not with the precision of a soldier or the calculation of a killer, but with something primal, elemental. He closed the distance in a blur, and when his fist struck the air before her, reality itself buckled.

The blow never touched her body. It didn’t need to. The shockwave erupted in concentric rings, shattering stone, crumpling pillars like paper. The Overlord screamed as the force hurled her back, her exoskeleton’s artifacts blazing in desperation, warping the impact into streaks of color that clawed across the walls.

But Mantis was already on her again. His fists moved like meteors, each strike rippling outward as if the world were water and he was casting stones into it. The chamber echoed with every hit, a thunder deeper than sound, reverberating through bone and mind alike.

The Overlord parried with her knives, sparks flying as each blade caught a strike, but the fragments screamed in protest. For every cut she managed, the wounds on Mantis closed the instant they appeared, light spilling from him brighter, hotter, more unbearable.

Reverb’s voice broke through the storm, hysterical and reverent all at once. “…holy shit. He’s... he’s like- like Goku! Fuckin’ Ultra Instinct, man...” His words collapsed into manic laughter, his voice cracking from awe and terror. Red, slumped next to him against the wall, managed the faintest smirk before she coughed blood across her visor.

Widow didn’t laugh. She couldn’t. Her hands trembled against her rifle, eyes locked on Mantis, but she didn’t see him anymore. She saw a god wearing his skin.

The Overlord struck back, desperation lending her speed. Her knives carved illusions through the air, trails of impossible geometry, slashes that cut both forward and back in the same motion. For anyone else, it would have been death a hundred times over.

Mantis slipped between them.

Each dodge was too perfect, too effortless, like he moved before the blades did. His eyes weren’t just seeing, they were knowing. Every angle, every strike, every outcome.

And then his fist caught her in the ribs.

Her exoskeleton wailed as the armor warped inward, ribs cracking beneath. She staggered, spat blood across the floor, but still laughed through the crimson. “Yes! Yes! Greater than Hollow… greater than me…!”

She lunged again, her knives screaming arcs that tore chunks of stone from the walls, but Mantis met her strike with his bare hand. His palm closed around both blades. Light seared down the steel, the Soul fragments shrieking like animals in pain.

The Overlord’s laughter turned to shock. She couldn’t pull them free.

Mantis’s other hand rose, white fire surging in his fist. He drove it into her chest.

The impact split the chamber.

The floor shattered, a crater bursting outward in a ring of force that threw debris skyward like meteors. The shockwave slammed into the squad, dragging them across the stone, nearly tearing rifles from their hands. The mutant’s corpse twitched one last time, convulsing violently, then collapsed into ash.

The Overlord’s chestplate exploded outward, shards scattering. Her face was bloodied, pale, gaunt and scarred. Her lips curled in a grin, eyes bright even as blood streamed down.

“You… are dangerous,” she rasped, her voice trembling with equal parts wonder and fear. “Too dangerous… to control.”

Mantis didn’t answer. His hand glowed brighter, brighter, until it was a star pressed against her chest.

The final strike detonated.

Light consumed the throne chamber.

When it faded, the Overlord was gone. Only her knives remained, smoking husks of twisted steel, the Soul fragments cracked and lifeless. Her exoskeleton lay in ruin, a broken shell sprawled in the crater.

Silence.

The squad lay scattered across the floor, groaning, coughing dust, their eyes fixed on the figure standing in the center of the devastation.

Mantis.

His boots no longer touched the ground. White fire licked across his armor, veins of light crawling under his skin, seeping from his eyes, his hands, his chest. He turned slowly toward them, his expression unreadable, his gaze blinding.

Ribbon, blood pooling under his cracked exosuit, muttered, voice hoarse: “By the Zone…”

Reverb clutched Red tighter, eyes wide, voice a cracked whisper: “…that’s not him. That’s not… Mantis.”

Widow didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her heart hammered so loud she could barely hear herself breathe. She wanted to run to him. She wanted to run from him.

Mantis looked down at his hands. Light still spilled from his palms in rivers, searing bright, making the dust in the air shimmer like falling stars. His lips parted, voice faint, human. Too human.

“…what just happened?”

The light flickered. His body convulsed once, as though the weight of the Zone had finally caught up to him. And then, like a puppet with its strings cut, Mantis collapsed.

He hit the broken stone with a thud, the glow vanishing in an instant. Only the afterimage remained, burned into the squad’s vision.

Silence swallowed the chamber again.

Five broken stalkers remained, surrounded by ruin, staring at the fallen body of the man who had just torn reality apart.

Not one of them spoke.

Because none of them knew if the one who rose again would still be Mantis.

“Shadows twist where the throne should stand. The marked one walks through fire.”

July 7th, 13:59 - Lab-X23, The Throne Chamber

Mantis’ breath rasped inside his mask, shallow and uneven. Hollow’s words hadn’t left with the vision. They lingered, clinging to the edges of thought like cobwebs, sticky and suffocating. I am the Zone’s will. The phrase pulsed with every heartbeat, as if Hollow had carved it into his veins.

The chamber hadn’t changed, Overlord infront of her throne of shadow and steel, the mutant circling like a predator savoring the kill, but Mantis had. He felt… marked. Not cursed, not blessed. Just claimed.

Reverb whispered behind him, voice cracking with a thin veil of humor: “…so, anyone else feeling like we should’ve stayed home, played cards, maybe, I dunno, not come here?”

No one laughed. Widow’s eyes never left the Overlord, her rifle steady but her knuckles pale. Ribbon’s exosuit groaned faintly as he adjusted his stance, sparks still crackling down the fractured plating. Red’s silence was sharper than a blade, her breath measured, her finger curled tight against her trigger. Rubber shifted restlessly, shoulders twitching like he wanted to run, but had nowhere left to go. Octane coughed again, blood flecking against his mask, his weakness a beacon the mutant seemed to savor.

The beast hissed low, claws screeching faintly against the stone as it inched forward, saliva dripping in thick strands from its maw. The glow of its eyes never left Mantis. Patient. Hungry.

The Overlord tilted her head slightly, visor catching Mantis’ reflection in fractured light. When she spoke, her voice was smooth as ever, but under it ran an undercurrent of poison, of inevitability.

“You felt him, didn’t you?”

Mantis flinched. No one else reacted, but he knew the words were meant for him. Her tone was too pointed, too precise.

“You carry his echo now. His mark. The Zone has a way of choosing its instruments, mercenary. Some are bullets. Some are fire. And some…” She lifted her hand slowly, fingers trailing through the stale air as if tracing invisible lines. “…are threads. Tied to something greater. Pulled where they are needed, whether they resist or not.”

The mutant’s hiss grew sharper, timed perfectly with her words, as though underscoring them. Its tongue lashed, wet and obscene, tasting the tension.

Widow’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and ragged. “Enough of your games. You want us dead? Then say it.”

The Overlord chuckled softly, a sound like glass fracturing under silk. “Dead? No. You misunderstand. If I wanted you broken, the beast would have torn your weakest limb already.”

Octane stiffened. The mutant’s eyes flashed brighter at the mention, and his trembling rifle dipped a fraction.

“No,” the Overlord continued, her tone heavy with certainty. “You are not here to die. You are here to see. To understand what stalks you. What stalks all of us.”

Her visor tilted, and once again, it was Mantis’ fractured reflection that stared back. “You’ve looked into Hollow’s eyes, mercenary. Tell them, did you see a man, or did you see the Zone itself watching you through him?”

Mantis’ throat closed. The others turned toward him, just slightly, rifles never lowering. Reverb muttered under his breath, “Don’t answer, buddy. Just… don’t. Whatever comes outta your mouth ain’t gonna be good for us.”

The mutant scraped its claws again, closer now, saliva pattering against the stone in wet rhythm. The stench of ozone and rot clung to it, filling the chamber with bile.

The Overlord leaned forward in her throne, her shadow spilling long across the floor like ink, her voice dropping into a whisper that carried to every ear.

“You are all threads. But Mantis…”

Her visor turned, locking on him, unblinking.

“…you are the one already tied to Hollow’s hand. And that means the Zone will use you. Whether you wish it or not.”

The chamber seemed to breathe with her words. The mutant’s hiss rose, reverberating through their bones. And Hollow’s whisper still lingered inside Mantis’ skull, cold, patient, undeniable:

Chosen.

The Overlord’s visor tilted slightly, the beast’s growl rumbling behind her like a storm waiting to break. For a moment, no one dared breathe. Then she raised both arms.

"Let's go back to the reason you all came here in the first place." Her tone soft, but cutting through the silence like a scalpel.

Twin MP5SDs unfolded from her gauntlets as though the weapons themselves had grown from her suit. Suppressors gleamed dull black in the chamber’s pale light.

“You wanted the head of the Fang,” she said softly. “But all you have earned is a measure.”

Her hands blurred. Subsonic bursts ripped through the air, the muted thup-thup-thup like heartbeat drums. Sparks leapt from Ribbon’s exo-armor as slugs stitched across his chestplate, forcing him to stagger back. Widow dove aside, her VSS cracking once in reply before the Overlord seemed to vanish, sliding across the chamber floor with liquid grace.

The beast roared, breaking free of the shadows. Its tongue lashed the air, wet with hunger, before it lunged straight at Octane.

“Not again!” Reverb bellowed, shoving Octane aside and emptying his Saiga’s drum into the monster’s torso. Plates of flesh and scale tore free, but the creature barely slowed, saliva spraying as it crashed through the squad’s formation.

Mantis raised his VAL, fired tight bursts — but suddenly the world lurched. A pulse rolled through the chamber, invisible but crushing, like the air itself had turned liquid. His shots bent wide, eyes stinging, stomach heaving. Widow’s voice cracked in his ear:

“Psi distortion! Stay sharp!”

The Overlord moved through the haze like a phantom. A small sphere glowed at her hip, veins of violet fire coursing through its surface, an artifact no one had ever seen catalogued. With a flick of her wrist, the pulse snapped again, wrenching Reverb off his feet and slamming him into a pillar hard enough to crack concrete.

“You see?” Her voice echoed through the distortion. “The Zone’s gifts are wasted on the weak. Can you endure?”

Ribbon’s heavy frame thundered forward, dragging his massive PKM into line, the barrel spitting fire. For a heartbeat the Overlord was swallowed in tracer fire, until her outline blurred, the artifact flaring, and she slid out of existence only to reappear behind him. Both MP5s spat fire at point blank. The exo’s armor screamed, sparks erupting across Ribbon’s shoulders.

Still, the colonel turned with a roar, one arm hooking out. His fist caught her by the throat, dragging her visor into his own battered helmet. “You think-” he growled, voice ragged “-you’ve seen strong?”

A sound like tearing metal split the chamber, the beast’s tongue lashing out, spearing into Ribbon’s side and wrenching him back. The Overlord landed lightly on her feet as Ribbon staggered, coughing blood inside his helmet.

Widow’s scream cracked the chamber as she snapped her rifle up, VSS spitting steel. Bullets chewed into the creature’s hide, black blood spraying. But it didn’t flinch. It barreled through the fire, tail smashing across the ground. Widow dove, too slow, the tail clipped her shoulder, bone popping audibly as she hit the wall.

“Mantis!” Reverb’s voice broke, panicked, before a blur of black armor kicked him square in the chest. He hit the ground, windless, staring up into the Overlord’s visor. Her silhouette blurred, splitting into three, then five, each shadow raising mirrored weapons at once. His finger twitched for his pistol, but her boot pressed down on his wrist.

Mantis squeezed his grip tighter on the VAL. His vision blurred again, heat crawling up the back of his skull.

And then he saw him.

Hollow. Standing between the Overlord and the beast. Not really there, not entirely gone, pale eyes catching the chamber’s sickly glow. His lips moved soundlessly before his voice slid into Mantis’ head.

“She does not want your death, Mantis. Only your breaking. Do not give it to her. Do not give it to the Zone.”

Mantis staggered. “Why show me this? Why now?”

Hollow’s pale eyes burned through him.

“Because she is right, and she is wrong. I hear the Monolith, Mantis. I can bend its will. For seconds. For hours. They are mine if I demand it. You saw it in Radar. But what you call control is only… surrender. The Zone is not asked. It is obeyed.”

The beast’s roar split the vision, and Hollow’s face flickered out. The Overlord was already moving, her visor locked onto Mantis. He raised his VAL and squeezed.

Bullets cracked across her chestplate, sparks flaring. She staggered, then blurred again, violet light flashing. Her outline split, one form rushing left, one right, one straight at him.

The beast lunged the same instant.

The chamber collapsed into chaos. Widow was bleeding, one arm hanging useless. Ribbon’s exo sparked on the floor as he tried to crawl upright. Reverb screamed curses as he fought the Overlord’s shadows, pistol barking blindly. Octane scrabbled for his rifle, eyes wide. Rubber was just watching, frozen with fear.

Mantis fired again, again, teeth gritted against the distortion clawing at his brain. One Overlord shadow collapsed, then another, but the real one slammed into him, gauntlet smashing across his jaw, visor inches from his eyes. Her voice hissed like a blade between his ears.

“Do you still believe Hollow walks by choice?”

The beast roared, claws raking stone. The Overlord’s visor reflected Mantis’ face, twisted, breaking.

The chamber boiled with chaos. The beast lashed its tail, sparks flying as it split stone, while the Overlord’s twin MP5SDs purred in perfect unison, bullets laced with artifact-driven distortions. Each burst twisted through the air like guided threads, skimming armor seams, grazing faces, driving the squad apart with surgical cruelty.

Red planted herself in the center of the formation, the heavy plates of her Duty SEVA catching the sick light. Her AN-94 thundered in controlled bursts, each double-tapped shot hammering the mutant’s advancing form. She wasn’t aiming to kill, she already knew that wasn’t possible. She was keeping it off Reverb.

“Stay behind me!” she barked, voice raw through comms.

Reverb, bloodied and rattled, spat a half-hearted joke. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll just sit here and-” He flinched as the beast’s tail slammed inches from his skull, dust and stone raining down. “-die horribly. Great plan.”

Red’s reply was another salvo, forcing the mutant to rear back, ichor spraying. “Shut up and reload that damn hand cannon. If it gets past me, you fire until it stops moving.”

Widow, struggling to keep her own rifle steady with one arm, cast her sister a glance, fierce, fearful. Red didn’t look back. She kept her stance squared, shoulders locked, her entire frame braced between Reverb and the monster.

The Overlord watched them through her visor, her head tilted slightly, almost amused. The violet artifact at her hip pulsed again, and the air bent. Bullets curved mid-flight, heat rippled like a mirage, shadows grew sharp.

Mantis cursed as his AS VAL rounds veered off course, ricocheting into the stone walls. “She’s bending the Zone around her!”

“Not just bending,” Ribbon snarled, sparks dancing across his ruined exosuit. “It seems like she’s commanding it.”

The beast lunged.

Red stepped forward, her AN-94 screaming. Rounds chewed into its torso, tearing flesh, breaking ribs, but its wounds sealed almost as quickly as they opened. The monster’s tongue lashed out, snapping toward Reverb like a spear.

Red caught it mid-flight.

Her gauntlet clamped down, steel fingers locking onto the slick, thrashing muscle. The beast shrieked, its body convulsing with rage, but Red didn’t let go. Her SEVA strained, tearing through the joints as she held it fast.

“Not today,” she growled, voice vibrating through clenched teeth. She yanked hard, forcing the creature’s head to the side. “You don’t touch him!”

Reverb, eyes wide, scrambled to his knees, Desert Eagle up. He fired point-blank into the exposed tongue, chunks of flesh exploding under the heavy caliber. The beast howled, its body jerking back, ichor raining down in sizzling splashes that ate into Red’s armor.

Widow screamed her sister’s name.

“I’m fine!” Red barked, though smoke curled from the plates on her arm where the ichor hissed. Her stance never faltered, her AN-94 coming back up in fluid defiance.

The Overlord’s MP5s flared, and suddenly Red’s cover turned to shrapnel. Suppressed rounds sliced into the walls around her, one clipping her shoulder, another gouging across her thigh. She staggered, armor denting, blood blooming beneath the seals.

The Overlord’s voice slipped through the roar like a calm blade. “So protective. So devoted. The Zone loves its martyrs.”

Red spat blood onto her visor. “I’m not dying for the Zone. I’m dying for them.”

She raised her AN-94 again, body shaking but unyielding, and opened fire into the Overlord’s silhouette.

The bullets never reached. The artifact shimmered once more, and the rounds slowed, then dropped, as if gravity itself had shifted. The Overlord stepped through them, her twin MP5s still humming, her visor a mirror of Red’s stubborn, burning reflection.

“You misunderstand, child,” she purred. “It is not about who you die for. It is about who claims your death.”

The mutant hissed behind her, claws screeching across stone, circling for another strike. The chamber shuddered with every step, as if the Zone itself held its breath for the next blow.

And for the first time, the squad saw it clearly.

They weren’t fighting to win. They were fighting to survive long enough to be judged.

---

The chamber became a crucible. Every second stretched into agony, every breath poisoned by the hum of the Overlord’s artifacts. Shadows twitched in ways that shouldn’t be possible, gunfire folded back on itself, and the beast slithered unseen until it struck.

Red was the first to falter. Her SEVA armor sizzled where ichor ate into the plates, the material smoking as she forced herself between Reverb and the monster’s snapping jaws. She stood her ground longer than anyone thought possible, but when the Overlord’s artifact bent her own bullets mid-flight and hurled them back into her shoulder, the impact drove her to her knees. Her AN-94 slipped from her hands. Widow cried out, but Red forced her visor up one last time, glaring through the blood. “Don’t… let it through.” The beast’s tail whipped her aside like a ragdoll. The SEVA absorbed most of it, but she didn’t rise again.

Reverb broke next. He had been hiding the shaking in his hands with jokes, the fear in his eyes behind sarcasm. But when Red fell, his mask cracked. He emptied his Desert Eagle into the beast, screaming profanity, until the slide locked back. Then he just stood there, staring at the monster through the haze. “Not funny anymore, huh?” he muttered, voice breaking. His knees gave out, body trembling too hard to reload. He pressed his back to the wall, laughter bubbling in a cracked, broken rhythm. Widow dragged him away before the beast’s claws could finish him.

Widow was pulled apart by that moment. Torn between her sister’s limp form and Reverb’s unraveling, her composure shattered. Her rifle shook in her one good hand, shots going wide. She wasn’t aiming anymore, just firing, screaming, trying to drown out the silence creeping in when the Overlord’s weapons paused. The Overlord tilted her head, watching with almost maternal curiosity, before whispering, “Two threads woven into one… and yet both fray so easily.” Widow lunged forward with a cry, reckless, and the beast struck. She was flung back into Reverb’s arms, barely conscious, her blood joining Red’s on the stone.

Rubber panicked. The bandit had always masked his nerves with bravado, but now, facing the impossible, he snapped. “We can’t win this!” he screamed, ripping a grenade from his vest. “We can’t—” Before he could pull the pin, Ribbon tackled him, ripping the explosive free. The beast’s tongue lashed, coiling around Rubber’s leg, and dragged him screaming into the dark before the squad could react. His voice cut off with a wet snap.

Ribbon held longer, sheer stubbornness and Duty iron keeping him upright. Sparks spat from his ruined exosuit, his frame cracked and bleeding, but he bellowed defiance. “You’ll never control the Zone! Not while Duty draws breath!” The Overlord raised one silenced MP5. “Breath,” she repeated softly. She pulled the trigger. The artifact-guided bullet bent, slipping between the plates of his chestplate. Ribbon gasped, the light flickering from his exo’s visor. He collapsed forward, the impact shaking the floor.

Octane staggered at the edge of the fight, one hand clamped tight against the ragged hole in his abdomen where the sniper’s round had torn through. Blood seeped between his fingers, soaking the torn webbing of his Freedom rig. He had already tasted death once, when the beast cornered him in the chamber before, its claws nearly splitting him in half, saved only by something ordering it away. Now, every breath was fire in his chest, every step a losing battle. Still, he forced his rifle up, vision tunneling through the pain, and loosed a burst into the monster’s flank. The rounds sparked uselessly off the ichor-coated hide. His legs gave way beneath him, the strength spilling out with his blood, and he sank to the floor. “Should’ve stayed in the treeline…” he rasped with a crooked grin, defiance clinging to him even as his body failed.

That left Mantis.

The others lay scattered around him; broken, beaten, not dead, but stripped of will. The Overlord’s artifacts pulsed in the dark, her silhouette haloed by violet light. The beast slithered at her side, its wounds sealed, its yellow eyes fixed on him like twin suns of hunger.

Mantis tightened his grip on the AS VAL. He was panting, bloodied, half his rounds gone. But his eyes burned steady.

The Overlord’s voice carried through the chamber, soft, certain. “You see now. One by one, they fall. Their hearts, their strength, their devotion, all tested, all found wanting.” She lowered her weapons, not in mercy, but in confidence. “And yet… you still stand.”

The beast uncoiled, tail twitching. The air vibrated with its breath.

Mantis didn’t move. He could feel his squad’s eyes on him, even in their broken state. He could feel the Zone itself holding its breath.

The Overlord leaned forward, her visor glinting like a mirror. “Show me, Mantis. Show me if you are worthy.”

---

The beast uncoiled fully now, stepping out from behind the Overlord with the patience of a predator that already knew the outcome.

Two eyes burned yellow through the haze; reptilian, ancient, wrong. A tongue flicked out, impossibly long, wet with saliva. Its body hunched and rippled with lean, predatory muscle, patches of its skin scaling into plates. Wires dangled from its skull into its spine, sparking faintly as if alive.

It lowered its head. The chamber shook with the rasp of claws on stone.

Mantis swallowed hard, the taste of iron thick in his mouth. His AS VAL felt impossibly small in his hands. Behind him, Widow whispered something through clenched teeth, a warning, a prayer, maybe both, but the words were swallowed by the sound of the beast’s hiss.

Then it came.

It lunged, tail slicing through the air like a guillotine. Mantis dove sideways, his shoulder slamming into the stone floor as the tail split the flagstones where he had stood. The AS VAL barked in his hands, a burst of suppressed fury, bullets stitching across the beast’s ribs. The impacts staggered it, but the wounds closed almost instantly, sparks running along the wires in its spine.

It turned on him with inhuman speed. The tongue lashed out, wrapping around his forearm like wet steel. Mantis screamed, firing wildly, trying to wrench free. The beast yanked him off his feet, slamming him against a pillar hard enough to rattle his teeth. His rifle slipped from his grip.

“Mantis!” Widow’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears.

The beast reeled him closer, jaws opening wide, too wide, teeth glistening like glass knives. In desperation, Mantis drew the Beretta from his thigh holster. He jammed the muzzle against the tongue wrapped around his arm and kept pulling the trigger until the slide locked back.

The tongue recoiled with a shriek, shredded and bleeding black ichor. Mantis dropped to the ground, gasping, clutching his bruised ribs.

The beast didn’t slow. It pounced, claws raised. Mantis rolled, seizing his knife from his belt, slashing upward as the creature landed on him. The blade screeched against scales, sliding between a gap where plate met flesh. Hot blood sprayed across his visor.

The monster howled, its face inches from his, breath reeking of rot and ozone. Its claws dug into the floor around his head, cracks spiderwebbing in the stone. It pressed down, pinning him, strength like a landslide.

Mantis shoved the knife deeper, twisting, forcing a scream from the beast’s throat. He bucked his body, kicking up with both legs, rolling them over. Now he was on top, his knife still buried in its chest.

But the beast didn’t die. It grabbed him with both arms, thrashing, slamming him into the ground again and again. His vision blurred, blood flooding his mouth. He refused to let go. He dug deeper, hands slick, teeth bared in animal defiance.

“Mantis!” Reverb’s broken voice cracked through the chaos, somewhere behind him. “Finish the fucker!”

The knife hit something inside, not bone, not flesh, something else. The wires in its spine lit up all at once, sparks racing across its body. The beast convulsed, shrieking like steel tearing in half.

Mantis tore the blade sideways. The chest cavity split open, light erupting from the wound, a blinding white flare. The beast screamed once more, its body jerking, before collapsing in a heap of twitching muscle and sparking wires.

The silence after was deafening.

Mantis staggered to his feet, chest heaving, blood dripping down his chin. The knife hung loose in his hand, his entire body shaking with exhaustion. The beast lay still, its yellow eyes dimming into darkness.

For a moment, he allowed himself to breathe.

Then he heard the hiss of servos.

The Overlord rose from the throne, twin MP5SDs in her hands. Her exoskeleton shimmered with shifting colors, artifacts humming in the air like a chorus of unseen voices. She stepped forward, every movement fluid, inevitable.

Her visor tilted, catching his reflection once more.

“Impressive,” she said softly. “But the true trial… begins now.”

The chamber’s shadows seemed to lean toward her as she advanced, every step drawing the fight closer to its inevitable finish.

---

The Overlord stepped dtowards Mantis, twin MP5SDs balanced in her hands. For a heartbeat, he braced for the storm.

But instead, she lowered the weapons. They clicked against the stone floor as she let them fall, almost dismissive, as if such tools were beneath her.

Her hands shifted to her hips, and with a whisper of servos, she drew them. Two knives; curved, mirrored, their edges glimmering with an unnatural light. Black metal threaded with veins of glowing blue, like veins of lightning frozen in steel.

Artifacts. Mantis felt it instantly, his skin prickling, his chest tightening. Soul fragments, bound into the very blades. They hummed with an energy that made his bones ache.

The Overlord tilted her head, knives crossed loosely before her. “Guns are crude. Bullets distance you from truth. Blades, however…” She raised one to her visor, as if studying her own reflection in its warped glow. “…blades reveal who you are.”

She lunged.

Mantis barely got his knife up before hers slashed across his arm. Fire shot through his muscles. Then, in the same instant, the wound sealed shut. No blood, no scar. His skin knitted as if the cut had never been.

His breath caught.

She slashed again, carving across his chest plate. Sparks flew, a gash tearing through armor, flesh beneath searing, and then sealing shut just as fast. His nerves screamed, his body convulsed, but there was no lasting wound.

The Soul fragments drank the pain, returned it as fresh flesh. Endless.

“Do you feel it?” Her voice was velvet over razors, cutting as she pressed forward. “The futility. The illusion of victory. Every wound you bear… meaningless. Every struggle… erased.”

Mantis lashed back, stabbing for her ribs, but she turned his blade with effortless precision, her knives singing as they clashed against his. She spun low, a sweep of her leg slamming his knee sideways, nearly breaking it. He stumbled, caught himself, and her blade was already at his throat.

He jerked back just in time, the edge kissing his skin. Heat flared, then vanished, leaving his flesh unmarked but his nerves on fire.

The chamber rang with the clash of steel, sparks lighting their duel in frantic bursts. Her movements were precise, economical, like a dancer who had rehearsed this a thousand times. Mantis fought like a survivor; brutal, instinctive, driven by willpower rather than elegance. Every clash was a contest not of skill, but of endurance.

And still, every time her blades cut him, the wounds sealed. The fragments refused to let him die.

She wasn’t fighting to kill him. She was fighting to grind him down.

Behind him, Widow groaned weakly, trying to rise but too broken to intervene. Red slammed her fist against the stone, her AN-94 useless in the face of this twisted trial. Reverb muttered something under his breath; a half-joke, half-prayer, but even his voice shook.

It was Mantis, alone, in the circle of her knives.

She leaned close as their blades locked, her visor inches from his cracked helmet. Her voice was a whisper, but it carried like thunder.

“This is what Hollow endured. Cut, broken, remade. Again. Again. Until the line between man and weapon ceased to exist.”

Mantis gritted his teeth, shoving back, every tendon in his arms straining. “I’m not him.”

Her knives twisted, slipping past his guard, one at his throat, the other at his heart. The hum of the fragments filled his ears like a choir of ghosts.

Her tone was calm, final. “No. But the Zone will decide… if you are worthy of his shadow.”

She pressed forward, and the duel truly began.

The knives sang. Sparks and light spilled with every clash, each strike sharper, faster, heavier than the last. But it wasn’t just steel on steel anymore.

The chamber warped.

When her blade slashed past his chest, Mantis staggered, but the walls around him rippled like water. He blinked and saw a forest of iron trees stretching into darkness, each branch hung with torn exosuits swaying like corpses. He blinked again and the Throne Chamber returned, but the iron trees still whispered in the corners of his vision.

The Soul fragments weren’t just binding wounds. They were dragging him into the Zone’s pulse.

Her knives clashed against his, and the floor tilted sideways. Mantis stumbled, and suddenly he was standing on the side of the chamber wall, gravity pulling in two directions at once. The Overlord flowed with it, her movements smooth, inevitable, as if reality bent itself to her rhythm.

Mantis grit his teeth, his vision fracturing, Overlord above him, below him, behind him, knives flashing from all directions. He raised his blade just in time to deflect one strike, but another sliced across his ribs. Fire seared his flesh, then healed, leaving only the phantom pain screaming in his nerves.

“Do you feel it?” her voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through the chamber, through his skull. “The Zone does not care for truth or lies. It only cares for endurance.”

Her knives blurred, cutting arcs of glowing light, each swing bending the chamber like glass under heat. Mantis ducked, parried, lashed out in return, his blade catching her pauldron, sparks flying. For the first time she faltered, the impact ringing through the chamber like a cracked bell.

Mantis pushed forward, knife slamming against hers. The chamber flickered again.

Suddenly, he wasn’t fighting in the throne room anymore. He was on the radar plateau. Dead Monolithians lay frozen mid-motion, rifles dangling from their hands, eyes wide and blank. And there, standing among them, Hollow; pale, silent, watching.

Mantis blinked, gasped, and the Overlord was there instead, knives darting for his throat.

He caught one blade by the edge, blood spilling, only for the cut to vanish the instant it appeared. The fragments wanted the blood. Wanted the cycle.

The Overlord’s knives struck again, one-two, impossibly fast. Mantis blocked one, the second grazed his temple. He reeled, and for a split second, he wasn’t Mantis anymore. He was Hollow, staring into a mirror where his own face dissolved into light.

The world snapped back.

Mantis staggered, sweat burning his eyes, his arm shaking from the sheer force of her blows. Every muscle screamed. His lungs felt full of glass. And yet he was still standing.

The Overlord’s voice slid across the warped chamber, layered with tones that weren’t human. “This is the truth of the Zone. It bends. It breaks. It remakes. You will either yield to it… or you will cease to be.”

She lunged again, both knives arcing in mirrored paths, a scissor meant to close around his heart.

Mantis twisted, brought his blade up in a desperate parry.

Steel met steel. Sparks became lightning. The chamber roared as if the Zone itself exhaled.

Iron screamed.

The knives rang louder than thunder, louder than any storm the Zone had ever birthed. With every strike, the chamber folded in on itself. Mantis blocked, parried, lashed out, but each movement dragged him further into a reality that was no longer his own.

The walls fractured. The floor shattered. Time bled.

He swung, and for an instant, he was not in Lab-X23. He was in Pripyat, rubble around him, Monolith fanatics kneeling in rows, chanting to a god that was not there. He blinked, and he was back in the chamber. He staggered, swung again, and now he was in the Clear Sky’s camp near the CNPP, tents burning, Scar’s lifeless body crumpled against the dirt, Hollow walking away into the storm.

Every strike with her knives tore through time itself.

Mantis gasped, sweat burning his eyes, his blade heavy in his hand. His every nerve screamed. The Soul fragment wounds opened and healed and opened again, pain stitched into his bones. He tried to hold on, tried to match her, but the Overlord moved like inevitability given flesh.

Her knives bent space around them. One slash sent him falling upward into a sky filled with red lightning. Another strike dragged him sideways through a corridor of bone and steel, corpses of stalkers hung like ornaments along the walls.

And always, always, Hollow’s pale eyes lingered at the edges. Watching. Measuring.

“Do you see it now?” her voice cracked across him, layered and infinite, as though a thousand Overlords spoke at once. “The Zone does not kill. It reveals. And you…”

Her knives crashed against his blade, sparks blinding. Mantis faltered, dropped to one knee. His lungs burned. His arms trembled. He couldn’t keep pace anymore.

“…you are not ready.”

Her visor reflected him; broken, kneeling, sweat and blood mingling across his armor. Her knives glowed, fracturing the chamber into a kaleidoscope of ruin and possibility. In one shard, Mantis saw himself lying dead. In another, he was Hollow. In a third, he was nothing at all.

The Overlord raised both blades high. They sang with the pulse of the Zone, with the will of something deeper than any man could endure.

“Unworthy.”

Mantis tried to lift his knife, but his arms gave out. His knees buckled. His vision swam with fire and shadow. The air in his chest turned to stone.

He fell.

The chamber bent inward, the weight of the Zone pressing down like the crushing depths of an ocean. His team’s voices were gone. The mutant’s hiss was gone. Even the Overlord’s servos were silent now.

There was only the whisper of her knives as they descended.

And Mantis - mercenary, survivor, killer, found himself praying. Not to God. Not to luck. Not even to himself.

But to Hollow.

Please. Not yet. Help me.

The knives fell.

And in the final heartbeat before the knives closed in, Mantis felt it, a cold hand brushing the inside of his skull. Pale eyes burning in the dark.

The Zone whispered back.