Chapter Text
Almost forty years had passed since the first discovery of the Zone. Back then it had been on everyone’s lips and on the front of every newspaper. It took the world by storm; something nobody could explain had showed up out of nowhere. Theories were thrown around due to the lack of uncertainty regarding aliens, radioactivity, nuclear testing, the end of the world and so many others.
Quickly the roughly 60 square kilometers that had been doubted ‘The Zone’, were closed off to the public and the place became a place for scientists of all kinds. They shared a common goal – find the source of the Zone and study its side effects. As such, minor settlements started to shoot up around the fenced off area, offering a place for the scientists and their families to live, and for whatever rift-raft were attracted by the wonders of the Zone.
The people who ventured into the Zone were either brave or incredibly dumb and so only few managed to return. In the beginning, human lives were traded for strange artifacts and trinkets found in the Zone. The scientists hadn’t minded but soon fewer and fewer people volunteered to venture into the Zone. The pay may be good, but money meant nothing if you didn’t get enjoy your payday on the other side of the job.
Already at this time, illegal activity had been conducted in the Zone by a group of people who became publicly known as simply ‘stalkers’. They worked for the money, smuggling loot out of the Zone and usually handing it over to a broker for a cut of the profit. This forced the military to eventually take some sort of action, stationing soldiers at the most obvious entrance points of the Zone. It barely made a dent into the activity of the stalkers.
Slowly the Zone started to fade from the public interest, replaced by other events and so life moved on. While progress was made in trying to figure out what the Zone was and it contained, it started to move down the list of priorities. All but two of the settlements were abandoned, though they weren’t for long as the stalkers moved in for a move permanent way of operating within the Zone. Most even ran legitimate businesses, opening a whole new frontier of possibilities.
Still, the mark of the Zone didn’t just stay contained within its designated 60 square kilometers. The people who had ventured in and come back out alive, who went on to live their life and start a family brought a piece of the Zone with them and passed it on to their children. Some of them came out normal, while others barely resemble humans in looks. It caused an uproar, forcing the attention back on the Zone and its supposed contamination. Nobody knew what to do with the children, and many of them ended up in orphanages or simply dropped off in a ditch somewhere.
It did however make stalking become a whole lot more profitable because of how the risk had now been raised, and it kept the profession alive. The stalkers got smarter in their ways of approaching the Zone, they learned its rules and how to obey and potentially bend them temporarily for their own survival.
Tension never evaporated between the military and the stalkers in the Zone. While the military wanted to push the stalkers out the Zone, the stalkers had the clear advantage. The Zone was their home turf, and so it was a battle that went on for years with no victors. It dwindled down to the other side simply being seen as nothing more than a mild nuisance.
The major settlements the stalkers occupied had been renamed Vostok and Yug, based on their respective location being east and south of the Zone. Yug had particularly blossomed into a business heaven for stalkers with brokers ready to ship their loot off to eager buyers. It also became a place for old stalkers to waste away in bars, drowning themselves in vodka while slurring stories of their own glory days to whoever turned out to be the unfortunate soul seated next to them.
Still, Yug was a place you could be lucky to find a potential partner for stalking and it was how Sokol had found himself standing outside a shabby looking establishment. The paint was flaking off the façade of the building, revealing weathered wood that would probably rot away sooner rather than later. Like the building, Sokol himself had been touched by the Zone. The left side of his face and head was covered in something that looked like burns, but it shifted slowly underneath his skin, like it was alive.
Pushing the door open, he stepped inside and looked around. The place had seen better days, but upkeep was hardly anyone’s priority out here. There were a few patrons scattered around, and he recognized a couple. It was a small world they all shared and knowing most stalkers by name was hardly something to be considered a feat.
“You are the guy, right?” Sokol asked with accented English, approaching the man by the bar. He seemed as miserable as the rest of them, though he had made an effort to look like somebody who had a tad bit of money if his suit was anything to go by. The man in question looked to be a handful of years older than Sokol with sharp features and piercing eyes.
“If you are Sokol, then yeah – I am ‘the guy’,” he huffed in return, twirling an empty glass between his hands.
Sokol grunted in confirmation as he took a seat next to the American.
“What brings you to the Zone then, American?”
“Listen, I do actually have a name an—”
“I don’t want to know your name,” Sokol interrupted, making a gesture to the bartender to pour him a glass of vodka. “Where you from? Otherwise I’ll just call you American.”
“Chicago.”
Sokol looked at the man, blinking slowly, before downing his glass of vodka in a single motion.
“No, no. It’s like the musical, won’t do…”
“I lived in Dallas for a while—”
“Yes. Dallas. You are Dallas,” making a gesture between them, Sokol extended his hand to the American, Dallas, “and I am Sokol.”
Dallas shook Sokol’s hand, his handshake firm and to the point. Sokol flashed him a grin before turning to look at the bartender again. He made a motion for the man to refill both of their glasses.
“We leave at dawn. Finish up your business and pray to your Gods that you’ll make it out on the other side,” Sokol filled the silence, spinning the glass between his hands before downing it as well. “I will meet you by the train tracks.” With those words Sokol patted Dallas’ shoulder and left the building. The air outside made him shudder, pulling the jacket closer around himself.
Tomorrow would be a long day.