Chapter Text
The village was relatively calm this early. In the morning mist, Mina could make out a few small groups of Stalkers who, like her, were getting ready to head out on their errands for the day. Clearly it had rained last night, as the sky was foggy and overcast, and Mina felt her boots sink a centimeter or two into the ground as she began her trek north of the village, passing by the ‘Trash Compactor’ they had gone with Lynx to yesterday. An hour or two out from the village, the PDA in her pocket gave off a beep. She fished it from her pocket, finding that it now displayed a simple message from ‘Ecologists.’
"Expecting an emission in 8-14 hours, be sure to remain sheltered around those times." Yet another hour later, the tree coverage began to grow lighter and lighter, being replaced by tall swamp grass. She stopped, looking for some elevation to survey her surroundings from, and saw a squat hill, which she stumbled her way up with some difficulty as the dirt squelched under her feet. From the top of the hill she saw a gloomy swamp landscape, extending out several kilometers before her. Reeds and tall grass obscured much of the terrain, and about 200 meters away she could see a small "village" as it were; three miserable little shacks, and what looked to be an oversized chicken coop. A campfire was lit between the shacks, and she could see a group of three men sitting, laughing and drinking around it. She didn't recognize the men from the village, though she could not make out much about them from that distance, save that the patches on their sleeves seemed to have some sort of gold shape on them, so she cautiously made her way forward, giving the small village a wide berth, using the abundant tall grass for concealment as she continued on her way to the machine yard.
The rustling of the swamp was unnerving to her. The reeds made it hard to see far ahead of her, and the sounds of animals stalking in the grass was ever present. Just ahead, she could hear a handful of them. They were out of sight, but they sounded like pigs, although their footfalls seemed a bit too heavy to be any regular pig. Remembering their very first encounter with the zone's wildlife, particularly the local pig population, Mina immediately raised her rifle as she crept forward. She came to a small clearing in the grass, and saw a herd of four pinkish, massively bloated pig-like creatures with hideous deformed faces. They stood on four tall legs that ended in chitinous claws, and seemed to be foraging in the grass. As one laid its eyes on her, it let out a disconcerting high-pitched screech, however instead of becoming aggressive, the herd merely scattered in fear, leaving her alone in the clearing.
"Yo-Moyo... Wait till Klara gets a load of this..." She muttered to herself before continuing on. The silhouette of the machine yard was now visible through the fog. It took her another half hour, roughly, to reach the yard. As she peered out at it from the grass, she saw a large red brick building, about two stories, with a sheet metal roof, overlooking a field filled with rusted out husks of cars, which likely had not run since the disaster back in the 80s. Seeing no immediate activity out in the yard, she figured if the place was occupied by anyone, they were inside the brick building, and so she began her investigation, meticulously checking the perimeter of the yard for any sign of Sidorovich's guy.
It did not take long at all for her investigation to yield signs of a struggle. Around a smoldering campfire, a few dozen meters from the yard, she found bullet casings, and a long, shallow drag mark in the mud leading right back to the entrance of the brick building.
"Blyat... Just my luck..." She sighed, before cautiously following the tracks around the backside of the building. As she reached the door, Mina could hear some chatter inside, two guys speaking in Ukrainian to each other. They were complaining about being low on smokes, and chatting about a girl they both seemed to like, at least that was as much as Mina could make out. She looked over her shoulder, checking her 6 one last time before silently creeping in, scanning from one corner of the room to the other. Through a narrow doorway, she saw the two soldiers standing in a parallel room. One of them was smoking as they continued shooting the shit, and neither of them seemed to notice her yet, though Mina did see a door on the opposite wall behind them, meaning that this complex went much further on than just these two rooms. Silently aiming her AK through the doorway, Mina finally spoke up. "Privetstviye Prezidenta Vladimira Putina!" She said aloud, spraying the first one down with her AK just as he took the final drag from his cigarette. His body crumpled to the ground, sending his buddy reeling as he raised his rifle, only to get hosed down with another burst less than a second later, falling next to his comrade. The facility fell silent as Mina ceased fire. Moving into the second room, Mina found that both men were dressed in AFU uniforms in three-color 'Amoeba' camo, with balaclavas and combat helmets. The first guy had been carrying an AKMS, and the second, a PPS-43. Poor him.
Going through the opposite door, she found it led to a T-shaped hallway, lined with storerooms, bathrooms and the like. Now she was extra meticulous in checking her flanks, all-too-aware of the disadvantageous situation she was in. Making her way down the hallway at an agonizingly slow pace, she eventually reached the T-split, and began carefully making her way down the right branch. Just then, however, she heard a door swing open behind her, followed by angry footsteps echoing down the hall.
"Alright, which one of you thought it would be funny to put the fucking dead guy in my bed?!" Mina heard a womans voice, with a distinct Russian accent, shout before she swiftly turned heel, aiming her AK right at a tall, black-haired girl who was making her way down the opposite hall.
"Stop right there!" Mina ordered, and the woman froze mid-stride. Mina could see that she too had on AFU fatigues. The woman gave Mina a nervous glance before raising her hands above her head.
"Should have figured pig-brain fell asleep in his shift again..." Mina heard her mutter.
"I don't have time for jokes! Now tell me where that stalker you took prisoner is!" Mina barked, gesturing with her AK threateningly.
"The loner?" The woman soldier asked. Another peek at Mina's shoulder, and the new patch she had on it, had her looking a tad more concerned "Well I'm afraid he's quite dead. I didn't remember going to sleep with him, alive or dead. I figure one of the boys shot him in the night and thought it was hilarious to put him in with me." She stated, doing her best to sound solemn about it, afraid that the guy was one of Mina's buddies, or something, and that if she was not careful with her words, she was liable to catch a bullet.
"Blyat... bloody waste of time" Mina muttered, dispelling the girl's concerns. "Well if that's so, it's a good thing I got revenge for him in the next room. Now his ghost won't haunt me... or whatever." She said with a shrug.
"Oh! Then I suppose you've made my mind up for me." The woman said, her tone abruptly changing to be much more upbeat, as she gradually dropped her arms back to her side, which Mina allowed her to do, since she did not seem to be carrying anything she could hurt her with. Then Mina watched as she proceeded to tear the velcro army patch from her shoulder, casually discarding it on the floor. "Well... Care for a drink then?" She asked nonchalantly. Mina raised an eyebrow quizzically, still keeping the barrel of her AK trained on the woman.
"You're saying you're not AFU?" She asked.
"Oh, I am, or well, was. But do you hear me speaking Ukrainian?" The woman asked with a sigh. "I can explain it but... Not without a drink. Go secure my weapons if you're so concerned about that, they're in the room." Mina followed her cautiously back out into the foyer, as it were, where she quickly stowed the weapons of the two dead soldiers.
"I assume there's no one else here?" She asked, to which the woman nodded. With that, Mina made her way back down the hall, taking a left down the opposite branch, where she found the door which she came out of wide open. Making her way inside, she found what looked to be a makeshift sleeping quarters, which seemed to have been lived in for an extended period by now. There was a bedframe with a nasty naked mattress on it, which had a sleeping bag on top, and just as the woman had said, sprawled out on the floor next to the bed was the body of a young man in a brown leather jacket, with the now-familiar loner patch on his shoulder.
On the nightstand sat a disassembled Makarov, and against the foot of the bed leaned what Mina recognized as one of those 100-series AKs, though she could not tell exactly which one. Additionally, she found a duffle bag with what seemed to be the woman's personal belongings, sanitary, food supplies, two bottles of vodka, and some clothes and the like. Last but not least, she found an AK bayonet stowed under her pillow. Mina grabbed the bayonet, before reassembling the pistol and sticking it in her waistband, figuring that it would make the perfect weapon for her sister. Next, she set about the grisly work of looting the Loner's corpse, but after turning out his pockets, the only things of value she found were his PDA, and a mostly-smoked pack of Marlboros, nonetheless, she pocketed both, sure that the PDA would be valuable to someone, before at last rejoining her new 'friend' back out in the main room.
"Finished your looting?" The woman asked, looking up at Mina as she reentered. Now, she was sitting at a table, with a bottle of Nemiroff Vodka in front of her. Remembering her previous offer, Mina sat down across from her. "So, Stalker, what's your deal? You speak Russian, and you move like a soldier." The woman inquired, taking a sip straight from the bottle, before passing it off to Mina.
"I'm a Hobbit from the Shire, couldn't you tell? Why don't you go first? I have a feeling your story will be way more compelling anyway." Mina said, likewise taking a swig as the black-haired woman rolled her eyes at the jab.
"Corporal Anastasia. I'm from Mariupol. Signed up in 2013, and was given these horrible clothes made for men." She complained, pinching and tugging at the sides of her uniform top for emphasis. Mina could tell that she seemed generally more well endowed than she or her sister, which probably did not help her man-clothes problem."My turn." Anastasia said impatiently, reaching her hand out for the bottle.
"Mariupol huh..." Mina muttered as she passed the bottle back to her. "I'm Merry. The other Stalkers call me that, and you can too. You were right about me being a soldier, but that has nothing to do with me being here."
"I'd assume so, given I hadn't heard about Belarus storming across the border. So, why exactly are you here?" Anastasia asked before lifting the bottle and taking a good swig, followed by another before she sat it back down, letting out a small cough into her elbow.
"I run an upscale tobacco shop in Moscow. Looking for a new and exciting location to start up a franchise." Mina said, casually lighting up one of the dead Loners Marlboros and taking a puff, before offering the last one to Ana. "Care to sample my wares?" she asked, before taking another sip, making a conscious effort to take it a lot slower and more moderately than her new friend.
"Moscow eh?" I figured you weren't Ukrainian... So you came willingly. Made mistakes you're trying to escape?" Ana prodded, although not in an accusatory manner, as she reached across the table to take the last cigarette, the alcohol seeming to have mellowed her out a bit.
"Oh yes... you see, back when I was in the army, I was involved in a secret Soviet project to interbreed humans with chimps to make a new breed of supersoldiers... instead we made Chechens, and now I'm wanted for crimes against humanity." Mina said with a straight face, blowing a plume of smoke out her nostrils, as Ana rolled her eyes.
"It's going to be hard to be open with you if you're just going to make jokes the whole time..." Ana muttered, putting the cigarette between her lips, before leaning forward to light it on the tip of Mina's. "Even if we get plastered… Unless you're getting me to drink to fuck me, like the guys used to try."
"And what about you? You think I buy that you just decided to defect from the army because you hated the uniforms?" Mina interjected, to which Ana once more rolled her eyes, taking another swig.
"You're Russian. I'd figure you'd have pieced it together by now." She sighed. "But fine. As I stated, I come from Mariupol. My parents were from Arkhangelsk, moved in by the Soviet administration at the time... So I was taught Russian, I feel Russian, but here I am in Ukraine. I didn't care much initially." She said, taking a long drag before continuing. "Education was fine till I got to secondary, then suddenly, I wasn't allowed to speak or write in Russian, they would only accept Ukrainian. I did try initially but the way those Kiev teachers ridiculed us for our speech got me to just give up on the whole ordeal. So, finding no desire to work my life away at the local McDonalds, I signed up for the military. Didn’t stop the mockery but they gave you chances to vent out that frustration at least... Then, Donbass came. Our unit was ordered to move there, but I was quite literally pulled out by my collar from the back of the carrier, told I was a risk to their operation, and got sent out here instead, since I already signed the deployment order..." She ranted, working herself up quite a bit as she glossed over the various individual offenses, reaching for the bottle again.
"I get it..." Mina interjected, slowly resting her hand on Ana's. "Donbass... guess we narrowly missed shooting at eachother then..." Mina finished off her cigarette, crushing the butt in her palm before discarding it on the floor. "I came here with my sister... before then I was living in Omsk, barely scraping by after my war injury left me unable to work... then one day she showed up at my door saying that she had a job; that there was money to be made here in this zone. We didn't realize what we were getting ourselves into."
"O-Oh... Did you... Lose her here..?" Ana asked, leaning forward with a concerned look on her face.
"W-wha- no- that's not-" Mina sputtered, realizing how she made it sound. "No... we're just... new here... all of this is... still very new to us."
"Oh! well that's good. Wouldn't recommend splitting up here personally, people just vanish. One of our guys went to take a piss one night and just never came back. Couldn't find a body either." Ana said, likewise discarding her cigarette butt off to the side as she settled back into her chair.
"Can't say it was different for me. The brass didn't tell us jack shit about what to expect, just that most everyone in here was either government or to be treated as a terrorist. You guys too, for the most part." She said, gesturing to the patch on Mina's shoulder.
"Well if the rest of your colleagues are of the same caliber of those two in the foyer, I'm not too worried about that, no offense..." Mina said. "What i'm really worried about is my sister... She..." Mina let out a sigh, finishing off the bottle. "she doesn't know how to shoot a gun, and she gets sick at the sight of blood..."
Ana frowned, clumsily getting up from her stool and making her way over to a nearby shelf, from which she procured another bottle, before coming back and scooting her stool to the other side of the table to sit next to Mina.
"So you came here with a girl who won't, or can't, defend herself but you're still here alone? I've seen the types that live in this place, so I hope you found a nice bunker for her to sit in till you're back... Or did you just want some time alone?" She asked, seemingly genuinely curious about Mina's predicament as she cracked open the second bottle.
"There's another woman where we're staying." Mina said. "Figured leaving her there was the least dangerous option I had. Someone has to make the money, and the people who run the place say we owe them for saving us."
"If you think so, I guess... I don't know much about most of the little settlements here. The Lieutenant always told us to keep our distance and just deal with straggles, thin the herd and all that... Be they the usual stalkers, anarchists or lowlives." She said, taking the first swig, before handing the bottle to Mina, but Mina held her hand up, declining anymore.
"So what happens now?" She asked. "Surely your commanders will soon notice that this place got hit, and that you're missing, with all the booze to boot…."
"Pfft, that's simple." Ana said, happily accepting the monopoly on the vodka. "I'm a girl, you, the big guy that you are, coming here to kill us, wasn't going to let one of those go to waste." She said with a giggle. "Also, don't forget to take my patch as well. I heard they have a contract with some of the traders here to track their losses.” she said, taking another sip, taking it slower now that she knew she had it all to herself. "Good to know..." Mina said. "...about the patch I mean."
Mina got up from her chair, heading back into the hallway to collect the patch before rejoining her friend.
"I should be glad you aren't actually a guy... Though i wish these weren't as prominent, i feel like a fucking magnet sometimes." She said, looking down at her chest.
"I can only imagine how they feel in a plate carrier..." Mina said, having truthfully spent most of their time together stealthily oggling the inebriated soldier’s assets while she was distracted.
"Heh, am I lucky there's a shortage of those..." Ana replied as Mina made her way past the table, once more taking her rifle in hand as she got ready to head back out, hoping to beat that emission she heard about earlier.
"Well uhh... good luck... wherever you end up going..."
"Thanks. Perhaps i'll see you around some time. I think I might try and see if those anarchists up north are willing to take me." Ana replied, giving her a little wave as she made her way back out into the swamps.
Outside, it was quiet. Aside from some very distant gunshots popping off, things seemed calmer than before she went in. The pigs, or whatever they were, were nowhere to be seen as she retraced her steps, sticking to the tall grass for concealment, however, as she made her way along her original path, she suddenly heard the sound of dozens of wings fluttering as a large flock of ravens flew furtively overhead, then the ground started to rumble, as the sky gradually darkened. Either she had spent a lot longer than she had realized with her new friend, or those 'Ecologists' had miscalculated when that emission would be. She came to a halt, wasting precious seconds looking back at the machine yard, which was now far behind her; much too far to make it there in time, she reckoned, then her gaze turned to the little shithole village she had seen before. It looked to be empty now, but she had not forgotten the men she had seen before in it, but with no other option, she began to tentatively make her way towards the village for shelter...