You've all seen the photos, the ruined buildings, the darkened landscape, pitiful skeletons of those lucky enough to have died during the incident. Hell, you might've even seen a mutant or two that got leaked to the press. Let me tell you something though, those pictures of the Zone mean nothing until you find yourself in the midst of it. You can't even begin to imagine what it's like when you see the first mutant dragging itself towards you.

I can still remember that day, only a year and half ago. It was just me and my buddy, Sergei. We were walking down an old abandoned road stepping over potholes and keeping an eye out for any signs of trouble. We hadn't run into anything that day except dead bodies and dried blood. We hadn't even come across a single artifact that we could sell.

I was just skipping over a water filled hole when Sergei stopped dead. He dropped to one knee and brought his weapon up to his shoulder. I searched the streets ahead of him, looking for what it was that had spooked him. I saw nothing but old ruined buildings; no sign of movement. Sergei pointed down the street at his target, I didn't have time to look, however. Three sharp cracks echoed down the road and a horrendous, unearthly cry shot back at us. Sergei didn't say a word, he just sat there in the middle of the street, looking down the iron sights of his weapon.

"What was it!" I asked him. Sergei turned and looked at me when I said that. I couldn't see his face because he wore a gas mask, but when he spoke it was apparent he was scared.

"I think I just shot one of ours," he replied. What he meant really was that he had just taken down another Stalker, a friendly.

"Let's have a look," I replied. Sergei nodded very slowly, standing up as he did.

"Lead the way!" I pointed down the street. Sergei nodded again and began trotting toward a small gray building. It wasn't too far from where he had fired, maybe a hundred and fifty meters. My heart was racing by the time we arrived at the doorway. I saw the blood and the three bullet holes in the wall from Sergei's gun.

Sergei was the first to go in when we saw that there was no body. He moved carefully into the building keeping his weapon at the ready. I moved in after him, covering out tails.

We had come into a former gas station, an old one from the fifties probably. It was gloomy inside, the windows provided the only light which wasn't much. There were three rows of shelves and a cash register at the far end. Judging by the blood trail, we quickly determined that whatever it was had gone behind the register.

"Show yourself or we will fire!" Sergei yelled at the top of his lungs. We waited for a moment, and then something screamed from behind the counter. It wasn't human. My heart began pounding and I felt the rush of adrenaline being released into my veins.

"Cover our rears you fool!" Sergei said, realizing I was looking the same way as he. I returned to my duty, but was constantly looking over my shoulder as we inched towards the cash register.

Moments turned into eternity as we inched forward. The butt of my gun was pressing hard against my shoulder causing a dull pain there. My tensed muscles were losing their resolve and I fought the urge to run. The tension all began to peak as Sergei peered over the top of the cash register. Yet no gunfire came, the only sound was Sergei swearing.

"What the hell's going on!" I said over my shoulder.

"The bastard gave us the slip, went down into a hole!"

"Let me check it out!" I said. Sergei waited a moment to answer me, keeping an eye on the hole. When he was sure nothing was coming out, he tapped me on the shoulder to let me know he had our rear. I moved around the register, by the cigarettes and towards the hole.

It wasn't very large, maybe two feet wide, and it didn't go all that deep. I pulled a smoke grenade from my bandoleer and tossed it into the tunnel. It clunked on something metal at the bottom and began to disperse the smoke. The tunnel was filled in just a few moments with the gray fog, I hopped in.

There wasn't much to see at first. It takes a while for the smoke to clear out, especially in a tunnel that small. I turned on my flashlight and yelled for Sergei to come in with me as I crawled on my belly a little ways down. There was a scuffling of feet above me. I almost went to the mouth of the tunnel to see what the fuss was about but Sergei popped down right behind me a few moments later. He coughed a little from the smoke and slapped me on the foot and let me know he was in.

There wasn't much to see for the first few minutes that we were down there. There really wasn't much that you could see. The smoke still filled the tunnel and I was quickly regretting having tossed the grenade in there. Still I plodded on, Sergei right behind me.

Within about ten minutes of crawling through the tunnel, we finally came to a room. I gave the space a quick check for traps and any creatures that might be lurking in it. When I found nothing, I pulled myself from the tunnel and into the room. Sergei plopped down right after me. He never looked into the room though, just kept his eyes on the tunnel, covering our rears.

I shone my light across the floor of the room, looking for the blood trail that had led us into that tunnel. It took only a few moments to find it, though there was much less blood now, as though whatever it was we were hunting was healing itself. That might've made it human, but I certainly had my doubts.

The room turned out to be the basement of some house just across the street from the gas station. The house was in shambles. The first thing that I came upon when I stepped out of the cellar was the stairway, or lack thereof. It was more like a few stairs leading up and then a gaping hole. To my right the house was caved in, to my left there was the front door. Seeing no other options before me, I stepped out and practically stepped on the foot of our prey.

It wasn't facing me, otherwise it would've killed me. Instead I was lucky enough to get the drop on it. I pulled the trigger and let loose one bullet into its back. The thing toppled over and hit the cement shattering on impact. It was then that I realized I'd been tricked. What I had shot was no body, just a manikin set up in front of the house. I pondered briefly about what it was doing there but by the time I figured it out, it was too late.

Sergei was just coming through the door. Had he been facing forwards he would've seen it, but he had always insisted that somebody should keep on eye on the rear. He screamed in surprise when it grabbed him and his gun went off when his muscles tightened from the shock.

I turned and lined up a shot, but the creature moved Sergei into the line of fire. It hid briefly behind its victim before leaping up onto the roof and dragging my screaming companion across the rotting wood. I heard another shot and the beast screamed in agony. Then a deafening silence followed.

I just stood there looking at the roof with my gun pointing at the cement. I couldn't move myself from that spot, not thinking, not screaming. I just stood there and stared at the roof.

Then I heard the sounds of boots thudding against rotting wood. Sergei burst over the edge of the roof and landed in a heap beside me. He was wounded badly and was missing his rifle. He bled in nearly a dozen places. I was immediately by his side, pulling out my medical kit and bandaging him up as quickly as I could.

"Behind you!" he yelled out as I finished his last bandage. He pulled out his sidearm and shot three times into something behind my back. I rolled away from him and pulled up my rifle and got a full view of one of them.

It was human, but not. I could see features that had once been human, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. The skin had a bluish hue and here and there it was ripped up pretty bad from wounds. This one had been through a lot of fighting in its time.

Yet the one thing that I remember so clearly about is was its expression. It had the look of a man grimacing and laughing at the same time, almost as though it had two mouths. It was a fear inspiring sight, a dead man or at least what appeared to be a man, staring you directly in the face.

It ran at me with its jaws open wide. I shot it in the chest, but it kept coming, faster even. I didn't have time to pull the trigger again; it was on top of me before I knew it. I pushed it back, keeping its teeth away from my neck. It was all I could do to keep it from ripping me to shreds.

Its face got terribly close to mine, close enough that I could see the pupils of its eyes contracting. I brought my knife up and slashed it across his throat and then shoved the blade deep into its chin. Deep enough to see it travel through the bottom of its mouth and into the tongue. Then the damned thing screamed in my face and fell backwards grasping at the knife. I brought up my weapon and set it to fully automatic. I pulled the trigger and didn't stop until I heard the "click". The creature fell to its knees as I reloaded and began dragging itself towards me. I let him have it again, this time aiming for the head. There wasn't much left of it when I was finished my next clip and this time it didn't get up. I congratulated myself inwardly as I retrived my knife. I cleaned it quickly and turned to see how Sergei was doing.

He wasn't there.

I briefly looked around the building wondering if he had gone off seeking something else but to no avail. I went back down to the basement and found nothing. There was nothing down the tunnel either. I searched that town high and low, I even went up to the rooftop of the old city hall and looked over the rest of the town, trying to see if I could spot any sign of my friend.

I was rewarded in my search with only one trace of my former companion It was at the end of my hunt when I was preparing to leave town that I found his boot. I happened upon it as I was walking down the street which we had come into the town from. It had his name and blood type etched on the side, that's how I knew. Beside the boot were three shell casings, scattered on the cement. Where Sergei had fired the first three shots.

I never found Sergei's body or any other trace of him after the boot. I've been searching the Zone for him ever since that gloomy day. But, in eighteen months of seeking I still haven't found any clues to his whereabouts.

You wonder why I search for him? Because when I killed that zombie, I saw something reflected in its eye. Something I had not expected to see from such a creature. I could see regret… There was a man within that aberration; somewhere. Within that mutated being there was a tormented soul crying out, begging for me to kill it.

That is why I search for him. I believe he has become one of those things that prowls the Zone. I hunt him and the rest to deliver them from pain, for no man should be imprisoned within his own soul.