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.......so there I was, rookie stalker with my shiny new gear and invincible attitude, man they laughed at me at the border posts.....one of the troops, grizzled old guy looked like he’d been born in the zone, anyways he walks right up to me and says “look boy, you ain’t gonna last 2 hours in there, your new gear might look good now but to the things in there its like a beacon, look at your pack, you’ve filled it with equipment, how you gonna carry any stuff you find to sell?” ....but me being young and arrogant, well I marched straight off in there, what did that old bastard know anyways? ......... but before I go into that let me tell you how I got into this mess in the first place....

I used to be in the army but expensive tastes meant that the army salary when they got round to paying us didn’t cover it. There was one guy who lived near to me, he was rich but still lived in run down flats, used to be a Stalker they said, didn’t seem to be at home much, like he didn’t want to stay in one place for very long, didn’t talk to anyone much and had strange blisters on his face, but he was rich and that was enough for me. So I left, took my gear and went off to make my fortune in the zone.

.....I walked for about an half an hour along the access road, I had seen pictures of the zone before in the Chernobyl museum in Kiev, pictures of the town of Pripyat, empty buildings, ghost buildings, playgrounds that once thronged with children.....now the only things that moves there is the river and the creatures we had heard about, but that was my destination on this expedition, I had heard about rich pickings.....

Passing burnt out cars and the odd truck I decided to take a detour and go through the woods. Now I am no botanist but something about the trees didn’t look right, they didn’t just stand there, they seemed to lean over you, it felt like they were watching me, anyway I kept on going, it was probably just my head playing games, just spooking myself so I laughed it off.

Half an hour or so of slow progress through the undergrowth and I came across a clearing, well, it was only a clearing because it looked like a bomb had hit it, except something was wrong, trees were bent and split, the ground had craters but no scorch marks, the grass that there was looked like someone and squashed it into the ground. It was only then I noticed something in my pocket beeping, I pulled out the handset that I had bought after being told it was essential equipment for the zone, couldn’t remember what the guy had said, I wasn’t really paying attention, , had he said something about anomalies?? I just wanted to get in there and make my fortune. Well at least it meant my funny feeling about this place wasn’t just in my head, so I bent down and picked up a rock from the forest floor, I threw it from the edge of the clearing aiming for one of the flattened patches of grass, it flew straight and true for about 10 yards and then nose dived into the ground, like it was a giant fly that had just been swatted. Suddenly the beeping in my pocket escalated, I was staring at the device wondering what it meant when some of the trees nearby started to creak and then cracks started to appear on the trunks. They were splitting in half! I turned to run and made it about 10 paces before one of the trees that had split fell towards me, I managed to avoid the trunk but a large branch caught me on the side of my head and I went down like a sack of shit.....thats the last thing I remember about my first sortie into the zone, next thing I was waking up in one of the military hospitals, I had lucked out when a SpecFor patrol had come across me whilst on an operation......anyway that’s long in the past now, these days I work for the highest bidder and occasionally when I am feeling generous, give advice to rookies like you......you want me to sum it up? Alright here it is, watch your back, take only what you need with you and most of all expect the unexpected cause the zone is like nothing you have ever experienced......

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