CHAPTER 1

Yuri looked at the far away beauty of the setting sun for a long moment. It was a fleeting break from the immediate horror in front of him.

If he hadn't regularly seen such things since he was a child, he may have been more affected, or perhaps even cried. Though the entrance holes left by small bullets were usually clean, the exit wounds were ugly and often tore the surrounding flesh and bone away from the skull,leaving gaping holes on one side of the victim's body, in this case the head.

«At least it wasn't painful for the children," he thought, in a cold way. Yuri could remember the first time he saw such a thing, when he was ten. That girl had been cut to pieces by machine gun fire. He always wondered why he didn't cry when he saw it. Seeing a human body in such a state, it seems too bizarre to evoke normal emotion.

And that was only the beginning. When he was eleven he saw children eaten alive by giant dogs which had grown aggressive and reptilian from exposure to radiation they encountered while searching for food in the dump. Now such incidents seemed almost normal, and Yuri saw it as simply survival, that Darwinian aspect of life that only certain human beings are exposed to, the rest sheltered in their ignorance. At least that's what gave him peace as he grew up. Not a matter of hope, but rather of assurance. Yuri had given up the conventional idea of hope long ago. Hope now only existed in the moment. Had all this not happened to him already, the family lying dead in the village hut would have probably reduced to a whimpering boy.

In the post-nuclear era, survival was all that mattered around the Ukraine, and especially for Yuri, whose childhood consisted of being handed a bolt-action rifle and told to find a healthy rabbit or squirrel to bring home. This was, as he grew up on the outer fringe of what eventually came to be known as «the zone!» Here he now lived as a scavenger, more commonly known as a «STALKER!» His only childhood possessions were his rifle and a little brown teddy-bear, his last connection to emotion in the environment he was so tightly welded. Eventually he gave the bear to his younger sister. This was a few days before fleeing with his family from their three-room house in Pryp'yat, never to see it, or any but the basest of emotions again. It was a good thing. It prepared him for the death of his parents. It made him able to survive without a real home.

After doing what he thought was proper remembrance of those gone, a simple acknowledgement to their previous existence, Yuri picked up his Kalashnikov AKM, braced it with both hands loosely against his stomach, and walked away. He continued to march down the dirt road toward the center of the village, marked by a well, in hope of finding some food or water.

Yuri's AKM is a variation of the popular AK-47 by virtue of improved production design, but still carrying the same 7.62 x 39mm Soviet M1943 cartridge and clips. Because of the vast numbers produced and the effectiveness of the basic rifle design it was wise to carry such a weapon, the replacement parts, ammunition, and magazines easily found, or stolen, depending on how desperate the seeker might be.

He got it from a man who had gone after a firefight with some Russian regulars. Although Ukraine and Russia were once part of the former Soviet Union, any comradery between countrymen, let alone between two different countries, was nonexistent. Yuri heard the ending rounds go off when he was half a kilometer away, and came upon the bodies, quickly snatching up the weapon which was hidden under the man's corpse. He looked Czech but could not be sure. No one carried identification, as most people never recieved any with the collapse of the government's power over The Zone.

The Zone was the 30-kilometer perimeter around the former Chernobyl plant, which was scarred by the effects of a nuclear accident and civil war. It exists now as a barren heap, a shell of what it once was.

As Yuri approached the well in the center of the village, he took a combat stance, with his knees slightly bent and rifle in a ready position at hip level. He wanted to show his awareness, but didn't raise the gun to eye-level (for ideal accuracy) because that would look too threatening. When approaching supplies where others might lurk, it was important to appear experienced but not aggressive. Most people don't take life without reason, if only to save ammunition. But most are quick to attack if supplies are threatened. Being captured by police or military officials was about as likely as finding someone who actually followed the laws set forth by their organization. The Police were like everyone else, starving, without much of a family, maybe without a home. The only difference was the police got a regular shipment of ammunition from a depot in Siberia.

Yuri knew a well is usually not a good source of drinking water. Groundwater is often contaminated. But if nothing else, he could remember it in case he needed to clean his clothes, or was desperate. A quick visual sweep revealed no threatening life, so he continued his slow and watchful march along the road to the other end of the village, peeking in the rickety huts and opening boxes that might have food, always quick to avoid the large wooden cubes which reeked with the stench of their former «owners.«If only such structures could hold in heat as well as they held in smell," he thought.

A platoon of soldiers, possibly the Army, possibly just a band of misfits, had come through the town less than a day before Yuri's visit, killing it's few residents. They were most likely looking for gasoline, which was highly prized among groups large enough to have a truck.

There was no food here now. What might have been overlooked during the initial raid would have been mopped up by the Raveners. Raveners are large beasts, similar to wolves, but larger and more aggressive. They followed roads and other commonly traversed pathways in search of food. Raveners did not eat humans, and seemed to prefer smaller game, but they could tear aggressors to pieces. Yuri had a scar on his forearm from an attack in the wilderness about four or five years ago.

He had not known the exact date for quite some time. It was something you inquired about to strangers, as a way of breaking the ice, but for someone to know the exact date was unusual. More and more people would not even tell you whether they knew, but would instead take it as an informal greeting and warily introduce themselves. That is, if they didn't try to kill you first.

The sun concealed itself behind the horizon, and without food or water Yuri knew it would be best to save more travel for the following day. There was a concrete building roughly 200 meters to his left which would probably serve as the best protection against the wind and rain. Yuri set his eyes on the building, scanning it for inhabitants. Such a dwelling would surely draw attention from others seeking shelter. With the night sky consuming the light, Yuri moved toward the dirty-white building with relative confidence. Moonlight was scarce, and his fatigues (Standard Ukraine Issue top with Russian cargo pants) were so covered with dirt they could have grass growing on them. He approached the house on the southeast side, where there was no door, but a square of open space in the concrete serving as a window. He crawled near it to listen for signs of life. There was nothing, not even a strangely scented gust of wind coming from the building that seemed to radiate with the death of a thousand unborn children.

Yuri entered from the northwest side of the building, noticing that while it was originally a two-story dwelling, it had since become a one-story with high ceilings. There was nothing inside except for fallen concrete, some dry blood, and a book stained with dirt.

CHAPTER 2

Yuri looked out the square hole in the wall to briefly observe outide activity before sitting down to rest. He had walked almost five miles, and still no food. He had not eaten in a couple days, but the STALKER was used to it. One or two meals every three days was normal for an inhabitant of The Zone. Fresh oxygen was the hardest of supplies to find, needed for trips into the heart of the area, where the radiation was still very high. You could find depots every five or ten miles that would have tanks, but they never seemed to stay in the same spot for more than a day or two before they were found by Raveners or thieves. Yuri carried two 28 oz. tanks on his back, with a mask for his rare trips to the former epicenter of the contaminated area. Luckily there wasn't much reason to go there, unless you wanted to die, and in that situation oxygen was not a high priority anyway. Yuri wanted to check his AKM and equipment, but to light a flame in the dark would reveal his position. He decided to wait until daylight.

He sat himself upright against the wall next to the window so that he could look straight and out the door but onlookers would not see him sleeping. As he lay on the cold dirt floor he thought about the dead children he had seen that afternoon, executed outside their hut. Yuri often thought about those he knew but were now gone. A corpse seemed far too simple to describe death to Yuri. A person is defined by so much more than the corpse they leave, and Yuri wondered about the lives endured while existing in that body until it's unwilling abandonment. Perhaps those who take life with the pretense of it's worthlessness will only understand their folly when they meet their own demise. Ironically, those who usually chose to take life for the smallest reward were the military. They already knew no one trusted them. In The Zone, there are no phones, and no real punishment for crimes, least of all murder.

But that didn't mean indescriminant killing was considered okay. Word of mouth was an effective prosecutory tool. Trigger happy killers were quickly noticed, and once word got around, they usually got a bullet in the back. Trust is a big thing in The Zone. Your reputation might precede you and protect you if you had done something worthy. But if you earned a bad reputation, you usually didn't have a lot of time to plead your case before you were gone. For this reason, killers either stopped killing senselessly on their own, or they wound up getting murdered by someone else. That's not to say that killing someone necessarily made you a bad person in The Zone. Everyone killed, and some Killed frequently, but it was when someone killed needlessly that they ended up dead themselves.

Yuri was tired, but as his eylids grew heavy, he noticed the book on the floor. One of the few things Yuri had liked to do as a child was read. It helped him escape from his awful life. «Humility and Malevolence» the book title read, a faint moonlight bouncing off the glossy cover in an eerie way. Yuri opened the book and tried to read, but the ripped pages made it difficult. A particular passage caught his eye…

«Someone who did not understand the humans“ emotions would not ask for it. Courtesy is countered hopelessly by malevolence. Assurance is countered effortlessly by worry. And Love is countered with outnumbering hate. Thus, there can be no positive end to emotion, and humans can only destroy each other. No being should wish for this, despite the tempations of courtesy, assurance, and love.

«Untrue!» Yuri whispered to himself. He had given up hope, but he knew one thing. He wished he could have his emotion back. Yuri did not believe that the positive always outweighed the negative, that human emotion was dictated by malevolence and that humanity was a side- effect. He wished that he could feel love for his family, and sadness for those who had gone. He wanted to smile when he was embraced, and cry like a child when he saw the dead. At least, he thought, he would feel human again. In such situations, most humans would shed a tear, but Yuri didn't. He simply set the book down, moved back to his original position, and closed his eyes to sleep.

CHAPTER 3

Yuri awoke to loud gunfire exploding throughout the village. He was aiming his rifle seconds later. He could hear a woman screaming back in the village, and some faint sounds of retreat. He could see a woman crying, sitting next to a limp body.
Yuri held his AKM tight and darted out of the door and toward the village. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a small girl, no older than six or seven, a gunshot wound through her torso and blood covering her ragged clothes. It was always the same. But what she was holding chilled him to the bone. Still grasped in her hands, exactly like the one he had owned when he was a child, was a small, stuffed, brown teddy bear.

Fear he had not felt in years possessed him, wrapped it's icy arms around his chest and squeezed. Tears flowed down the little girl's cheeks and she moved her mouth as if to scream or cry, but no sound came out. She was not dead yet, she could be helped. The mother knelt helplessly beside her. But Yuri's attention shifted to the man running away.

Without thinking, he sprinted after the man. Being shot in the back would be was to easy a way to die for someone who kills children. As he began to catch up to the man, Yuri used his thumb to slip the weapon into fully-automatic mode and squeezed the trigger, his gun screaming in anger toward the fleeting human.

The gun had shown his anger, but Yuri's eyes glassed over and his heart pounded in an evil, speedy beat. Yuri drew his knife and stumbled toward the man who was now crawling in a futile attempt to escape. He threw his wielding arm back and then forward into the man's back, again, and again, and again. Using his left hand he threw the man on his back and, looking directly into his frightened eyes, slit his throat. A justified feeling attempted to take over Yuri's neo-emotion, but was quickly beaten down by his contempt for the man. It was at this point that the realization of his actions came to him, and his heart stopped. Yuri sprung to his feet and ran back to the village for the girl.

Too much time had passed. The girl's heart had stopped and she was dead, still embracing the teddy bear. Though it's face had not changed, the teddy bear seemed to shift it's appearance to Yuri from one of hope to despair and sadness.
Yuri now understood what he had read. He had found human emotion, and he had found compassion to be no match against malevolence. Yuri had indeed become human again, but now he wished he could change back.