Sergey jogged. He had good footing and was careful about that. In the zone you always had to be careful. You had to watch your surrounding and stay alert. But currently Sergey wasn„t paying that much attention to his surroundings, he new this trail well, and nothing ever happened on it anyways. To him this was actually the weirdest part of the zone, this trail. To his right was a small stream and he had to watch for branches and rocks But right now there was only one thing on his mind, his objectives. 2 hours ago his good friend Sasha detected magnetic pulses from a region in the zone. Normally this could be anything, a radio broadcast, a tv show, just about anything. But in the zone it was different. Low frequency electromagnetic signals were absorbed, nobody knew why. The pulses that were detected had a very specific high frequency and were accompanied by pulses of radiation. They almost seemed manmade, but no one would be that stupid to go into the zone and do anything requiring this much energy. He stopped behind some thorned bushes peering into the distance. It was 5:00 and dark. Clouds now covered the sky. He took off his pack and unzipped it taking out binoculars. Russian optics were always the best, they lasted long and were very good quality. He zoomed onto a great tree in the distance and turned on thermal imaging. Scanning the area he saw 4 bright outlines in an opening. They were there, like always. 3 soldiers were always positioned here. Normally he would have stopped a while back and took a turn but the pulses were traced to be behind these guards. The fourth bright spot was on the ground. Probably a camp fire. Now all he had to do was wait. His shoes were wet and irritating to his feet. His clothes felt damp, and he hated this feeling. Soon it would be morning. Mornings were very odd in the zone. Every morning was always cloudy, and usually raining. You always got the feeling that something is missing or that something was somehow wrong. Always. All stalkers described this feeling in the morning but nobody cared that much about it. The three soldiers got into a truck nearby and rode off. There shift was over and they were too tired to wait for the next 3 soldiers to come. He packed up and cautiously ran off to where the soldiers just were. He reached a fence near the camp, he never saw this fence before, but then again he didn„t come by here that often. The fence had a big rusty sign: WARNING HIGH VOLTAGE. He reached for his compass and passed it along the fence. Nothing. This fence wasn„t powered. He tapped it with the back of his hand, it was dead. He put his compass down and began to reach for his pack. He froze. There was a big bush by him with white flowers, behind it was what appeared to be a foot. His hairs on his skin tingled. He cautiously moved his head to get a better angle. There were three dead bodies here, all were still warm, this was what appeared as the 4th bright spot on his thermal imaging. They were all in military uniforms and before sergey could even begin imagining what happened he jumped on the fence and hopped over. He jogged as silently as he could for the first few seconds. Dead bodies was nothing to stick around. Sergey learned this when he encountered a dead body, or what he thought to be dead. He thought about the mission some more. The pulses were not common and were somewhat understood. As high amounts of radiation go through substances the atoms are excited, creating waves of electrons. These waves of electrons, in the correct conditions (moisture, densitity, radiation, magnetic forces) begin to resonate in somewhat closed areas. This creates a glowing hot area of resonating electricity, something very peculiar. As he hurried along he heard some whispering up ahead. He stopped and checked his binoculars. 5 soldiers, «bleen» muttering to himself sergey took off a muffled SVD dragonov sniper rifle strapped to his back. He didn„t have time for this. He looked through scope, the bright green picture welcoming to him. 5 of them… impossible. One started to go off to the truck, the snipering begins. Sergey was excellent at rifle marksmanship, he did the best in the soviet special ops. He took aim, checked distance and wind. The rifle jerked back and the soldier fell face down. He quickly adjusted his rifle toward the other 4. They were gathered around a small portable table with some vodka. They were all turned away from him. One reached across to grab the bottle. Sergey waited for the exact moment. His rifle jerked back again. 2 soldiers fell, with just one shot. He learned to do that when he was hunting a pack of deer. The other two looked at their buddies and dropped to the floor, smart move. He moved through the forest like a panther, silent in the night. His adrenaline was flowing, he could feel it. He stopped and checked on the soldiers. They were both scrambling for the truck. He aimed at where he thought the gasoline tank would be and pressed the trigger. He imagined the truck blowing up in flame, but no, unfortunately stuff doesn„t blowup like in the movies. That wasn„t the point though, the two soldiers wouldn„t get too far. They drove off, gasoline pouring behind them. Sergey came up to the table. Something caught his eye. He couldn„t tell what it was. There was more than one and it approached him through the woods. Now he really felt the adrenaline. His senses became keen, he loved adrenaline, just loved it. He could hear it, these creatures were growling and walked quickly. He slowly lowered himself behind a stump. The smell was terrible, rotten flesh, dry blood, and vomit. These were dogs, mutated dogs. He searched for a way out. They were here for just the bodies. They probably didn„t even know he was here. He looked through a crack, and what he saw didn„t look good. The dogs were mainly eating, but some of them were dragging the bodies, dragging the bodies toward his way. He had to think fast. He couldn„t go out blazing, there must have been about 30 dogs. He had to think. What do animals hate? What was he thinking, these weren„t animals, they were monsters. Fire? Fire might have been the answer. He didn„t care, he had ran out of time. He took out his lighter and reached for the bottle of vodka on the table, searching with his fingers. «Gde vodka kogda nyzhno!» thinking to himself he found some papers, a pen, got it! He took a big gulp. Jeesus, this was some strong stuff. He stood up, the dogs all turned toward him and started growling loudly. He poured the liquid covering as much area as possible. Then, as the dogs were slowly nearing, he lit his lighter, and blew the liquid out in a sneezing action. He felt his eyebrows burn away. The ground was burning in flames and there was a fireball rising. Looking threw the flames he saw the last of the dogs running away. He looked at the bottle, 50% alcohol. After resting a bit and catching his breath he came up to the table and looked at the paper.

Sergey looked ahead, there was a bright blue light and the area ahead was radioactive according to his readings. He looked back, the sun was rising, it was morning, and something was wrong.