We invented the wheel and it ran us over. Humanity stumbled through the decades and crashed at full force. This is where everything started, where our nightmares turned into painful reality and the world changed forever. A place this twisted and wrecked, with nature raped and a mercyless scorn - this place is us, all that we build, all that we destroyed. This is where fear and weapons met.

I'm standing at the edge of the zone, I'm alone - like always. Solitude is my only friend, pain my companion. God is a joke out here. In this sick world where all is ruled by death, there's nothing to pray to. Here we are the gods, we are the source of all misery. Guilt weighs heavy on our shoulders. I'm looking up into an empty sky, I see no salvation. All I see is a thin line of smoke rising in the distance. It's the everburning flame of the plant. Perhaps it is the only thing that will never die. The poison and death bringing light of hell in the center of the zone.

I'm overwhelmed by the quiteness out here in the wastelands though it is not a peaceful one. I'm listening to the silence of the masses who died out there.

Out there where everything started, where the world gave birth to its greatest tragedy. Here people lost their relatives, mothers lost their children. Here where humanity lost it's innocence. I can still hear their screams, I can still smell their fear before the radiation blasted right through them and covered their skin with cancer... all that remains for me is a picture. A small, dirty picture that I hold in my hand. It is all that is left of my wife and my son. If I had only gone with them that day, if I had just seen what was about to happen. But no one did and they never came back . Memories are knifes and when I think of them I feel as dead as a dry leaf. There are nights when I'm starring into the barrel of my rifle looking for them, then they're so close to me and it is hard not to pull the trigger. But I'm not done in this world, yet. I will find out why they had to die, why all of them had to die. And when I did there will be just one more long last breath. Until then fate chained me to this place.

There are others like me, though we rarely meet. I don't like company, makes me weak and vulnerable. Some of them became addicted to the things one can find in the zone. Searching for artefacts with nothing in mind than money and wealth. Blinded by false pictures they don't realize that the sickness already got a hold of them. That the cancer crawls up their legs and arms. They think they are winning, though they do nothing but slowly dying. You have to be careful, it is easy to die around here but it is hard to survive. Some call me a thief but all I do is to make sure I can pay for my equipment. In a world upsite down one has to be a thief to be a honest man. I own nothing to no one. I am the true solipsist. A think tank that is always ready to react. Every moment of my life is war, every heartbeat makes me grow colder. I know how it is to wake up all alone in hell every morning. I lost my trust in everything in this world, they fuck you and then fuck you over, as long as they can hide their mistakes this way. You think you're fighting for the right side, that you are on the path of the righteous' Think again, my friend. Cause there is no righteousness, there is no such thing as honesty and truth. Trust is a knife in the back., truth is lies believed. I believed in them, in the government, in tradition, in truth. And now look at me I lost everything, no I didn't loose it, they took it from me. And every single day the take more and more from everyone of you.

I remember the months after both of them died. I lost my job, I got thrown out of the apartment, my account was blocked...they not only took my family away from me, they also took my own life. So I walked the streets of Moscow, alcohol addicted and barely able to stand upright. My only belongings were the clothes on my body. I hit the bottom and every day I got deeper and deeper. Until one night I realized that I had to save my own life because no one else would do it for me. So I got up and took the bus out of the city. And as the bus stopped I got out and started walking. I walked for weeks until I got here.

This was about three months ago and I think I died in the bus or somewhere next to those deserted roads I walked on.Yes, I kissed it goodbye. Cause today I'm another man. A man that focuses on nothing but this place. I somehow became one with it. I know the woodlands, the black marshes, the abandoned testgrounds and the forgotten bases around here. I got used not to hear my own voice for weeks. I learned how to shoot a moving thing one mile away or how to read my old geiger-counter. I forgot what I didn't need to know anymore and learned what I needed to know for my next life. For a life in the wilderness out here, though my memories still weigh heavier than my gun...