A new beggining

by Urdrald

This is my first ever fanfiction. It will tell about the Zone in general, the people in it, the kinds of things they come accross and in particular about one character. He'll be like Ol' Forester, someone that has been chosen by the Zone for some reason, still unknown and has been blessed in ways he will slowly grasp and understand. Whether it's for good or bad we'll see.

STALKER - Our Beggining

The 100 Rads Bar was bursting with activity. Barman was busy handling his customers who were as usual buying supplies, selling loot or simply looking for the latest gossip, that came in the form of snippets about the Military outsourcing the job of protecting the Ecologists in Yantar to a group of mercenaries, the Bandits settling down in the abandoned factories in Dark Valley, cutting Freedom's route through the place from the Army's Warehouses and the same old story about how the Military are coming down on STALKERS harder than ever. There were talks too about roaming bloodsuckers in the Garbage, a Chimera sighting in the Wild Territory and some never heard of mutants and apparitions showing up in Zaton. Garik was in his post, eyeing the customers while Snitch tried to fool any new guys who happened to be passing around and also the whole rest of the men and women who called themselves Free Stalkers who made their living in the surrounding areas were enjoying a serene comfortable mood when all of a sudden the usual Duty propaganda stopped playing and the Emission alarm started blasting.

What was once a calm group of individuals turned into a mess of apprehension, fear, apprehension and sadness as they remembered their brothers who have fallen to the Zone and those that might perish this time around. An Emission or Blowout, depending on who you ask, is an event where waves of radioactive energy and clouds along with a powerful psychic pressure surges from the very center of the zone in an attempt to flush out the unwelcome creatures living inside it, humans, whether they are good or bad, family men or bandit scum, to cleanse itself of it's taint, as if it is a great living organism. If you're caught outside during one and you're lucky, you'll die due to the radiation and brain damage, if fate doesn't smile upon you you'll turn into a zombie, condemned to walk around the area where you fell in a vain an attempt to remember who you once were. Now usually an Emission doesn't last longer than ten minutes, so when this one started dragging on people started to get jittery, some even checked their magazines to see if they were full on ammo as if they expected to be jumped at any time.

Then, as soon as it came, it vanished, leaving in its wake a heavy rain and lighting storm, while Free Stalkers and Duty members started to head away from the 100 Rads Barman tried to get into contact with Professor Sakharov, to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Senior Sergeant Dimitriy went back to his post as soon as he was allowed to, guarding the southern entrance to Rostok was his and his squad's Duty and ever since they took the job there hadn't been one single incident with the loners coming through the place. He stood for five minutes, eyes fixed on the horizon when a Private approached, saluted and said: "Sir, Commands says we lost communication with the advanced squad in the Garbage." "Roger, rally the men, we have contact incoming, safety off." No sooner had the Sergeant said that when one of the scouts yelled "Contact!" and fired his SVD sniper rifle, prompting the squad's machine gunner to ready up his PKM that started firing as soon as the first mutant crossed it's sights, the loud booming noise of the machine gun was soon joined by the rest of the squad's Kalashnikov rifles, after wave and wave of rodents descended upon the checkpoint. Free Stalkers and more Dutyers, attracted by the noise of gunfire, soon joined up to defend the outpost, providing the much needed fire power to handle the situation.

As the noise gave out and the last rodent fell without it's head Sergeant Dimitriy quickly hailed General Voronin through comms, and got the orders to organize a second squad to go and verify the status of the lost men in the Garbage. Dimitriy soon pointed at several of the Privates and one Lieutenant that he knew personally and they soon set on the path towards the Garbage, as they over the path they could already make out the bodies of their fallen Duty brothers and pack of wild mutated dogs slowly approaching them.