It was so long ago...So long that I've forgotten how long I've been here. The Zone's become something different from what it used to be...something worse. The Zone's trapped all who remain here, and that includes my own weary self. Ever since our family became distant and... gone, nothing ever felt the same. Losing papa and almost losing my eldest brother Charon... He never was the same after that... Hell, that's why I'm here in the first place. My other siblings wouldn't want anything to do with my dead ass and I knew it too well... When mama died... I had nothing, nothing left. The only person I knew I could count on was missing, and it was up to me to find him, whatever it would take... I know I'll find you, Charon. Just wait a bit longer, your little brother is coming to help you get out of this hell.
At least... that's what I had hoped for...
POP POP KRAK!
The bullets cracked through the wind, piercing my chest. The pain was something on a whole different level from what I've experienced before. I could feel my ribs creak and groan from the sudden air and force making it's way into my body as I fell over onto my back. I gasped for air. Was one of my lungs pierced? I couldn't tell. All I felt was pain and misery. I couldn't focus on anything besides pain and trying to breathe steadily. One of the bullets grazed my heart, probably. The beat was strange, rather than it's one two pause beat, it took much longer in the pause to start beating. It must've grazed it enough to fuck me up, that's for sure. I felt blood pooling in the tunnels the rounds created. It cascaded down and was creating a large pool around me, soaking into my backpack I had strapped onto my self.
The figure that was coming torwards me stopped and looked around. Whatever they felt, I felt it too. A rumble was vibrating the air and ground around us. I could feel a strange pressure in my spine, giving me chills all over as I lay here. Through the pain, I struggled to hear the figure become agitated as it sprinted away. Which direction I couldn't tell, considering I was dying at the moment. As I moved around in pain, I could hear a crinkling inside my pack. I must've broken something inside of it. Whatever the fuck it was, I couldn't tell. A bright flash covered the sky, it's color red. Soon following it, a series of dark green streaks of lightning followed with explosions filling the air.
Oh God, no. Out of all the times to be stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, it's with three holes in my chest, and in the middle of a fucking emission. I panic as I struggle to get up, the pain searing in my chest. "F-FUUUUCK!"
Okay, I wasn't getting up, that was for certain. I look over to the steep hill to my left. If I tried to fight through the pain, I could probably crawl over the edge, covering myself in a ditch and brush. So, with the will power of a mad-man, I crawled my ass over to the steep hill, looking over to see large bushes. If the fall didn't kill me, the emission definitely would. I rolled over the hill, plummeting to the brush to hopefully break my fall. The impact wasn't pretty, but I managed to not die somehow. I started rolling off the bushes to then cover myself. By the time I was completely covered and tucked in, I could feel my brain starting to become numb from the oncoming wave. I silently sobbed to myself as I readied myself for death. Before the wave of radiated dust and death, I passed out from the pain, becoming un-aware of the world that surrounded me as I fell into the darkness.
Somewhere else within The Zone...
A cloaked figure trekked through the dead streets of Pripyat, their mission a mystery to all who saw them. Their sole mission; To find the man with the symbol of the Triquetra... That was all their priest told them. Much like the cloaked figure, twelve others just like them were sent in all directions to look for this man. How would they know if it was the man they were looking for? All their priest said was to look south and to look hard, for the fate of their faith was to become extinct...
The figure looked to the sky, it becoming a sickening gray as the figure lifts the hood from its head, looking to the dead sky above, disconnected from the rest of the world in its own plane of existence. The figure who rested on the hill of rubble and debris thought to itself on where to look first... That is until they felt something, a chill run down their spine, making the hairs on their neck stand up straight. Something is coming, and it was coming soon. The Zone will change, for better or for worse, they did not know, but something was definitely coming and The Monolith needed to prepare for it and find the Triquetra soon, for all hell would break loose...