Whatever it was, something was out there. He didn't know where. He couldn't tell where. Kirill was wading through a swamp when a pair of white glowing lights had flashed ahead of him. He saw them right between some reeds, but now they're gone. He splashed to a halt at the centre of a large pond. Knee-deep in stagnant water putrid and slimy with algae, he couldn't help but grimace at the mess he just got himself in. That was no anomaly he just saw. He needed something more than just bolts to deal with it.
"God help me." Kirill prayed quietly. But of course, by 'God' what he truly meant were the tools he held so closely: in his palms he gripped an assault rifle. It was an aged Kalashnikov, (actually a Yugoslav-made Zastava M70, but he didn't know the difference). Not the best rifle in The Zone, but a gun that could kill is a gun nonetheless. He raised the ironsights to his eye, feeling the cold embrace of its stock brush against his cheek. On his belt he had a Makarov pistol tucked away in a leather holster, just to be sure. God helps those who help themselves, as Kirill always heard.
Splash.
Sweat trailed down his forehead.
"And so it begins… Anatoly, Vasya, wherever you ditching assholes are right now, witness me!" he smirked. This was his chance to prove to everyone that he wasn't a liability after all. By living through this trial of fire, he could show once and for all that he was a true Stalker in his own right! A foreboding presence circled him like a fog. His instincts on overdrive, Kirill raised his rifle in a flash. He snapped left. Nothing in the reeds.
Splash.
He swung right. Nothing in the grass. The paling grass blades danced, swayed, and rustled, as if each one were mocking him in ways only non-sentient plant life could.
He couldn't tell how it could be when he was standing (more or less) still, but his empty lungs were gasping for air. All the heat in his body had flushed into the murky water. Kirill was shivering, but not from the cold.
Splash. Splash. Splash!
He twisted and turned like a corkscrew. He pushed the very limits of human biology just to look everywhere at once. Then his heart exploded. Blood curled in his veins. Behind him! Kirill wheeled around; a trail of ripples snaked hard and fast towards him!
"Suck on this for a change!" Kirill squeezed the trigger.
Bangbangbang!
A storm of hot lead flew for an unseen target.
It roared like a lion! Bullets ripped the water, cut reeds, and mowed grass. The biggest ripples kept weaving left, right, and centre like it was raining hard; Kirill sprayed and prayed until his shoulder bruised and went sore from the recoil.
He fired, fired, and he fired again. His gun clicked. He snatched another a magazine from his belt, but his shaky hands refused to load it!
"Shit. Shit! SHIT!" Kirill cursed.
The ripples trailed closer! And then…
Kirill screamed.
A grotesque monster, coloured like the swamp, with the head of a malformed octopus. Its white eyes burned with primal fury. It roared. Kirill staggered back, using his arms like shields. The monster sprung forth with its claws! It swung, swung, and swung at Kirill! He dodged the first strike, parried the second, and leapt back to dodge the third. The monster stopped to search for him.
He took this brief chance to reload. From the bottom of his lungs he howled like a banshee while spraying wildly from the hip. The monster faded in and out of vision with only its growls and roars consistent. Kirill lit the pond with chaotic gunfire. The monster hid. His gun clicked, and so he ran, as fast as his well-worn soles could carry him.
Kirill dashed out of the pond and onto land. He dived into a sea of tall grass. Ditching his rifle behind him as he clawed a path in desperation. The grass responded in kind; thin blades in their hundreds rebounded to graze him in the face. The monster's roar bellowed from close behind. Kirill panted like mad. His fixed his neck straight ahead. He patted his right hip for a leather holster; a metallic grip graced his fingers. Kirill leapt into another pond, snatched his pistol from his holster, and swung the gun back to where he left.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He paused, gasping for breath. He backed off slowly, and steadily. Not too far behind him were the corrugated rooftops of a ramshackle pump station. If he could reach it, then maybe the sentries there could save him. He hoped as much.
Kirill listened closely. All was silent save for the wind rustling the pale reeds and muted grass. He could hear no splashing. He could hear no growling. But then, crows in their dozens fluttered overhead. In a mass exodus they fled the swamp in noisy droves, to the backdrop of a red sunset. Kirill briefly eyed the black feathers floating down around him, gulping at the ominous sight. He turned around, and made a frantic beeline for The Pump Station. In the near distance behind him, the monster roared again, muffled by the many yards that stood between them. Kirill squealed.
A force tackled him hard into the ground. He skidded across the mud and cut up his body with gravel. He rolled over to see two glowing eyes, followed by a tentacle-headed beast phasing into vision. Suddenly, he was airborne and soaring above the swamps. Seconds later, he crashed back to earth in a flurry of dirt, mud, and sand far away from The Pump Station. He tumbled for yards before splashing into yet another pond. Kirill, now half-submerged in filth and algae, struggled to move out: his pained legs and his left shoulder refused to budge in their sockets. He craned his stiff neck upwards until he saw the monster's dark silhouette towering over him.
The monster latched to him with its tentacles. A sharp pain faced him to the clouds. Like a fish out of water, Kirill convulsed and shook. His screams and helpless whimpers fell on deaf ears, as none came to end him swiftly. Everything was bright, red, and all of a sudden, fading to black. His heart rate spiralled out of control while his mouth foamed. The burning pain of having his essence drained was the only thing vaguely keeping him conscious. Struggling through this torment, Kirill bit his teeth together. He shakily lifted a pistol towards the monster's piercing white glare, knowing full well he couldn't afford to miss.
"Ah… ha-haha!"
Bang!
The monster yanked away its head and tentacles. It stumbled back, grabbing at its skull while demonically wailing in pain. Kirill, while coughing blood from his throat, rose to his knees. He took an unsteady aim at the monster's head.
"Got you!" For one last time, in a moment that froze for what seemed like ages, they exchanged glances. This was it.
Bang!
The monster fell in a cloud of dirt. It groaned on the floor until only the faint rising and falling of its chest could be seen. But not long after, even that had stopped. With only the remaining strength in his right arm, he dragged himself towards the body. Once he reached his sides, he kneeled over it for one final inspection. Its bioluminescent eyes had long since faded. Its heart had long since halted its beating. Kirill had slain the beast; he was sure of it. He slowly raised his pistol to the corpse, and pulled the trigger.
Bang. Kirill was sprayed in its innards. He didn't flinch as his face was covered in gore.
Bang. Its blood and entrails splattered him all over. He kept shooting, shooting, and shooting until his pistol had already clicked a dozen times. By now, much of the corpse was mangled to mincemeat or turned to swiss cheese. He then tossed the pistol away, for no longer did a gun hold purpose by his side. Kirill had achieved his goal: for the first time in his life, he could proudly call himself a Stalker.
Kirill couldn't tell why, but he was wheezing with laughter. Laughter like a child's, or perhaps, laughter like a madman's. He looked up from the monster, towards the setting sun. By now it had almost completely vanished over a ridge. It was so bright, red, and smoothly circular. The sky above was a dazzling gold and orange, almost like a blowout but just as beautifully mesmerising. He could hear cawing in the far distance, progressively getting louder and louder as time went by. It seemed like the crows were returning to the swamps. Life would continue as normal for them.
Kirill laughed, and he laughed longer and more heartily than he ever did at any point of his disappointingly-short life. He didn't mind that he was kneeling in a growing pool of his own blood. It was too late to stop at this point. He didn't mind that he wasn't relaxing in a mansion by a golden beach surrounded by a wife and three kids. It was a stupid pipe dream anyway. Maybe someone else could achieve them in his stead. But what Kirill did mind, and it bothered him a lot, was that he couldn't share one last bottle of Cossacks vodka with Anatoly, Vasya, Nikita, Boris, and Natascha at The 100 Rads Bar.
He hoped that Natascha would at least strum a guitar song in his honour, should his end ever spread to her. Nikita would kick and scream at his corpse before selling the pieces to some shady trader: after all, Kirill had quite the hefty debt to repay that bastard, ever since Nikita charged into that Train Depot and saved his sorry ass from a bandit gang!
"That was fun." Kirill sniffed "Yeah, it really was…"
At least it was consoling for Kirill that very soon Vasya would be beating another well-deserved lecture on mutant hunting into him. He could also poke fun at Anatoly about how he went out first, and in such a morbidly funny way too!
Kirill sighed and reminiscenced on the past. He shed tears, but not of sadness. In the end, his life was too short, but nevertheless it was good one he'd live again if he had the choice. He smiled goodbye to the comrades he should've gotten to know better. He smiled goodbye to The Zone that, in the end, he just wasn't strong enough to conquer.
"It's over."
He lay himself flat on his back, next to where a bloodsucker had fallen not too long ago. He thought to himself that he deserved a nice, long rest; he at least earned it, right? Kirill chuckled.
"It really is over, eh comrade?" slowly and steadily, he regained control of his breath. He closed his eyes and laid his hands on his belly. With this pleasantly tranquil feeling, he finally felt at peace with The Zone. With this, Kirill had no qualms embracing the coming darkness.
"Such is life in The Zone…"