The Life of a Stalker X

Albion

18:21

"Let's stop for a moment."

Alexander eyed Matilda over his shoulder and nodded. They'd been making their way through the woods in a tense silence for nearly an hour now, and the forest showed no signs of thinning out. Feeling a little dragged out after almost being shot and then burned alive, Alexander offered no objections to a quick break.

Kalashnikov dangling by its forend he leaned his back onto a nearby tree, causing the slung up Simonov carbine to poke him uncomfortably. The bandit's unprovoked assault claimed nearly everything he had to his name, other than the pistol on his thigh and what he'd been wearing at the time.

The air was thick and humid in the woods and his jacket was far too stuffy for his liking, but it was his only option right now. He wasn't particularly keen on the idea of walking around shirtless. The pockets of his jacket had gone from holding sparse amounts of lint to being stuffed full with Kalashnikov magazines and loaded stripper clips. It was a familiar feeling to be weighed down in such a fashion and he suspected it was only making the stuffiness of his jacket that much worse.

And then suddenly, seemingly without reason, Matilda had grabbed him by his collar and her face was now mere inches from his. It shouldn't have been that unpleasant, Matilda was quite the looker after all, but the livid expression contorting her features threw that right out the window.

"So explain something to me," she snarled. Alexander's eyes crossed over, taking in the wand directed at his nose. He craned his head backwards in a futile move. While not as imposing, he figured that a wand could be just as dangerous as a loaded gun, especially when in the hands of somebody who seemed to be radiating such a level of anger. "Who the hell were those people?"

Alexander had absolutely no idea, so he decided to just mirror his thoughts into speech. "How should I know?"

"Don't give me that!" Matilda barked venomously. Alexander winced. Perhaps he could have worded that better. "Maybe I was right not to trust you. I'm not blind. Those men had the same weapons as you. Are you saying that they somehow stumbled across my cabin in the middle of the woods, and then attacked us for no reason? Were they following you? If they were, I swear to the Founder I'm going to-"

"Matilda!" Tiffania cried, watching the exchange from the side. She decided that she couldn't let it go on any longer. She moved closer and grasped the green-haired woman's wand arm with both hands, desperately trying to force it down but to no avail. "Stop it! It wasn't his fault!"

"Don't defend him!" Matilda snapped, making Tiffania flinch and step back as though she had been slapped. Matilda quickly deflated, taking in the reaction she'd caused. In recent memory, she couldn't ever recall raising her voice to Tiffania. "He... what if he's responsible for destroying our home? That was our home, Tiffania!"

"Listen," Alexander began, intent on arguing his own point before Matilda turned his head inside out. He wasn't sure if she could actually do something like that, but after seeing what Matilda could do with her magic he was sure she could make some particularly unpleasant things happen to him. He quickly found himself on the receiving end of another glare. "Those guys weren't following me. How could they? Some green portal or something dumped me into the middle of the woods, so how could anybody follow me after that?"

Green portal? Matilda wondered what he was yammering about. Tiffania did mention some green flashes of light when Alexander first appeared, but the man himself had never mentioned a portal. What else was he leaving out? "How did you know so quickly they were going to attack then, huh?"

"They pointed their guns at me!"

"Stop!" Tiffania cried again, in a much more forceful tone than before. Eyes screwed closed and the crack in her voice did little to spell intimidating. Alexander hadn't known her long, but the majority of the time she appeared timid, soft-spoken, and gave off the aura of a genuinely kind-hearted person.

And so, it was rather jarring to see this sort of thing come out of the hooded blonde.

"Tiffania, listen-" Matilda began.

"No!" Tiffania cut her off loudly. "Stop it!"

"But-" Alexander tried.

"Stop!"

Matilda sighed deeply, relenting. She let go of Alexander, taking a step back with arms hanging at her sides, though her wand was still in a tight grip. Time to get some answers out of this man. "Where are you from?" She asked, her glare lessening into a serious stare.

Alexander let out a sigh of his own. How the hell was he going to explain this? "Well, from the same place the monsters are coming from."

"And where is that?"

"It's, uh... kind of far away."

That answer did not satisfy Matilda in any sense of the word. "Where is it?" She pressed in a hiss.

Alexander supposed that since there was no real easy way to explain, he might as well just come out and say it. "... It's in a different world."

Matilda stared, and then stared some more. "Oh," she calmly remarked. Alexander knew it would come any second now, and as if on cue, the anger quickly resurfaced on Matilda's face, tenfold. "So you only decided to bring this up now!?" She yelled. "Are you kidding me!?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't believe me," Alexander said, feeling like the thin ice he was treading on had just gotten that much thinner.

"Of course I don't! How can I believe something ridiculous like that? If you're going to lie at least come up with something better than that!"

"I'm not lying!" Alexander insisted. To him, this was far too similar to having an argument with his ex-girlfriend. In those situations, he always seemed to say the wrong things at the wrong times in the wrong tones of voice. He hoped for a moment that this track record wouldn't continue on.

Matilda opened her mouth to respond, but halted at the last second. Instead, she opted to massage her forehead while she took a few steps away.

She thought to herself, as ridiculous as it sounded, what if it was true? With all of the strangeness that had been happening lately was it really out of the realm of possibilities? Alexander was no doubt a foreign man and his strange accent only proved to set that fact into stone. It made the mention of a green portal make far more sense. As for the weapon he was carrying? Matilda knew just enough about firearms to know that she didn't want to be stuck at the bad end of one, which was an unfortunate position she had found herself in on a few occasions.

So Alexander's gun completely confounded her. How could something spit out so many bullets in such a short time? Was it a product of some sort of magical enchanting?

What if there was a place, detached from Halkeginia, where deadly monsters roamed the lands and needlessly bloodthirsty men wielding ridiculous weapons were waiting around every corner? All of these unnatural things were certainly springing up out of nowhere. If it was the truth, then this was huge.

"Look, I don't know what's going on around here, just like you," Alexander spoke up in wake of the silence. "If you want me to just go, then I understand."

Matilda turned on her heel, intent on a quick response, but evidently Tiffania beat her to the punch.

"No!" Tiffania immediately squeaked out, gaining two looks. She averted her eyes to the ground. "No... you don't have to do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Matilda cut in, pushing up her glasses. She appeared much calmer than before and even offered up an apologetic look, but she still didn't look particularly happy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so angry, but..." She stopped, puzzled to see Alexander slumping against the tree and sighing with relief. "...What?"

Though he had tamely done so before, Alexander resisted the urge to swear in front of Tiffania. For some reason it felt wrong. "I honestly thought you were going to kill me or turn me inside out something with your crazy magic."

Matilda clicked her tongue, crossing her arms. She was about to question if that was how Alexander really thought of her, but then she remembered that she had slain two men with her golems not that long ago. Alexander had obviously seen that, and it was likely Tiffania had as well. She decided, for the time being, that it would be best not to bring that up. That could wait for a better setting. "Supposing that what you said was true," she said, watching as Alexander slid further down to a sit. "What proof do you have?"

"You mean other than the monsters and the guns? And the bandits that showed up completely out of nowhere and burned your house down?"

Matilda's eyebrow twitched. "Yes," she nodded stiffly. "Other than those things."

Alexander thought for a moment before remembering something glaringly obvious. "Actually, I did hear about this place a while before I even got here."

Matilda eyed him evenly. "How?"

"Well," Alexander began, his tone undoubtedly unsure. "The place where all the monsters are coming from is called the Zone. It's kind of... I don't know, like a lawless wasteland or something. Does that make any sense to you?"

"Sure," Matilda responded. While she'd never visited the areas herself, she knew that the lands to the east of the Germanian border were considered by most to be a lawless haven for barbarians. She supposed that 'lawless wasteland' fit the bill nicely enough.

"Alright, well, I was there. I ended up meeting these three girls who were pretty strange." He then remembered a specific detail that was worth noting. "One thing I should mention is that, uh... magic doesn't exist where I come from."

"W-what?" Matilda sputtered. She narrowed her eyes dangerously. "That's preposterous! That doesn't even make sense!"

"I could say the same about this place, honestly," Alexander huffed in return. "Preposterous and doesn't make sense." He continued before Matilda could cut in again. "Anyway, these girls had this strangeness about them, like they really didn't belong. There were only two of them at first, but another one showed up completely out of nowhere dressed in some ridiculous outfit."

"If anybody's dressed ridiculously, it's you," Matilda pointed out.

Rather than respond, Alexander ignored that interruption. "They hung around this region called Zaton for a while, and I didn't think much of them. Only one of them could speak the language, barely, so I didn't chat with them much. They invited myself and another man to some sort of private meeting one day, and this red-headed girl takes out a wand and starts waving it around and chanting. I had no idea what was going on at the time, but they all just suddenly started speaking my language perfectly."

Matilda thought for a moment. "A language or translation spell most likely. Go on."

"So they started going on about how there were from another world called Halkeginia, and that two of them were mages," Alexander continued. "One of them started making fire come out of nowhere, and started levitating stuff around. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. Well, at least until I saw you making suits of armor come out of the ground."

"What were their names?"

"Siesta, Louise, and Kirche."

One of the three names immediately struck some remembrance in Matilda. "Louise? Louise who? What was her last name?"

"I don't know. We don't usually give out last names or even real names in the Zone. She never told me, and I didn't ask."

"Well, what did she look like then?"

Alexander scrunched his nose. It wasn't like Louise's appearance was hard to forget. "She was kind of short and a little scrawny, with pink hair and eyes."

Matilda's eyes widened slightly. "By the Founder," she breathed in disbelief.

"What?" Alexander asked. "Do you know her?"

"Not personally, but I definitely know of her," Matilda explained. "I told you I was a secretary at Tristain's Academy, right?"

"Yeah," Alexander replied. "She and Kirche said they were students there."

"Louise is Louise de la Valliére. She's the daughter of a duke and duchess in Tristain and their family is tied close to the Crown. They're very important people. Everybody at the Academy knew about Louise. She was a terrible mage, couldn't cast anything right. All she could do was make explosions. When she attempted the Familiar Summoning Ceremony she disappeared into thin air. Everybody assumed she was dead."

"Well she wasn't the last time I saw her."

Matilda nodded idly, playing at her chin. "Kirche... tall red-head? Dark skin?"

Alexander raised his brow and then nodded.

"She went missing too, along with some others. So they're alive, you say? In some place called the Zone?"

Alexander nodded again. "Like I said, last time I saw them they were."

"So really you're saying they could be dead by now?"

"I'd rather if they weren't, but people die every day in the Zone," Alexander said. "They're with Siesta and she's pretty capable, but being capable won't save you from a bullet."

Tiffania shook her head lightly. During the course of the conversation, she had moved to lean against a tree with her head downcast. The sternness she had shown earlier had vanished, replaced by an aura of depression. "That's just horrible," she remarked quietly.

Rather than tell her that was the understatement of the century, Alexander stayed silent.

Matilda was silent in thought for a few moments. "You're really from another world?"

"Yes," Alexander replied.

"There's honestly another world? With no magic? Really?"

"Yes," Alexander insisted. "Seriously, I know it's pretty unbelievable, but it exists."

Matilda had her mouth open to question further, but she decided that she could ask Alexander more on his world later. There were more pressing matters to take care of right now. Alexander eyed her for a moment before using the Kalashnikov to ease the process of standing.

"What are we going to do now, Matilda?" Tiffania asked softly. She looked rather pitiful, Alexander noted. Like a child who had lost their mother in a busy shopping center. She was just an innocent girl who probably had no idea of the things people could do to each other. Alexander felt a little responsible for bringing this on them, though it was entirely likely that if he hadn't been there the bandits would have just kicked their door in and ventilated the both of them before they could do anything.

That, or worse.

"I don't know, honestly," Matilda admitted painfully. "We're homeless now, and we've got nothing but the clothes on our backs." She turned to Alexander. "...And some very strange guns."

"You don't have any money?" Alexander asked.

Matilda shook her head, but then stopped as if she had changed her mind. She stuck her hands deep into her robe's pockets. Her face lit up in surprise, pulling out a handful of coins. She counted them over and her expression quickly turned down. "Maybe there's enough for a night's stay at an inn, if we're lucky."

"That's pretty temporary," Alexander pointed out.

"I've noticed, thank you," Matilda shot back hotly. "We might be able to find work. I could... no, I-I don't know. This is all too sudden. I need time to think."

Alexander sighed. He felt well suited enough to survive by himself. He'd done plenty of that in the Zone, but having these two girls with him definitely threw a wrench into that. "How far is the nearest town?" He asked.

"From here? I'm not sure."

"It's..." Tiffania began, pausing to wipe at her eyes. Alexander looked, wondering if she had started silently crying while he and Matilda were talking. He couldn't blame her if she was. Matilda looked like she wanted to leap forward and smother the girl in a tight embrace. "A-about two hours from here, I think."

Tiffania was usually the one go into town, so Alexander reasoned she was likely used to the route. With the combined hours of walking he felt that it was quite an undertaking for the young girl considering she made the trip every couple of days.

"We should get going then," Matilda said, moving towards Tiffania. "It's getting late. It'll be after sunset by the time we get there." She held a hand for the other girl to take. They started off, hands interlocked comfortingly. Alexander walked a few paces behind, cradling the Kalashnikov.

This was the first time he'd been more than a few hundred feet away from Matilda's cabin in a conscious state, so Alexander hadn't seen much of this world thus far. Matilda's abilities as a mage were certainly a sight to behold, and the dual moons that hung gracefully in the sky created a visage worthy of hours of awe.

So he wondered, just what else could this world of fantasy have in store?

Zaton

19:42

"It's just so disgusting," Louise groused.

Next to her, Kirche chuckled. "You think so? I rather like the rain."

Louise and Kirche currently found themselves a little displaced. Rather than being aboard the Skadovsk during such unfavorable weather, they were instead on the nearby Shevchenko. The Shevchenko wasn't far from the Skadovsk, only a few hundred meters south, but that was all the distance the bandits needed to begin staging small raids. The girls, along with a numerable amount of other stalkers, had temporarily relocated to the Skadovsk's sister camp to even out the numbers among ships.

While the Shevchenko was slightly smaller than the Skadovsk it was far more intact. Two truck-sized holes on either side of the hull served as the entrances to the camp, and other than the plague of rust, they were the only notable damages to speak of. The only reason the Shevchenko was deemed a less desirable camp was the lack of a bar.

Louise had initially waved that off. She felt that not having a bar wasn't such a big deal, but oddly enough she did find herself missing the atmosphere.

Or maybe it was because she seriously hated being out in the rain.

She also missed the bunk in Tremor's old office. Even though it was musty and covered with suspicious stains, it was much better than lying on a cold metal floor. She felt for Kirche and her sleeping arrangement, although the Germanian didn't do much complaining about it anymore. Siesta didn't complain either. When she was alone with Siesta during her first days in the Zone they didn't have such 'luxurious' accommodations. The Skadovsk had a few wide rooms solely dedicated as a sleeping areas, but being that Siesta was a girl she wasn't quite so keen on sleeping in a room packed full of men, and neither was Louise.

So during that time Siesta had just loaned Louise her sleeping bag while she sat herself in a corner in one of the lonely rooms in the upper levels of the Skadovsk and easily nodded off. Louise often wondered how Siesta could sleep in such positions. Maybe if she wouldn't topple over, Louise thought that Siesta could probably even sleep standing up.

Since the deck was constantly being patrolled, the Shevchenko stalkers had raised a network of polyethylene tarps in an attempt to keep the rain at bay. They covered the two sides of the deck, leaving the middle open to the elements. Each section was haphazardly supported with rotted wooden boards.

The idea was sound enough, but it didn't seem to be working as well as everybody had hoped. Most of the tarps were dotted with tears and punctures, allowing steady streams of water to leak through. The more structurally intact of the tarps tended to fill up with water and would eventually collapse under the strain. If they didn't do that, the water would generously slosh over with every gust of wind.

So even standing under a tarp with their hoods up, the girls still found themselves getting uncomfortably soaked.

"I think it's a little strange for a fire mage to say something like that," Louise pointed out, looking out over the marshes.

Kirche scoffed. "It's not like that really matters at this point."

"I suppose that's true."

Louise glanced over her shoulder as a pair of stalkers strolled past, Leary and Pilot if she remembered the names correctly.

"Man, I hope the marshes don't flood again," she heard Leary remark.

"Yeah," Pilot agreed. "Hey, remember back when the last time that happened? When Snag opened the Skadovsk's door?"

Leary laughed. "Yeah, there was like a freaking foot of water in the bar."

Kirche snorted as the pair moved on. "Well I certainly hope that doesn't happen to us."

Louise nodded in hearty agreement.

"I just like listening to the rain," the red-head continued. "I find it relaxing."

"Really?" Louise still stared off into the distance. She let out a long yawn, neglecting to politely cover her mouth. "My sister Cattleya used to say something like that, but I've never found it to be relaxing myself."

"So you hate everything about the rain then?"

"Yes. Especially how it makes me wet."

Kirche let out another snort, which turned into a quiet chuckle.

"What?" Louise asked, shooting the Germanian a narrow-eyed stare.

"Nothing, nothing," Kirche said, flapping her hand.

"No, what was it? Tell me."

"I don't know if you'd get it or not."

"Why wouldn't I?"

Hearing footsteps on the metal decking the two mages looked to find Siesta approaching. "What's up?" She greeted, waving lazily. Her helmet sat lopsided, sending an urge through Louise to correct it, and she appeared marginally less wet.

"Oh, you know, staring at nothing and getting soaked," Kirche pointed out dryly.

Siesta scoffed. "Sounds great," she remarked sarcastically.

"Why did you come out here?" Louise asked hotly. She cast a light glare to the approaching stalker, disgruntled that she was stuck out in the rain with Kirche while Siesta remained within the innards of the ship. "Were you not enjoying it inside where it's warm and dry?"

Siesta shrugged, standing behind the two girls. "I drew the short straw."

"Oh, like us then," Kirche said.

"Yup," Siesta eyed Louise, who had returned to looking out into the dampened marshes. A smirk drew across her face as she stared at the back of the pinkette's head. "Hey Lou, you look tense. Want a massage?"

Louise found her eyebrow involuntarily twitching. "I told you to never call me that again."

"Why not?" Siesta whined, mimicking a hurt tone. "Friends give each other nicknames all the time."

"That may be, but it isn't fair because I can't shorten your name into something stupid as well."

Siesta laughed, letting her rifle hang on its sling. She placed her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders.

Louise clicked her tongue, shrugging in an attempt to get the hands off. "What are you doing?"

"Massage."

"I don't want it," Louise grumbled.

Siesta promptly ignored her, working her hands against Louise's shoulder muscles. Kirche looked on curiously, wondering what the ex-maid was up to now. Louise herself would have liked to spin around and tell Siesta where to go and how to get there, but she found that the stalker's incessant prodding actually felt kind of nice. It was as if her shoulders had been in knots and were now being swiftly untied.

How did Siesta even know how to do this? Perhaps there wasn't much to it.

Siesta leaned in close to Louise's ear, speaking in her best seductive voice. "Hey, wanna ditch Kirche and make out behind the ship?"

Kirche burst into a fit of laughter, while Louise whirled around eyes wide and cheeks flushed.

"W-w-w-what are you saying!?" Louise shrieked. Siesta took a step back, joining Kirche in laughter. "Ugh! You're so creepy!"

Siesta and Kirche both leaned onto each other for support. "Her... her face!" Siesta managed between laughs. "Oh my God, did you just see her face?"

Kirche nodded, wiping at her eyes. "I-I did! I did!"

Her face creased in annoyance, Louise turned away from the pair. Things usually went this way when they were idle, and who picked on who would often rotate. Kirche and Louise would team up on Siesta, Louise and Siesta would team up on Kirche, and more often than not, Kirche and Siesta would team up on Louise with their playful jabs. It was an odd dynamic that Louise had found incredibly annoying at first, but she had grown to find some amusement in it, except when Siesta would sneak up from behind and make weird remarks in her ear. She just hated that. Kirche seemed to find some great hilarity in it, however.

Louise felt that there might be some deeper meaning behind the things that Siesta did. Without Siesta's constant injection of levity she suspected they probably would have gone completely insane by now.

That, or Siesta just liked to pick on people.

It was probably that.

A heavy gust of wind rolled through the marshes, taking up a section of tarps with it. Stalkers in the area swore loudly in annoyance, especially Leary, who had gotten completely soaked by the bucket loads of water that had spilled out. Pilot seemed to be having a good laugh at his plight.

Siesta turned, rolling her eyes as she watched Snag and Garmata attempt to wrangle the tarp before it found its way overboard and into the marshes. "How many times has that happened today?"

"That would be ten," Kirche answered glumly.

While Siesta and Kirche were paying most of their attention to the rouge tarp, Louise thought she noticed something moving in the marshes. She squinted, trying to get a better view. The sun would soon set, and combined with the heavily overcast sky it made the marshes fairly dark. Her stomach knotted up in paranoia, which she desperately tried to will away.

It was probably just some boars or something.

"What the point anyway? We're still getting soaked," Siesta grumbled. She stepped away. "I'll go give them a hand."

As she walked, the snap of a supersonic bullet split the air, followed immediately by the dull thud of a gunshot. Her head whipped to the side just in time to see Leary collapse to the deck.

Another shot followed, the sound of the passing bullet much louder than before. Siesta quickly realized that the bullet had likely just passed between Louise and Kirche and had sailed right by her head. Before she could react, several more projectiles flew overhead, all making the same sound pattern.

Shouted obscenities came from all around, along with the calls to get down. Siesta didn't need to be told twice. She was already diving to the deck.

The gunfire came to a quick stop, and the gentle sounds of rain slapping against the tarps continued unabated.

Siesta rolled over onto her back and clutched her rifle to her chest. She looked worriedly towards her two friends, fearing she might find them punched full of holes. The mages were now both huddled down to the deck behind the solid railing, Kirche wide-eyed and breathing heavy, while Louise was face down with her arms covering her head.

"You're alright?" Siesta called. Kirche nodded rapidly in response, while Louise rolled onto her back and travelled her hands over her own torso. "Louise! Are you hit?"

"No!" Louise called back.

"Shit!" Crab yelled out from across the deck. "Did anybody see where that came from?"

"From the south!" was Garmata's answer. It vaguely narrowed things down, but nearly everybody had known that anyway. "Pilot, how's Leary?"

Pilot crawled closer to the fallen stalker. Blood trailed from a chest wound, mixing with rainwater and flowing with the pitch of the ship. "He's gone!" He replied.

Kirche looked towards the Shevchenko's superstructure. She would have liked to crawl in that direction to relative safety, but a generous gap in the railing nearby prevented such a move. Louise had similar thoughts, and had no doubt that if she tried to make a run for it she might end up with an extra hole or two.

Her rifle cradled in front of her, Siesta crawled closer to the railing. She slowly moved up to a crouch.

"Siesta, what the bloody hell are you doing?" Kirche hissed, staying low. "You'll get your head blown off!"

Siesta only held up a hand to silence the Germanian. She tentatively peeked over the lip of the railing, and sharply inhaled a lungful of air at what she saw. Rows of reeds shifted and split apart as bodies undoubtedly rushed through.

Nearby, Snag seemed to have engaged in a similar affair. "Oh shit! They're coming!" He yelled.

Stalkers leapt up all around and rushed for the south side of the deck just as gunfire set the air ablaze in an enormous crescendo.

Siesta leveled the G3A3 towards the marshes, centering the front sight post in the rear drum. Bandits split up left and right, firing wild bursts as they ran in search of suitable cover. Siesta fired liberally, over and over, unsure if her bullets were the ones to drop the bandits in her sights. Bullets rained down from the Shevchenko, raking through reeds and blowing small craters in the muddy soil.

Most bandits seemed to be desperately scrambling towards the only solid cover around, a derelict tugboat that sat angled in an awkward stance.

The door at the base of the superstructure flew open, revealing Grouse with a menagerie of stalkers coming behind him. They spilled out onto the deck, joining in on the firefight and raising the level of gunfire to a new high.

Louise shakily rose to a crouch, barely able to hear anything over the discharging rifles around her. She was faintly sure she could hear Kirche call her name as she pressed the Kalashnikov's stock into her shoulder, but she quickly passed it off.

Peering through her optic, Louise settled the sight on a running bandit, only for him to fall before she could pull the trigger. She moved on to another man, only for the same thing to happen again. Shifting her aim, she found a bandit leaning out around the tugboat's bow. She fired a single round, watching as her opponent dropped sideways into the mud. He squirmed in agony, clutching at his midsection before he was stilled by another shot.

She stared in the same place in a moment of morbid curiosity, before moving her point of aim elsewhere. She joined the rest of the stalkers in their current style of engagement: shoot at anything that moved.

Kirche stood, let out the AKM's entire magazine in a series of fully-automatic bursts, and then ducked right back down again. As she unlocked the spent magazine, she noticed three indentations appear in the railing next to her with the accompanying sounds of copper-jacketed lead slamming into metal.

More shots came their way. Siesta lowered herself into cover, while Louise dropped herself onto her bottom. The railing was dented inward again before a few lucky projectiles managed to find their way through between Louise and Kirche. Both girls cried out, scrambling backwards.

One of the wooden stakes very close to Kirche's head was splintered in half. In absence of the needed support, the tarp over their heads came down, spilling collected water and draping Louise in a blue cocoon. She tore at it angrily, causing it to come completely free of its supports to entrap her further.

"God damn it!" Louise shrieked in a fit of boiling anger, extracting herself from the soaking mess. Being shot at and then having the stupid tarp come down on top of her was enough to send her over the edge. She poked back up over the railing, yelling out and firing rapidly.

Siesta replaced an empty magazine, while Kirche similarly fished one into her Kalashnikov's receiver. "This is insane!" She cried, racking the bolt carrier.

Insane? Siesta supposed that it was. To her, this was just Tuesday.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Louise growled, moving lower into cover. "They've all gone behind that stupid boat."

Kirche peeked up tentatively to observe, before ducking back down. "I suppose we've reached an impasse?" The comment had already left her mouth before she took notice of the few fellow stalkers lying motionless on deck. She was certain the bandits had taken more casualties, but it was obvious that this situation wasn't going well for anybody.

The remaining bandits seemed to make a collective and wise decision. They began to retreat, sprinting back through the marshes the way they had come. The stalkers immediately resumed fire.

"Yeah! That's right!" Snag yelled from nearby as he fired. "You can run, but you're only gonna get shot in your fucking backs!"

Louise kept her aim up as the gunfire slowed. A bandit bounded through the marshes, his movements barely tracked through her optic in the dim light.

She debated if she should fire or not. He was just running away, wasn't he?

Her finger twitched down on the trigger, discharging a single round. She was fairly certain that the needle-like 5.45mm round had found its target somewhere on the bandit's body. In an instant he had gone from sprinting to laying face first in the mud.

Louise could only stare out as she lowered her polymer-stocked instrument of death.

Despite the darkness, Louise still remained on the Shevchenko's deck. A tarp over her head, she sat on her rear with her knees pulled up to her chest, barely able to see over the railing. Thankfully, it had stopped raining, but the deck still remained wet under her bottom.

She didn't really care anymore.

Cries of agony drifted across the marshes. An unknown bandit injured during the firefight had somehow managed to remain alive, and had also managed to be left behind by his comrades. Stalkers had thrown around the idea of going out there and putting the man out of his misery, but nobody wanted to step foot off the boat.

There could be anything, or anyone, waiting out there right now.

"Hey, Louise."

Louise jolted slightly at the address, her head whipping quickly to see who had come to visit. It was Grouse. She slowly

turned back to the marshes. "He's been doing that for over an hour now," she pointed out solemnly.

"I know," Grouse replied. He gazed down at the girl. He had been watching her for a minute or so before making his presence known. All she had done during that time was direct an unfocused stare straight out into the darkness. A thousand-yard stare, he supposed. He'd seen that kind of look on more than enough stalkers. A brief silence hung between them before Louise spoke up again.

"Who died?" She mumbled.

"Leary, Crab, Aviator, Matvey, and Polar."

"Polar?" The name had left her mouth before she even realized she had spoken. She knew the marksman was aboard the Shevchenko as well, but she hadn't sought him out to strike up a conversation.

"Did you know him?" Grouse asked.

Louise was silent for a moment, before quietly responding. "Not really, no."

"You should head inside," Grouse advised. "You've been out here all day."

Louise wondered if Siesta had put him up to his. She probably had. Despite mentally agreeing with the man, she didn't move.

"Louise?"

At the prompt, Louise decided to work her body into motion. Using her rifle to assist, she slowly rose to her feet. "I suppose I will then," she said, rifle hanging loosely as she strode across the deck. She could feel Grouse staring at her as she left. She ignored it.

Walking past a few stalkers, she entered into the superstructure. Sauntering up a flight of stairs, she moved through the narrow corridors to the room she knew Kirche and Siesta to be in. Entering quietly through the doorway, she found both females to be present. The room was dully lit by a flickering gas lamp. Kirche was cocooned in a sleeping bag, facing away from the door, while Siesta sat against the wall at the other end of the room.

Her helmet off, Siesta simply sat on the floor with her head against the wall as she stared towards the ceiling. Her G3A3 was nearby, and judging from the cleaning supplies that had been rummaged from her pack Louise surmised that Siesta had likely given the weapon a good servicing.

"Hey," Siesta greeted.

Louise didn't acknowledge the greeting. She moved across the room and sat with her back against the wall adjacent to Siesta. With the room's tight quarters, she had no choice but to be only a small distance from the ex-maid. She set her rifle to lean against the wall next to her, and huddled her knees up close to her chest like she had done on deck.

Siesta furrowed her brow. "You alright?"

Staring straight ahead, Louise easily decided that no, she was not alright.

"Louise?"

"I don't feel like talking," Louise muttered weakly, refusing to look. In her peripheral vision, she noticed Siesta had gone back to staring at the ceiling.

Louise silently recounted the things she had gone through since her arrival in the Zone, every horrifying and traumatizing event. All of it swelled up in her. Just what was she doing with her life? She reached up, running her fingers over the scars on her face. Dressed in these clothes, strapped down with weapons and ammunition, always dirty, and the remnants of three gashes marring the right side of her face all combined to make her feel as if she didn't look like Louise de la Valliére anymore.

She didn't even feel like Louise de la Valliére anymore.

It had only been about a month of this, hadn't it? An entire month where monsters had tried to eat her, people had tried to kill her, and in turn, she had killed people. She just wanted it all to end. She couldn't just stand around with Kirche and Siesta throwing playful jabs at each other anymore. She needed some kind of release for everything building up within her.

She needed to cry.

Louise did not want to cry.

The last time she had done so was before she had even come to the Zone. She remembered the seemingly endless nights of crying herself to sleep at the Academy. The bullying, her failures, and her family's disappointment all felt incredibly stupid in light of the things happening around her now.

At least then, nobody was shooting at her.

Since her arrival in the Zone she hadn't had a full on session of burst-into-tears crying. She'd had a few sobs, but she always tried her best to hold them back. In a place like this, she knew she had to be strong. Strong people didn't cry, right?

Siesta was a strong person, wasn't she? Siesta never cried. Not to her knowledge, at least.

Closing her eyes, Louise suddenly found herself flashing back to the last person she had shot, the bandit running for his life through the marshes. She jolted at the unexpected images flashing through her mind and the non-existent sounds assaulting her ears. Her eyes snapped wide open.

Why did she do that? He was just running away. Why had she needlessly killed him? For her own satisfaction?

She wasn't a killer...

Was she?

Louise hadn't even noticed the tears streaking down her cheeks until a choked sob forced its way up her throat. She cursed mentally, biting down hard on her lip. Siesta would have definitely noticed that. Her thoughts were proven true when she felt a presence settle down beside her. She was drawn into a silent embrace.

She stiffened at the human contact. She bit down harder on her lip, trying to keep down the next sob that seemed to be pushing its way up her throat like an inflated balloon. She wanted to pry Siesta off, to tell her to leave her alone, to go away, but she just couldn't. Louise knew that she needed this.

Letting her tears escape freely, Louise suddenly threw her arms around Siesta's waist and buried her face in the ex- maid's chest like she had done with Cattleya many times before. She was thankful Siesta's vest did well the muffle the sounds of her crying.

She didn't remember when, but somehow, Louise managed to fall asleep.

A/N: Another one down. We'll be seeing some of Monty-chan and Tabitha soon.

Also, Louise is feeling sad. Can you really blame her? The end of this chapter felt pretty depressing, but it's not like life in the Zone is all sunshine and rainbows. The girls have also hung around Zaton for long enough, I think. Soon, we'll be seeing a slight chance in setting.

Perhaps that could open up some new missions and such.

Also, though I've mentioned it before, I've been devoting a lot of time to another upcoming work of mine. I initially had planned on waiting until Stalker Zero was over and done with before posting anything else, but I think it might come a little sooner than that. It's not that I don't enjoy writing Stalker Zero, but I am interested in a little change of pace.

Next chapter, we'll see some characters we haven't seen since Humble Beginnings. I wonder who.