Holstering her handgun, Nikita held a weary look while staring at Theodore after he introduced himself.
Lila's about to introduce herself before Nikita stopped her, informing her that nobody knows their names, nothing more.
So, she's referred to as the Doctor's companion.
"I don't think they're security," V commented that she doesn't think they have much to worry about, neither Theodore or Lila looked like undercover guards trying to weed out people like Nikita.
Shaking her head, Nikita wouldn't budge.
She then asked them, "Why're you here, then?"
There are others who come to the zone, that weren't trespassing, amateur explorers, or scavenging, Nikita rarely encountered them, and it was a reason that led to many fights with Peter.
Shrugging his wide shoulders, Theodore replied that they happened to make their rounds and found their way here.
"Has the radiation seeped into your brain?" Nikita insulted him as she crossed her arms, the way he answered her question, it was like he and his companion decided to briskly take a stroll in a dangerous area.
Shaking her head, Lila answered for him, saying, "No, his brother hadn't called him, yet."
She saw the annoyance in those blue eyes before changing her answer, saying they happened to gotten lost, and managed to find their way here. They don't even know where they ended up.
Confused as she's looking at the two, V abruptly responded with, "You don't know where you are?"
Seeing the confusion in their faces, she realized it as Nikita did, neither knew where they were, it's almost a miracle they hadn't died!
"You're in the quarantine zone," Nikita tells them as she's baffled the two didn't know this, "bless her, she would've killed you two without mercy!"
The zone gives, but she takes, for now she shows mercy to the two traveling fools.
Baffled, Theodore inquired, "Quarantine zone?"
Sharing looks with Nikita, V couldn't hide her befuddlement before exclaiming, "Did you live under a rock for the last forty years?"
Their looks weren't helping and it led Nikita to inform them on the history on the zone, from when the nuclear accident happened, to another incident thereafter, and the series of events leading up to the zone's formation.
It led her to muse to herself that they're not just tourists, but clueless ones!
Seeing how clueless the two were, it put Nikita in a bind, because she knew they wouldn't have money to pay for her services, they didn't look the types to carry rubles, at the same time, she couldn't leave them to wander the zone on their own, else there's a chance the zone might change her mind about them.
Some showed more sympathy than others who're caught unprepared in the zone, but some grew callous with age, and blamed the unprepared fools for their failures.
Nikita felt compelled to help them, at least until they're safely out of the zone, though they'll have to go with them until the completion of the tour, as she feared it's too dangerous trying to escort them to safely and then continuing the tour.
V understood her reasoning, even she didn't want them getting killed by something in the zone, also she found it adds excitement to her tour with additional people on the tour.
"As I told her, you follow my instructions. When I tell you to do something, you do it, understand?" Nikita gave Theodore and Lila the rundown on how her tours worked.
They cannot take anything they find out of the zone unless the zone wills it and even then, they shouldn't expect much, she gives and she takes.
Hearing how Nikita talks about the zone as if it's a person intrigued Theodore and Nikita warns him that the zone has a vengeful streak.
If she's angry, everyone will know it.
"Respect her or she will punish you," Nikita summed before resuming the tour, accompanied by Theodore and Lila.
As they walked with Nikita watching for any sudden changes, Lila asks her why she would get into a line of work that puts her in a dangerous position.
A look in her blue eyes, Nikita tells Lila that she took it because it was the last-ditch effort to make money for her and her husband, ever since she was a little girl, she always had a connection with the zone, that she put it to work, and managed to become one of the stalkers that works in and around the zone.
It's not easy, she admits, there's dangers everywhere, and the zone's unpredictable nature can terrify even the most seasoned stalkers.
However, the money she earned from doing it's too much for her to turn away from it, though that changed, with her promising her husband that this tour's her last.
Although Nikita wanted nothing more than to follow her husband's wishes, she couldn't deny that the zone has the will to decide whether she leaves or not.
If she's allowed to leave her profession, then she'll find work elsewhere, whatever that ends up being, though it chanced not paying lucratively.
During the long trek through a different path, above them, they see the skies turn an unusual shade of colour.
There's no sun, the skies an orange colour, yet it just turned eleven, Nikita says that it does this regularly, changing to unusual colours, for now, they're not at risk.
However, the moment the skies turn into a chaotic maelstrom, they have a short time to find shelter, praying that it's empty, before they're stuck inside for who knows how long until the storm passes.
It happens rarely, but when it does, it's unforgiving to people caught in the chaos.
"What happens to them?" Lila asks Nikita as she led them towards the main road leading into one of the leveled towns, turned into ravaged rubble by the scavengers looking for loot among the ruins.
Thinking back, Nikita says that there's stories she heard of people caught in these chaotic episodes from other stalkers unfortunate to witness them.
Anyone caught in the storm without a safe place, due to the chaotic nature of the storm, they simply cease living, dropping dead without fanfare, dying from their bodies becoming inundated with powerful chaotic energy that they simply couldn't withstand them.
Personally, Nikita's fortunate that she never encountered the storms, though she knows better to think she'll never encounter them.
"Count me out," V commented that she didn't want to witness the chaotic storms, which Nikita warns that she couldn't promise her.
Walking along the cracked road, rubble on both sides of them, Nikita sharply warns to watch out for any sudden changes, movements, anything that doesn't stick out against the background.
His icy blue eyes scanned the rubble as he walked with Lila close to him, Theodore sees the destruction from the accident, rippling through the area, a silence among the ruins.
A fountain's in the middle of the ruins, the decorative topper that used to be a woman with a vase melted into a heap from the heat caused by the blast.
Theodore stopped when he saw a disturbance in a corner of a destroyed brownstone, near the old fire hydrant, it rippled, distorted, and his staring garnered attention from Nikita as she asked him if he noticed a disturbance.
He pointed towards the fire hydrant, and Nikita nodded as she reached into her backpack, bringing out a marble.
Keeping them to the side, Nikita cautiously tossed the large marble towards the area Theodore said, to his amazement, the marble disappeared!
"Where did it go?" Lila's bemused as she didn't see the marble drop to the ground.
Nikita warns that they must watch where they always go, that these phenomena tend to change drastically.
The one they just encountered can send people and things anywhere, any time, any place, and once you fall through it, you don't come back.
"Can it send you back in time?" V inquired if these type of phenomenas can potentially send people back in time, before the nuclear accident, and Nikita muses that she never known anyone who willingly gone into these phenomena looking for those answers.
Maybe the scientists, but since they haven't turned up, she doubted they found their answers, and since died due to them stuck somewhere they can't escape.
"You see them, too?" Nikita asks Theodore if he can see the phenomena and he admitted that he can, causing her to muse that she's surprised to find someone else who can see them, too.
Since she was a girl, Nikita saw them, nobody else could, never knew why she could but they can't, maybe it's because of her connection to the zone, but really, Nikita couldn't be sure.
"Can you feel the storms, I wonder?" Nikita wondered if Theodore can feel when one of the chaotic maelstroms starts, like a crow.
If they can see the disturbances from phenomena, maybe they can feel the storms, too.
The tour continues with Nikita leading them past the rubble, back onto the road, where she sees in the distance that parts of the road collapsed.
When she came through here before, the road wasn't like that, perhaps it finally lost enough integrity from lack of maintenance that it finally collapsed, or possibly the zone telling her where to go from there.
Running a hand through her blond hair, V's eyes slowly moved throughout the area as they walked, intently looking closely for anything remotely relating to what she wanted to look for.
She heard it from someone who came here before, that's why she wanted to come in the first place, why she was willing to pay more than the standard fee to get a chance.
Whispers and speculations, you name it, but all concluded the same thing, that there's something in the zone that if you find it, you could have anything your heart desires, all in one wish.
Somewhere, there's a nondescript door, unassuming, looks no different than the doors in V's home, but this door isn't any ordinary door, behind it, is something that grants wishes.
Nobody can rightly say what it is, if it's an object, a daemon that rose from the ashes of the nuclear accident, or one of the phenomena that roams the plains.
Of all things people say about the zone, wish making wouldn't normally be one of them, but there's enough stories and accounts of someone gaining a wish from it that V can't help herself but come and see for herself.
No one knows exactly where the door's located, if it moves around, if it's protected, however, with the zone ever changing, they can't even fathom predict where they think it is, but if someone's lucky enough, they may find it on their adventure through the zone.
Or unlucky, depending on what stories people chose to believe and what Hugo says.
Hence why V reached out to Nikita as she's capable of making her way around the zone, a decent track record with tourists coming back in one piece, and her understanding of the zone allowing safe travels.
Though adamant that they'll find the door, Nikita's a better chance than the others that V spoke with before reaching out to Nikita.
Why would V want to risk her life for something that no one's sure existed much less know the validity of the stories, well, she isn't telling, and she has enough money that it isn't that.
Seeing the two wanderers, V knew they weren't interested in the door like her, curious, but they weren't looking for it.
Perhaps they have some use, especially if the Doctor (Theodore) can see the phenomena like Nikita.
Pointing ahead, Nikita says they're coming up on the old clerk's office.
It has no fencing surrounding it, but she reminded them not to go near, and if they feel anything different than what they're feeling, now, to tell her immediately.
"Not to knock your job, but do people really want to come here?" Lila genuinely asked Nikita about her marks and marks in general.
Shrugging her shoulders, Nikita says that for some people, this was their home, but after the accident and government intervention, sneaking in's their only way of recapturing old memories, maybe finding something that belonged to them.
Others, like V, it's no different than people paying for tours in areas that normally forbid traveling, it's the thrill.
Adventurers looking for their adrenaline kicks loved coming here, because of the chances of running into danger, which is numerous, though they've dwindled in recent times, mostly because the smart ones knew better to come here for their thrills.
For the scavengers and robbers, it's easy money.
Robbers tended to steal from the scavengers since they typically carried more lucrative loot, scavengers try to keep their presence minimal in the zone and didn't carry a whole lot of weapons for this reason, allowing them to avoid the trouble of locating and retrieving loot on their own.
Recently, scavengers gotten wiser and bolder, some scavengers have taken to using the phenomena to their advantages against would-be robbers, to various successes.
It caused the robbers to become increasingly selective who they chosen as their marks, but they've become increasingly aggressive because of their inability to easily rob scavengers of any fetishes they might've found.
For the likes of Nikita, robbers generally steered clear of them, because they knew that people like Nikita didn't have remarkable loot or interest in scavenging, thus there isn't anything worth value robbing, and that it's against their best interests picking fights.
Still, Nikita hated them both.
Few generated sympathies from her, like those scavenging for any remnants of life that once was, but those are few in-between, the scavengers that come here have no attachments or memories.
Robbers, no sympathy, whatsoever.
"Wait," Nikita stopped the group as she surveyed the building with caution.
The roof completely fell in, exposing the building to the weather, the windows blown out, the doors off their hinges, the steps worn and cracked, the brickwork starting to fall apart from a combination of exposure and age.
The parking lot's filled with craters, a turned over burnt-out vehicle nearby, there's graffiti strewn about, left by degenerates or other stalkers warning each other of previous dangers.
"Doesn't seem like much," Theodore commented that he doesn't see how the buildings are threatening, especially as derelict as they've seen, causing Nikita to turn her head towards him, her hair stiffly moving, as she tells him that the area's fundamentally changed.
Maybe the buildings outwardly looked terrible, but if anyone's foolish enough to step into them, they might very well be teleported to a different world afar, or meet their ends.
"Trust nothing you see," Nikita summed that even something as harmless as a rock risks bodily harm to anyone who doesn't understand the complexities of the zone.
She's still learning them, herself.
"Like that bear statue?" V sheepishly asks her as she turned her head to face V.
Nodding, Nikita expressed that yes, that includes the missing bear statue.
She caught a shared look between the Doctor and his companion and asked if they'd seen it.
"Not exactly a bear," Theodore wearily smiled.
Her chestnut eyes focused on the old clerk's office, that once saw visitors coming to it for various reasons, now in a state of disrepair, Lila surveyed the building safely afar as Nikita warned them.
Looked like any destroyed building in a post-apocalyptic movie, but as Lila looked, she felt her eyes drawn to a broken window.
Inside, it's completely blackened by the roof that fell in, there isn't anything particularly worthwhile, and she wanted to turn her head to talk to Theodore, when she thought she saw something moving among the blackness.
Maybe it was her imagination, but Nikita hammered it in their heads that there's nothing in the zone that's just her imagination.
It's subtle movement, Lila didn't see much, until she swore seeing a pair of white eyes, they don't look like light's reflecting in them, looking through the window and they narrowed on her and the group.
"Um, question," Lila hesitantly called out to Nikita.
Nikita looked at her as she responded, "Yes?"
Gesturing with her eyes, Lila silently tells Nikita to look towards the window.
Her blue eyes moved to the window Lila subtly tells her and she sees those white eyes.
V and Theodore see them too and V turned her head towards Nikita, wearily asking her about them.
"It won't come near us," Nikita tells them and turns away from the window, prepared to continue the tour.
Baffled, the three looked at her and she tells them why.
"As long as you stay close to me and each other, it can't hunt you. They prefer hunting loners," Nikita tells them before forcing them to break away eye contact from the unseen figure as it watched them leave.
Loners are the fewest people Nikita sees on these tours and for good reason.
Some survive just fine, preferring life in the zone than outside it, but some aren't as apt as others, and they're generally picked off by the likes such as the creature with those white eyes if not robbers if they're feeling gratuitous.
"You're certain we'll be fine?" Theodore called her judgement into question as they're led away from the old clerk's office.
Nikita affirmed that they'll be fine if they stuck together.
Those creatures were weak and they know it, hence why they stick to loners or anyone who wandered the zone on their own.
"Where did it come from?" V asks Nikita on the creature's origins and she's told that nobody knows, they could've been lost stalkers that ended up caught in the storms, turned into that, it's hard to know.
V's shocked at the thought there's more of those creatures as she asks, "You don't suppose they'll figure it out, do you?"
Maybe one of those creatures are intimidated by a group, but a couple of them, well, that's a nightmare unfolding.
Nikita didn't seem frightened at the thought; she says that the creatures "don't like sharing."