"And here I wished it was Daleks!" Lila muttered as she sat with Theodore while they had a break for a spell with V and N (Nikita) in a cleared part near a disjointed playground that hadn't seen children for over four decades.
There's silence in the air, not a chirp, not a rustle of grass or leaves, not even a breeze passing through, the remains of what was scattered among the area.
Theodore furrowed his brow as he crossed his arms while sitting with Lila as he's deep in thought, the fact the Chernobyl incident resulted in the unusual anomalies that plagued the area since, it's a curious thing, and Lila mused they're lucky in their world, it's only radioactive.
No signs of creepy things looking out windows, at least what Lila knows about their Chernobyl.
Although, she found it unusual that the radiation in this world caused the anomalies, it led Theodore into questioning it as well, as it couldn't been only the accident.
It'd make sense if megaton nuclear bombs went off systematically, but here they were, only the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Truly, a miracle they weren't affected by the radiation, which from what it amounted's that the nuclear isotopes are isolated in different parts of the exclusion zone, unlike their counterpart.
"You think that kind of thing exists?" Lila asks if it's possible that there's something that grants wishes unquestionably with an edge and it caused Theodore to tap his foot against the ground as he's pondering.
Shrugging his wide shoulders, Theodore says they've traveled over four hundred or so adventures, all different in some fashion, different universes across the horizons, anything's possible after they've encountered things that no one in their universe will ever experience in their lifetime.
"My father always taught us that anything can and has existed, it's a matter of when you encounter it," Theodore summed that he didn't rule out the possibility that a wish granting object exists somewhere in this universe, though how it works, doesn't seem like Nikita knew except from what she heard from the other stalkers.
"No way it just grants your wishes," Lila didn't believe that something like a wish granting object existed without some sort of cost.
From reading the classic cautionary tale, "The Monkey's Paw," Lila knows that these wishes come with a price, sometimes far worse than whatever ailed the grantee into wishing them in the first place.
"I concur," Theodore agreed with Lila's assessment as he shifted in his spot, watching the scenic post-apocalyptic world in front of them as they rested near the tall rocks behind them, giving them cover from would-be robbers or anything prowling in the reddish woods behind.
Keeping watch Nikita's blue eyes surveyed every inch of where they rested, looking for signs of trouble, be it human or unnatural.
The zone remains benign, they have not slighted her, so she has no reason to punish them, but they still risk her fickle nature, should she choose to torment them for her own amusement.
V's near the rocks, looking at a map she snuck in, marking off areas they've been to, keen on looking for something, but she quickly shoved the map in between her breasts before anyone noticed her with it.
Cautiously, her eyes watched the others, they're busied that they didn't notice, N (Nikita) busied watching for anything changing, and the Doctor and his companion talked to each other.
Deep in her thoughts, V wondered about the door, where it might've been, if it's true that it moves around, if it's protected.
Thinking about the potential spots the door could've been, V ruled out the buildings they passed. Call it a hunch that the door wouldn't be in the blown-out buildings.
If it's protected like the stories, a building's a terrible place for it.
Going back to the map she stealthy looked at, V saw a cave system that one of the rivers feeds into, that it gave her an idea.
If the door isn't in the obvious spot…
Toiling with the idea in her head, V pondered her chances, she still needed to pay N the rest of the money for the tour, that she still has some left in her coffers to make it worthwhile for N.
Putting on a face, stealthy fixing her tight velvet dress shirt as she felt the map flattening against her chest, tugging on her mink sleeves, V goes over to Nikita as she kept watch, asking her, "How much would it take for you to find the door?"
Turning her head stiffly towards her, Nikita's confused as she reminded V, "I can't take you to the door if she doesn't want it found."
Nodding as she admitted that she's aware of what Nikita tells her, V gestures as she insisted, "What if?"
Stubbornly, Nikita disagreed with the hypothetical.
She warns V, that nothing good ever comes from finding the door.
"And why's that?" V asks her why.
Turning her head back to watch the tree line, Nikita says that no one gets to say their wish. The power behind the door's capable of seeing into their very souls, learning their true wishes.
Those true wishes aren't always what they wanted, either, and they can't stop the power from willing their wishes.
"The man Hugo talked about, he sacrificed his own brother to find the door," Nikita recalled the story that Hugo told her many times, as cautionary tale that grew from historic context of events that happened long ago, before Nikita was born.
His real name lost to time, the people who knew him best either died or moved away from the area, but Hugo remembered his nickname, Porcupine, don't ask why, he was referred to it until his suicide, and the only other sticking point Hugo knows about him.
Her fine brow raised, V's shocked, but Nikita says that the door granted his wish, but didn't.
"After he sent his brother to his death, he went out to search for the door, and found it. He wanted to wish for his brother's return, repentance for what he done, but he didn't get it," Nikita tells V how the power of the wish maker saw into Porcupine's soul and instead of granting his wish of reviving his brother, it granted him wealth, instead.
The shock, horror, shame, betrayal, everything welled within the man that it drove him into committing suicide shortly after he received immense wealth that put him above everyone in the area, horrified that internally, he was more concerned about money, than his own brother.
It's a warning to anyone who sought the door, that they won't always get the wish they want, and the consequences for it, always dire.
"You'll get your wish, but you won't always like what it gives," Nikita warns V that the power of the wish maker isn't to be taken lightly, that it claimed many who were foolish enough going in thinking they'll get their wishes like children's cartoons.
Hearing this, it didn't damper V's spirit as she tried compelling Nikita into helping her with finding it, by offering an additional 375,200 rubles.
"Come on, you know I'm worth the money," V insisted that Nikita take the deal, she already had half the money from the agreement, they're already here in the zone, why not spend the time trying to find the door?
Stirred by the conversation, Theodore and Lila took interest as they overheard V trying to compel Nikita into agreeing with the new arrangement, that V looked to them in hopes of pushing Nikita into accepting it.
"Why are you so insistent on finding this door?" Theodore wanted to know why V's willing to pay exorbitantly for the chance of finding the door and V coyly tells him that she has her reasons, but if he wants to see them, he and Lila have to help.
They wanted to leave the zone, so it'd be their best interest to work with them on this matter, else they're bodies looking for their heads, figuratively and literary.
"How would you want me to do that, commune with spirits?" Nikita irritatedly asked V how she wanted Nikita to find the mythical door.
Pointing at her, V says that she said it herself, she has a connection with the zone, maybe it has some other benefits, as well.
Scoffing, Nikita sharply warns, "We're guests in her home, she'll sooner kill us!"
Seeing how Nikita outright refuses to agree, even with the additional money, V tried to sweeten the pot, by saying something along the lines of, "I'd thought you wanted to find her."
Sharply turning her whole body to face her, Nikita questioned what V said, and leaning forward, her pendent on her velvet choker barely moved, V elaborated, "What if she went to the door, you never checked, did you?"
Losing context, Theodore and Lila sheepishly broached what V's talking about and it forced Nikita into revealing that she had her older sister go missing some years ago.
Alice.
One night, after everyone gone to bed, she disappeared from their home, their parents and a couple of the old stalkers went looking for her, but she never turned up.
Nobody knew what happened to her, other than her knapsack was gone from her room with a couple of her things, and it was assumed she gone into the zone.
Why a fifteen-year-old would've upped and went to the zone, a place that's hammered into the minds of children at a young age as a dangerous landscape, nobody could've figured it out, her journal and other personal items gone from her room, she didn't leave a trace of why.
"Why would she come here?" Theodore softly asks Nikita, seeing how the memory is a sore subject with her, and Nikita tells him that Alice never liked herself.
She was the most beautiful girl in their village, but she felt differently, a pit of ugliness welled within her, that Nikita guessed it boiled over one night, and she went into the zone, never seen again.
Her parents couldn't handle the loss, Nikita remembering her mother breaking down and crying every time she went by Alice's room, so she moved with them to a different village, met her future husband as his family were their neighbours.
The loss drove Nikita in trying to find Alice, but nothing turned up, and when Peter got hurt in the welding accident five years ago, it gave Nikita the opportunity going into the zone.
She never stepped into the zone before then, but when they had their backs pressed against the wall, it was the only thing that she could do.
Five years in this work, Nikita didn't find anything that pointed where Alice went, the zone unwilling to show her what she wanted to know, be it out of malice or it simply didn't think much about her, that it seemed hopeless.
It's been so long; Nikita doesn't think she'll find a complete skeleton much less anything that belonged to Alice that hadn't already been picked over by scavengers.
Yet, Nikita tried, so hard, to find her sister, dead or alive, something.
"You sure she went to the zone?" Lila asks Nikita if she's sure that her older sister gone into the zone and Nikita affirmed that her parents and the stalkers looked everywhere before concluding she went to the zone.
They were thorough in their searches, they scoured every corner of the area, talked to everyone from the dregs of society to the average people, but nobody saw her, and it's the only area they hadn't checked thoroughly due to the dangers.
"I never knew why she hated herself, ten years old, I didn't know shit about my own sister," Nikita mourned that her young age stopped her from realizing early on how her sister felt about herself.
If she had known sooner, maybe she could've stopped Alice from going into the zone.
Shaking her head, Lila softly tells her that it wasn't her fault, but Nikita felt differently.
"Is it possible though, had she gone to the door?" Theodore spoke up about the chances that Alice attempted to locate the door, wanting the chance to make a wish, and it made Nikita go quiet as she thinks about his question.
Since they were children they heard the stories, but they thought it been a warning about the power of the zone, as they never met Porcupine, but as Nikita grew older and saw the zone for what it was, she hoped that Alice didn't make the same mistake as everyone who went looking for the door did.
Alice wouldn't foolishly risk her life for a story, surely.
Shaking her head dejectedly, Nikita says that she doesn't know where her sister went, but it's been long enough, she isn't stupid to see that if her sister came to the zone, it swallowed her like it did to the other trespassers.
All Nikita wanted's closure, but the zone doesn't see it fit to give it to her, to either force her to come to it, to torment her for its own entertainment, she doesn't know.
"As much as I love an emotional arc, don't you think finding the door's your only option?" V eyes Nikita as she crossed her arms.
Seeing the sharp look from Nikita, V elaborated by saying that it's possible that her sister found it, maybe if Nikita finds it, she'll get her answers.
"Hadn't I told you enough, going to that door will be the death of you!" Nikita lambasted V's attempts persuading her into accepting the new terms.
Subtly, V held it over her head that she needed the money, and if it was her final trip into the zone, she'll want every ruble or viable currency to keep a roof over her and her husband's head while they worked to find a new arrangement.
With the rubles dangling in front of her like a carrot, Nikita hesitated taking the terms, but she thought about her husband, how they couldn't be sure they'll have new arrangements before they touch their meager savings.
It's a struggle as it is finding work in their village, but it'll cost too much money to move to another, and they don't even know if there's any money to be made in the next village they move into.
Locked in a battle between herself, Nikita chewed on her inner lip.
Thinking about Peter and their money troubles, Nikita hears a soft voice in her head, it sounded like a woman, but Nikita couldn't hear her clearly, but she knew that wasn't her imagination.
Hard to hear, Nikita struggled, but she pieced together the woman beckoning her.
"Come… come…" Nikita heard the voice beckon her and she deduced it's the zone, reaching out to her, wanting her to come… where?
Where, does she want her and the group to go?
A phantom force compelled Nikita to move and she agreed to V's terms, exciting the woman as she flashed a smile while internally cheering.
Their break over, Nikita felt someone unseen guiding her as she followed paths that she didn't normally take, the group following behind her.
The change didn't go unnoticed and Theodore felt compelled to snoop in Nikita's head, but he didn't hear the woman calling out to Nikita.
Guiding them, Nikita felt her legs move on their own as the zone compelled her, she would not go against the zone's wishes, as this was her home, and she made the rules, going against her would incite her.