Author's Note.
I wasn't at all pleased with my last chapter mostly due the fact I explained WAAAYY too little. I may have wanted the overall reason that everyone is in Chernobyl to be a mystery, but I never explained who Nimble was, the motive of the bandits, or why Chiyo was sitting in a damn tree. So from now on i'm taking more than 3 hours to write my chapters. Enjoy! (Respectively I will answer those questions. A man who was to meet with the girls and give them a flash drive with important information of some type. The bandits were robbed of the secret info on the flash drive by Nimble want to take it back. Chiyo refusing to fight serves as a spotter and relays information to the others.)
The sun was finally setting on the landscape.
Yomi had suggested that moving at night would have made it much easier to evade a major confrontation with the Russian military guarding the dangerous "zone".
Osaka who was on guard duty that night shook the others awake.
"The sun is setting guys." She said in her normal dazed accent.
Chiyo was the first to really get ready to move out.
"Good." Chiyo said with only a tinge of discomfort.
"The earlier we start moving the further we can get."
Yomi woke up next, "Did any more bandits try to chase us last night?" She said concerned because of last nights incident.
"I'm not sure I slept through most of the night" Osaka said scratching her blushing cheek.
"B- But you were on guard duty..." Kagura said eyes suddenly very wide.
"Sorry I just dozed off" Osaka said tilting her head.
Kagura knew no matter how many times she told her to stay vigilant Osaka couldn't remember anything."Whatever." She settled for.
Sakaki awoke without a sound as usual.
All was peaceful... or at least quite as the Abandoned house they slept in that night was unsettling to say the least
Once again Tomo awoke with an audible bang as she smacked into the slanted roof above her head.
"OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" She went on with as she clutched her head.
"Stop sleeping so close to the damn wall if want that to stop." Yomi growled.
"I will change for no one!" Tomo claimed already beyond her painful experience.
"Tomo-chan you must be quiet!" Chiyo said covering the wildcat's mouth.
They took their Kevlar and jackets from the packs they where given by the trader when they first arrived.
The sun finally safely behind the hills, They packed their gear and crept away from the makeshift home.
With no flashlights or headlamps that signaled approaching soldiers or other makeshift troops calling themselves "STALKER's". The girls were able to press forward unimpeded.
After a only an hour of skulking in the brush, they reached another stalker camp.
Uncertain of the allegiance of the stalkers they proceeded with caution.
"Hello... My name is Mihama Chiyo... umm..." The fearful Chiyo began.
"She wants to know who's side you guys are on!" Tomo exclaimed.
Yomi sighed and bowed her head.
A stalker stood up and said "Nobodies side I suppose, but do people really use your real names here?"
Osaka began "Of course!" She said happily "I'm no liar." Some snickering arose form the circle of stalkers.
The same stalker said "Well using your real name is unnecessary especially with such strange names."
Stalkers being predominantly Russian or Ukrainian, Japanese names were completely unheard of amongst their ranks.
"Then what do we call ourselves?" Kagura asked.
"Well you could use a stalker name. For example my stalker name is Stretch."
"Then I am Sir Melon!" Osaka announced.
"No you're not." Yomi told her.
But from the look on Osaka's face she didn't listen.
Chiyo still waiting for her chance to speak finally saw her opportunity.
"Umm... Which way to the "Garbage"?
"Oh just follow this road north to those gigantic piles of irradiated junk."
"Thanks alot!" Tomo called out already walking down the road with the man had pointed out for them.
"Wait up!" Called Kagura.
They had finally arrived at the infamous "garbage". Towering piles of discarded machinery and rubble dominated the area, accompanied by distant gunfire and growls of strange creatures affected by the residual effects of the accident long ago.
The group silently moved along the road only a few feet a away in the brush.
"The sun is going to rise soon." Yomi said
She was right. The eastern sky was turning a bright orange which ment they needed to find shelter quickly.
"There!" Tomo pointed to a near by junkyard.
"I see a bus in there that looks okay. May be we can stay there tonight."
"Yeah but I also see a bunch of stalkers that may not be friendly." Yomi argued.
"So maybe we can just sneak in and nobody will ever know." Kagura suggested.
"And what if those guys are bandits and they think to check the bus at some point in the day?" Said Yomi.
"Well i'm going for it and if you guys wanna' come with then you can follow me" Tomo said, walking away to the bus.
Yomi unwillingly followed as the others had already accompanied Tomo to the bus.
They wove past stalker patrols into the bus just as the sun rose and flooded the junkyard with light light.
As it turned out the bus was a perfect place to hide. Every window was either painted over or dirty to point that almost no light could enter.
"It doesn't seem like we need anyone keeping watch tonight." Said Chiyo.
"Looks like it." Tomo said already half asleep.
They drifted to sleep quickly. They had walked almost 15 miles knees bent 90 degrees or more the entire time, and it was obvious how tired they where.
Author's Note.
That's it chapter 2 is in the can. No pulse pounding gun fights or sniper hunts just arriving at the garbage and making camp for the night. Please read on because this is gonna get epic.