It was late in the evening, the sun already hidden far behind the trees and clouds that covered the sky, a dull orange glow peeking out from between them. Rain fell down like heavy sheets tinking and thunking right off of the roof and back onto the ground an odd sort of sizling noise as it picked away at the paint. To one side of the road men were being loaded up into unmarked trucks, bags tied to their heads, hands cuffed behind themselves. To the other side, a small command structure had been errected right against the Zone's border, heavilly armed soldiers stationed arround the catwalk. Signs were posted in dozens of languages stating that trespassers would be shot.
As the checkpoint proper finally came into view Alexy was at a loss for words. He fumbled with his PDA, scrolling through the messages from his father. Just seeing the words sent from home was enough to distract him from his surroundings. A small smile crossed his face as he read over the note his father had sent, giving him permission to make this dangerous journey. It was the first time he'd really felt he had earned that love.
"Alright, just stay calm, stay quiet, and we'll be in and out before you know it." The driver spoke with a reassuring voice a single hand patting Alexy on the shoulder. His skin was an unnaturally dull sickly grey, his eyes a bright yellow, and his beard was pure white. 'Overexposure' was how he called it, the condition that resulted from mixing and matching artifacts and keeping them on one's person for too long.
As they rolled up the man at the gate called out. "Martial, you old bastard! Thought you would have retired by now." The soldier patted the aged gentleman on the shoulder and held out his hand for Martial to pass him stack of legal documents. "You know me, takes a lot more than a few close calls to drive me from the Zone. Besides, I'm doing a favor for Cosmonaut, going to give little baby the full tour." Martial reached back over to Alexy to give him a light slap on the cheek and received a bit of a smiling nod from the gate guard. Upon taking a hold of the papers he covertly pulled out a small stack of rubles from the pile and stuffed them into the pocket of his uniform before handing them right back. "Be careful out there old friend, the zone has little respect for its elders."
Without adding another word the soldier raised his hand quickly up into the air, signaling the guard up in the building to raise the gate. The rain only grew worse as the wooden barricade cranked up to attention, allowing easy access into the mass of rusting cars, rotting corpses, and overgrown trees that lay just on the other side of the chain link fence. It was akin to stepping into another world, a place out of time. The acidic rain of the zone had already rusted away most of the older vehicles, but even so there were fresh cars with much fresher wounds.
The moment the two were back on the road Alexy let out a long exasperated sigh. He'd unconsciously held his breath throughout the whole ordeal. "I thought he was going to arrest us." There was long pause while he took a deep sip from his canteen. "Or kill us." Another sip of cool refreshing water followed, bringing him a bit of relief before he slipped the lid back onto the container. "Or arrest us, torture us, then kill us."
"What kind of ████ is that to say about an old friend?" The car had slowed down somewhat to avoid the potholes in the road left over from the various battles that had taken place over the years. "You know when me and your father used to make this trip we had to cut our way in through the fence under the cover of nightfall, and Cosmonaut never once froze up like that." Martial shook his head as the car bumped and rolled over a skeleton that had long ago been picked clean by the local inhabitants, human and otherwise. "You're lucky all I had to do was show some papers." The crunch of bone rolling under the tire passed as the two left the checkpoint behind and after a few moments of travel a small rookie village was already in sight. "You're lucky we're still on good terms, your fa-"
All too suddenly their conversation was cut short by a hail of gunfire blowing out the front window. There was no buildup, no warning; one minute he was speaking with the elderly man in control of the car then the next Alexy was ducking his head down as his worst fears were immediatly realized. He closed his eyes in terror as the vehicle accelerated suddenly. Something wet splattered upon the back of his neck and all over the interior of the speeding vehicle. He didn't want to think about what was going on. He couldn't think about what was happening.
The car swerved off the side of the road and slammed directly into an old tree, causing the airbags to deploy and knock the reporter into unexpected unconsciousness. He couldn't tell how much time had passed before he awoke, dazed and confused, only half able to think straight as he began to hear words come into focus. "We finally got you, you stupid son of a ████." Footsteps grew closer by the moment, echoing through his head. "Thought you could ████ with Freedom, and get away with it, ████?"
Alexy fumbled for his belt and fell out the side of the Goat's door onto the cool pavement. "Couldn't dodge a hundred rounds could you?" The mocking voices getting closer as a few rounds fired up into the air from the men clad in green. "Hey Typhoon, make sure Martial's little friend didn't survive ey?" His vision was still blurry and he was barely able to drag himself along the ground, his strength already fading. As he finally hit grass he noticed a strange dark grey liquid covering his hands and arms, spattered all over him, mostly on the side of his body that had been facing Martial.
As he heard the footsteps grow closer he fumbled for his gun, though it was little more than a peashooter. The mocking voice of Typhoon came from behind as he slowly walked. "Are you hurt little one? Don't worry, I will make all of the pain go away." A harsh laugh filled the air as he came closer and Alexy finally managing to prop himself up against an old wooden box, getting the support he needed draw his Fora-12 just in time for Typhoon to come around the corner.
"Hey, what are you Freedom ███holes doing here? This is neutral territory!" Bang-bang, two shots. That distraction was all Alexy had needed, two pulls of his trigger suddenly caught the rookie Freedomer in a fatal surprise. The bullets to his guts brought him to his knees before fell into a roll down the hill towards Alexy, losing his his grip on his AKS-74U as he tumbled downward. The two gunshots from Alexy's pistol were enough spook the Loners who had come to check out the commotion. A firefight started up on the bridge above, as each side thought the other had fired first.
As Typhoon lay dying he tried to reach up, to take the young Alexy with him if he was going to die, but just the effort of raising his arm was too much for him at that point. Before he could do any harm his eyes glazed over, and Alexy could only watch as and life left his body. The recruit fell limp on the ground in front of a stunned Alexy. It was an odd sensation to watch the man who had been trying to kill him die, to see it happen and know he had done it with the simple pull of a trigger. For a time he lay there motionless before the weight of the last few events finally him, causing him to suddenly expel the full contents of his stomach out on the ground.
It was eight months ago already, but whether it was eight months or eight years he would still remember it with vivid clarity. How could he forget something so... traumatic? Knowing it was the only option didn't help matters any, didn't make it easier to sleep at night, didn't make killing any easier. The only thing really had done was kick-start the nightmares. As he sat thinking back to it a voice called him right back to reality. "Hey, little one." A single gloved hand was waving in front of his face and snapping its fingers to get his attention.
