Here Comes the Cavalry

8:45 AM

22nd May 2012

The chilly Friday morning shivered the two travelling stalkers on their way to the Dark Valley, the icy wind penetrates through their thin and cheap coats as they ventured between the sandwiched fields of radiation and scattered anomalies. Briskly zigzagging with their firearms at hand, Tolik pressed his sawn-off TOZ-66 shotgun at his chest, in case of any mutants drifting by their vicinity. Springboard and Whirligig anomalies were sited afar from each other and between tight vacant spaces, luckily Flash prepared himself with a bag of bolts in his left waist-pouch, chucking one or two every now and then, instructing Tolik to stay close behind him.

And suddenly Flash raised his hand to stop his fellow accomplice.

"What?" Tolik asked, breathless from all that quick running.

"Take a breath, cuz we're gonna run like hell." Flash said, "Strong emissions of radiation ahead, so if you want to survive and have a lesser chance of getting cancer. I suggest you best be prepared."

Flash kneeled down and took a sprinting stance, Tolik imitated alongside the sniper stalker.

"Ready?" he said.

Tolik gave a reluctant nod.

"One, two…go!"

Tolik was far from a good head-start, other than the sluggish reaction time he stumbled clumsily on a muddied footpath, felt his hands pressing against the earthy ground and regained his running motion only by a couple of precious seconds. By then, Flash was ten metres away, darting his way through the vast ground of endless radiation.

"Cover your mouth and try to hold your breath!" Flash advised considerately.

Tolik did what he told and tried to keep up with his teammate, unfortunately his athleticism has proved to be a bit lacking. At first, nothing seemed to happen, the area that Flash warned seemed normal but nonetheless the stalker held his breath.

Just one and a half minute later, Flash and Tolik breathed a lungful of air, and still maintained their needed pace. Two minutes from starting point, Tolik's vision was getting blurrier and strangely, more static. He couldn't help himself from breathing as his lower chest and legs were burning. He gasped for air, but the timing was far from all right, just as he starts inhaling, everything in his sight turned white, static white.

The two stalkers ran past a signpost with the trefoil symbol on it and at this moment, now they were in the middle of radiation environs.

Tolik nestled on the ground, under sheer exhaustion and apparent sickness after being exposed from hazardous radiation. Flash suffered the same, the two men sweated and wheezed without uttering a single word to each other. They finally made it.

"Here," Tolik handed the stalker a bottle of vodka, breaking the silence.

"Cheers," Flash took a sip and passed it back to Tolik. "That was a good run eh?"

Tolik nodded, "Why did we choose that path again?"

"Just a shortcut Hacky told me about, as soon I knew the place was full of it when I saw that signpost just now."

"I see, let's not try that ever again…"

"Agreed, well let's not waste any more time shall we?" Flash encouraged Tolik with a pat on the shoulder and the two of them headed out.

Still puffed and faintly disoriented, Tolik peered at a nearby swamp to distract himself from feeling fatigued.

They hiked on the summit of a knoll virgin from any anomalies, Flash whipped out his miniature compact binoculars, examined his PDA and turned back to his binoculars to gawk down the landscape.

Northeast from where they stood is the looming X-18 laboratory, standing eerily serene below the dark-clouded sky, and southeast is the bandits' headquarters where it is rumored that a lone amnesiac stalker named Marked One managed to single-handedly massacred all the hard-headed crooks in the premise, including Borov. The same loner who saved Tolik from the bandit raid that kidnapped Nimble.

"There," he pointed to the middle of nowhere. "Come on."

Moments later, they stumbled upon an ancient auburn tree-stump decorated with numerous rings to indicate its age.

Flash crouched over and dug under at the left side, then tried at the right. He scratched the ground with his bare hands, filling dirt under his nails. He swore.

"Do you have a spade or anything like that?" He asked Tolik, wiping the sweat on his forehead.

"Uhhh, I have a bowl?"

"Yeah, handed over,"

Tolik reached for his backpack and let out a translucent Tupperware bowl. Flash grumbled thanks and continued excavating beneath the dead tree stump.

"Got it!" Flash cheered merrily, and pulled out a large stuff sack from the den. The stuff sack is held together by a drawstring at the top and can carry a number of large items depending on its size and price. The stalker took a quick peek inside the bag.

"Wow…" he said and stuffed his arm inside and summoned an E-TEN Glofiish DX900 PDA, covered with scratches and the black exterior partially faded into grey. Like other generic PDAs, the front cover had a lengthy screen that makes up most of the space and three buttons below, including a D-pad with a "select" button in the center.

Flash attempted to switch it on, "Hmmm, battery's dead."

"No shit," Tolik joked. "Why didn't Hacky take it with him when he left the zone?"

"Dunno," Flash shrugged and put it back inside. "But look what this old geezer have man!"

He passed Tolik an RPK-74, an assault-rifle parallel to the AKM chambered with the high-speed 5.45x39mm cartridge with the magazine reinforced with steel inserts, along with an extended chrome-plated barrel and a slightly angled and polished wooden stock.

Flash loaded the LR-300 and smiled to himself. The American assault is well recognized for its aptitude to make use of a fully-folding stock and have a standard direct impingement gas operating system, which conveniently removes the necessity for a receiver extension. The power of the LR-300 is that it has an effective range of 300 metres and possesses a firing rate of 950 rounds per minute.

Flash couldn't help but scoffed at Tolik's RPK-74.

"Wanna go back?" Tolik suggested.

"Hell yeah,"

10:02 AM

22nd May 2012

The putrid scent of a dead Flesh attracted a pack of ravenous blind dogs as they ripped, tore and fought for that last piece of hind leg amongst each other.

Then a gunshot missed one of the dogs by just a few inches. Tolik groaned.

"You don't do it like that bro," Flash sniggered, grabbing back his Vintar BC. "Watch and learn."

Tolik observed the sniper placing his eye near the scope, aimed and tensed his shoulders. He exhaled and tries a headshot, but instead hits target's neck. Instantly killing the unsuspecting mutant, the pack then scampered away from the two stalkers.

"Yeah that's a headshot, well not really but yeah," Flash said, still contented. "Well, all you gotta do Tolik is aim and focus, hold your breath and when you exhale, you pull the trigger."

"Sounds easy," Tolik said, "by the way, what's with that superhero name of yours eh? I bet it's totally unrelated from this sniping thing. Or is it that 'you kill people in a flash'?"

Flash chortled, "Close bro, close. But nah, I just like the name you know cuz I used to be a runner for the Olympics, representing Ukraine…"

"Yeah right, bullshit!"

"Ahahaha but yeah, actually I was a construction worker back at Kiev. My dad owns a hunting range too…hah, fun times."

"That explains your sniping skills…"

"I was a sporadic shooter. I hunt animals with friends and w-"

Out of the blue, panicked crows flew up to the skies as two noiseless shots were fired. It was from a sniper, and his bullets went straight to Flash's head and torso, the latter was obviously meant for Tolik. His head splattered brains and blood, some of them was on Tolik's balaclava. His body fell on the ground, forever lifeless.

Without thinking, he immediately snatched the bag and ran as the unknown sniper reloads his Dragunov. The sniper hit Flash from the sides and unintentionally acted as a bodyguard, thus protecting Tolik from the opposite, lucky bastard.

The assailants revealed themselves to be from the military, more specifically the Spetsnaz. Three or four more soldiers sprung out from hiding to stop the running loner and discharged their Abakans.

"Fuckin' Spetsnaz!" Tolik cursed as he sprints for his wretched life, the thought of an abrupt and gruesome death gave him a sudden godly energy to run like a stallion. Even the heavy stuff sack couldn't slow him down, for the source of his infinite stamina was from his fear. He ducked his head from the hail of bullets as the only thing that is imprinted in his mind is to dodge and run like fuck.

He was afraid of getting shot again, but his fears came true nonetheless. The novice fell on flat on his face, tasted the grimy soil on the earth, he got hit in the stomach. The bullet went through one of his vital organs, he didn't know which one but he knew it was fatal. He was now bleeding, his clothes soaked with blood. The Spetsnaz were gaining on him, taking their sweet time, like a typical deer hunt.

Just go back to sleep, the army will kill you just for sport, the phrase Wolf mentioned yesterday rang repeatedly in his head.

He imagined himself being tortured by the Spetsnaz, laughing maliciously as they do so.

"No!" he said to himself, coughing up blood.

He kicked the ground and continued to run…