“достаточно хорошо” he says as he turns around and motions the other two to follow. ________________________________________________________________________ >You and your teammates approach the vehicle station, crouching near a rusted wagon. >You fidget a bit as you become more antsy by the second, waiting never felt so nerve wrecking. >Minutes go by, as you wait for Pavel to give the go. Meanwhile several bandits in leather jackets and dark trench coats walked by, patrolling the area. You’ve already marked couple near a bonfire in a garage. “Ya schitayu dva v garazhe” Pavel whispers. “Veroyatno, bol'she v zdanii” He finishes, pointing to another building. "Gotov?” The Scout Lead asks looking at you and the rest, you nod with the others. >He motions to follow, while keeping low. The team traces the broken fence and hugs the wall outside the garage building where you saw the two bandits sitting near the fire. From their laughter, it sounds like they’re too busy talking and drinking to be looking out for attacks. “Ilya, Kryll obkhodit'” Pavel orders, pointing around the building. “Turist, pognali” He looks at you. >You nod, it’s not like you can separate from him and the group anyway; hopefully he just told you to stick with him. >He tilts his head at you to go around the corner, you do so hesitantly. Awkwardly. >When you bound the corner and into the garage door, the two bandits notices you. Making no actions, seemingly confused at the sudden appearance of a Loner in front of them. “Kto ty?” one of them questions before noticing the shooter in your hand. “Ey, uspokoysya..” he says slowly, hands low to the ground trying to defuse the situation. “Ubral pistolet, dru-” the bandit didn’t get to finish the sentence as Pavel rushes around the corner with a sawn-off ready. “Chego vy zhdete Turist? Strelyat!” he shouts as he quickly places shots into the center mass of the bandits. >The deafening booms of the shotgun next to you leaves you disoriented, the sudden flash of the muzzle leaves spots in your eye as you stand there dazed at the sight of two corpses with chunks missing from their chest. >When the ringing subsides and spots begin to dissipate from your sight, you feel a shove and a hand grabbing you by the shoulders and dragging you towards a wall. “Ne prosto stoyat' tam, ukroytes’!” >Pavel drags you to a nearby brick wall in a room connected to the garage that you’ve just entered, he peeks around the broken section of the wall while loading two more shells into his sawn-off. >More gunshots and shouting from around the building that the two scouts went to, it seems that they took the Pavel shooting as a sign and began the attack as well. >Pavel continues to scan the area until a round smashes itself into a brick near his face, he flinches and quickly withdraws into the cover. He takes a deep breath and mutters some words, probably something about being lucky, if you had to guess. >You, meanwhile stand there, simply taking it all in. The adrenaline, the ringing that still lingers in your ears and the spots that’s not completely gone in your vision. Those two men were just alive brief seconds ago, now they lie dead in a pool of their blood; with a cavity in their chest. It was so quick but now it everything feels like it’d been slowed to a crawl. >Gunshots and yelling from outside puts you back into reality. The scouts were making the best out of the initial surprise they had seized, partly thanks to your “blunder” into the group of bandits at the start. Pavel motions you to switch positions, he points to the building in front of your position, specifically the upper floor. “smotret' tam” he orders, as he makes his way to another room with a collapsed roof, looking for another way out or simply watching your flank is anyone’s guess. >For now, you do as he ordered… well you do as he pointed, the second floor of the building. You surmise that he meant for you to keep an eye on it. True enough, you see movement and comes a bandit ready to shoot at your teammates. You fire aimlessly at the position, if not for precision then perhaps volume of fire might work. > The first shot takes you by surprise, you've never fired a gun before so the recoil is somewhat unexpected. At least it's not flying out of your hands like some people on the internet. > You empty the first magazine, then you fumble for your spare. With adrenaline making a mess of your hand-eye coordination, it's difficult to slam that magazine into its proper spot. > You manage to reload, the gun making a satisfying click as the slide chambers a new round. Then Pavel turns to you with a new set of indecipherable orders. “Prodolzhat s’yemku Turist!” He yelled as he bursted into action, making a run towards the building with other two in tow. >You pause to decipher what he meant but realize it doesn't really matter. You can't understand a lick of Cyrillic anyway. >While you were trying to decode the meaning of the order, the bandit took his opportunity to take quick shots at the scouts moving up towards the building. >You react, a microsecond too late; a short moment was all he needed to take a reactionary shot at the moving targets. A shot and a yell of pain comes from one of your teammates. “Blyad!” screams Ilya, as a round pierces his left leg, sending him tumbling towards the ground. >You squeeze more shots into the upper floor opening, forcing the bandit to take cover again. Pavel runs back to Ilya and drags him to safety, while Kyrll provides cover; you sprinting towards them. Crimson spot becomes a circle and Ilya tries to staunch the bleeding. “On budet v poryadke, ya dumayu” says Kyrll, bandage in hand. >Pavel nods, his face scrunching with obvious upset. He moves towards the last building to be cleared, Kyrll eyes the ladder that leads to the upper floor. The two of them advance to their chosen entry without words, leaving you and Ilya behind in a small guard house in the front entrance. > Minutes go by as you watch the two disappear into the building, then you hear things being thrown around, grunts and yells then finally gunshots. >Only the sound of winds gently breezing and the soft cursing of Ilya behind keeps you company, until he finally speaks breaking the silence. “Ey poyti i proverit' yego” he says, strained with pain. >You stare at him in confusion until he points to the building. He wants you to find out what happened. You nod, reluctantly and slowly walk towards the place. You're not exactly keen on meeting the enemy close up. >Slowly, you make your way the same way that Pavel did; through the broken wall. Your pistol at low ready, your eyes dart from corner to corner looking for any signs of hostile. Your breath becomes more quiet and shallow, you want to yell for guys but you squelch the temptation. Better to be silent, lest you attract unwanted attention… Then again, that’s what you’ve been doing all along wasn’t it? >You arrive to a larger room, signs of struggle can be seen as objects are strewn about, a dead bandit sits against the wall, the fire barrel turned over and several large wooden boxes under the stairs dented inwards. You tense up at the uncomfortable quiet until footsteps lurch you into pointing your guns towards it. It was Pavel. “Poslannyy vverkh po lestnitse” he says to you. “Pomestite svoy pistolet, vse koncheno Turist” he sighed, as he walked past you. >You walk upstairs, Ilya is looting the corpses and whatever is leftover in the building while another man rests in the corner, nursing his bruises. “You guys the rescue?” He looks up at you. >”You speak English?” You ask him, incredulously It’s been days since you’ve seen another english speaker. “No, I don’t” he deadpanned with dripping sarcasm. >”I guess I’ll just leave your ass here then smartass” you shot back, annoyed. A fellow english speaker other than Pastor and he’s a complete ass. Wonderful. “Alright, Alright, let’s just get the hell out before more of them show up” >”You have the message for Sid?” “Ofcourse I do and no they didn’t find it.” >”Okay then, let’s get outta here” You move Ilya and tap him then motion to outside. He seems to understand what you meant and finishes up his looting. “Ey, turist! Poymat'!” you hear behind you. >You turn around to see Ilya tossing you a sawn off and a bandolier of shells. The sudden items takes you by surprise and you fumble the catch. Ilya simply chuckles and goes downstairs, shaking his head. >Following Ilya with the Runner downstairs, you get ready escort your objective back to Sidorovich. Pavel is waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs, shouldering Kyrll. The group begin to move out, battered but successful. The conversation between your teammates, though unintelligible due to your ignorance of the language, is upbeat. Pavel radios in, most likely to Pastor, reporting a successful mission. >All seemed well, until you smell something odd. Like the smell of ozone or the aftermath of a thunderstorm, the air becomes still and sharp. The clouds darken then splits in haste, brightening the day with the sun only to be shrouded once more. “der'mo, bezhat'!” Pavel yells as he drags Kyrll. >”The hell’s going on?” You question. “Don’t fucking question! Just run!” shouts the Runner as he races past the group. >You see Ilya doing the same, shoving you to get a move on as well. “Davay potoropis' Turist!” >You begin to sprint, for reasons unknown to you. Then you feel it… and hear it; the ground shake and then the Zone groaned, storm clouds gathered and distant thunder rumbled closer. It doesn’t need to be said outright but you have a gist that this might kill you, so you run. You sprint past Ilya and the Runner and up to Pavel; helping him to drag Kyrll faster. >Pavel realizes that shouldering won’t be fast enough, even with you helping. Instead, he shoo you off and opts to picking him up. >You run past your original meeting point, and up to the road leading to the Rookie Village. Safety was within reach when feel a force knocking you off your feet and the wind out of you. Trying to find the source, you barely catch a glimpse of a pulse on the road where you had just run past. So anomalies do exist.. A new discovery at the worst timing. >You cough and try to get up but the damage seems to be bit more severe that you thought. Ilya stops to help but the Runner and Pavel urges him to leave you. He looks at you for a moment, eyes filled with guilt and unsaid apologies and with reluctance leaves you. >Desperate, you claw your way towards the village, but it’s not enough. It’s over. Such is life in the Zone, you suppose. You look towards the dark sky, accepting your fate and hear your death approach, a discharge of electricity and all went black.