S.T.A.L.K.E.R AiE Chapter 4.

>Ground of rocky substance spanned its way to the horizon, dead trees and bushes sprouting upwards from it, they too were covered by the same substance, almost like a chitinous plating.

>Everything looking almost the same, only difference being the occasional tunnel, a gateway underground, to the great hive below the ground.

>The home of the Changelings, devious creatures, short, insectoid creatures, almost parasitic in nature.

>These... Creatures had ravaged the land, turning it, covering it with their filth, destroying all that was not a changeling.

>Outside of the hive, not far from it, was maybe the last place on their lands that was... Normal, a small patch of untouched rocks, in a small crevice, a small riverbed.

>A normal riverbed.

>Albeit almost dry, it had a small current in it, the water being drained from it through small pipe-like appendages that reached all the way to many of the Hive’s entrances, supplying it with water.

>Although almost lifelike, pulsating as they sucked the water out, they still needed to be maintained, checked regularly by drones, workers of the great Changeling hive.

>And this was the time for it.

>Three small, quadrupled, equine looking creatures, covered in black chitin, each one of them sporting a pair of insectoid wings, made their way out of one of the entrances.

>The group of workers made their way towards the river, walking slowly, gently buzzing their wings, as to warm them, like their smaller, possible relatives, the bees, did.

>As the three drones reached the river, two of them stood on the riverbank, and the third one lifted itself from the ground, and hovered above the river, eyeing the water, and the pipes with its blue, insectoid eyes.

>It pointed towards one of the pipes, the pipe being lifeless, and not pumping water out of the river.

>The two others jumped in the air, and hovered towards it, while the third one started searching for other similarly damaged appendages.

>It’s journey was short lived, as it was suddenly pulled backwards, towards the water.

>It let out an screech, as to warn its comrades, and then shoot out into the air, flying incredibly fast, as if someone, or something had flinged it.

>The two other could but watch its flight, and quickly rushed to their comrade as it landed, hitting the ground with a sickening crack.

>Before they could reach their friend, a sudden gust of wind knocked them to the ground, making them roll on the ground, being pushed like dry leaves.

>One of them caught a glimpse of a blinding light, coming from the river, being hidden as it was coming from the riverbed.

>The wind died away as quickly as it came, and the two unharmed changelings raised themselves from the ground, and jumped in the air, to investigate the light.

>The light was quick to die as well, but it did not die without leaving a mark behind it.

>A small, round sphere was left behind, carved to the riverbed, the small depression being filled with water, but not only by it.

>There was an unidentified object in there, slowly moving, trying to make its way out of its apparent birthplace.

>The two changelings but watched as the thing crawled out, and climbed out of the river. The creatures movement did not look natural, as its movements were jerky and uncoordinated, as if incredibly tired, or confused.

>The two changelings shared a confused look, and then the other one jumped in the air, and turned itself towards the hive, making its way to one of the entrances, and disappearing inside.

>The other one left behind, jumped in the air, and started hovering towards the creature, eyeing its every movement, trying to see hostility, or possible potential prey.

>A sudden jolt of pain made the changeling fall from the sky, and hit the riverbank, not far from the creature.

>The changeling curled into a ball, taking short gasps of air, as if something had mortally wounded it.

>It grasped its head, rocking back and forth, taking short, quick breaths.

>The creature lost its balance, and fell back into the crevice it came from, letting out a startled yell as it fell.

>The changeling’s world was filled with pain, and it let out a scream of pain, the scream that warned its comrades not to come.

>Then everything ended with a jolt of pain, coming from its neck.

 

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>You stood up, holding your head because of the intense headache you had, and grasping your now bloodied knife, green goop slowly dripping from it.

>Your SEVA suit’s helmet visuals were warning you of intense psy danger and possible radiation, several warning beeps and signals confusing you.

>You quickly stumbled away from the thing you killed, not thinking what it was, your mind being filled with only one thing.

>Must. Get. Out. An old signal from the prehistoric eras of humanity, the same signal that had kept you alive for so long.

>It told you to get out, to run for your life, the chorus of warning signals on your visuals deepening that need.

>You quickly climb out of the river, and throw yourself on the ground, staying there motionless for a moment.

>Your visuals go haywire, your motion sensor beeping violently, and the psy danger signal growing stronger.

>You get on your feet, and stumble forwards, making your way away from the river.

>You grasp your head again, and hear a small hiss, a small needle tearing your skin, injecting anti-psy medicine into your system.

>You can’t but thank the Almighty for giving you the chances of having this suit.

>Rather not a suit, a part of you.

>The motion sensor starts blaring even harder, motioning you to turn around and fight, or run.

>You decide to turn around, and see what is making your sensors go insane with warnings.

>What you see chills your very core.

>A black cloud that sends out a buzzing noise, a swarm of locusts.

>You can feel the hate seeping from the swarm of insects, and you turn around to run away, only to make a few metres before being knocked to the ground by something rather large.

>You hear another hiss as you’re injected with a shot of adrenaline.

>The sudden jolt of energy makes you turn around quickly, and react, quickly punching the thing that knocked you down.

>It’s already gasping its head in pain, a rather small insectoid... Horse-like creature.

>You don’t waste time thinking what the hell you just saw, and instead get on your feet, and with the help of your, and your suit’s adrenaline, you start running.

>The motion sensor stops blaring, but you don’t stop.

>There is no motion, but you run.

>You don’t know how long you run, but you can’t stop, your legs keep on moving, your suit, and your brains urging you to go further.

>You can’t even see properly, and only focus on going forwards. You can’t stop.

>The black chitinous, dead looking ground starts to change into more lifelike, brownish ground.

>No longer does your feet make a small thudding noise, but the gravel and sand crunches below your boot.

>But you can’t stop, not now, you have to move.

>Soon enough you start going slower, after all, you have been running for God knows how long.

>The ground is more desert like, but less dead than before, and reminds you of the Zone.

>Wait, the Zone? Is this the Zone?

>Flying mutants? No, that can’t be right... And no mutant looks, or feels like an insect.

>You stop, and look at your knife.

>You’ve been clenching it for the past... Hours?

>The “blood” has already dried, and some of it has flaked off, but it’s not red at all, instead it’s green.

>You poke it, and it gives away, a few strands of some dark green substance sticking to your fingertip.

>You bring your finger a bit closer to your face, and let the visuals try to identify it.

>Good thing ISG got some kickass technology from the UN, hell, most of your stuff, along with the suit, is from a sci-fi novel.

>Your hear a low beep, and then an error.

>Welp, looks like it’s not blood, and... Nothing you’ve seen before.

>You sigh, and brush your fingertip on your vest, cleaning your finger from the goop.

>You look over your shoulder, and see the desolate land you came from.

>It’s charred, almost like it’s been burned to ground, but...

>You saw trees, trees that were very much alive, but... Corrupted? Something was growing on them, that you know.

>There are some anomalies that resemble plants, but none of them looked like that.

>So, in conclusion? You’re not in the Zone anymore.

>Fucking anomalies defying physics, this should not be true.

>You sigh, and start walking forwards, not having anything better to do.

>Well, you think better when walking, so now to think...

>What did you stab, or rather, brutally murder?

>It was not a mutant, you know that much.

>The scream was different, the creature’s shape was different...

>But it was quadruped, which was very odd, because it resembled an insect, a very large insect, which was interesting as well.

>And a pony, a small pony.

>Small insect ponies?

>Interesting.

>Definitely not the Zone, well, the Zone had mutated horses but none of them were insectoid, nor could they fly.

>You open one of your vest’s pockets, and pull out a white sheet, and then proceed to clean your knife with it.

>After you’re done, you holster your knife, and put the sheet back into one of your many pockets.

>Now with idle hands, and your only direction being away from the desolate, fucked up lands, you take out your AK74, cleverly named as “Dream”.

>A beautiful weapon, but now’s not the time to admire it, so you flip the safety off, and continue trekking.

>You start looking all around you out of curiosity, but it is quick to die as everything looks the same. Dull, brownish rocky ground, almost like some sort of a desert, but it is no desert.

>Your visuals are reporting a whopping 21 celsius, no wind, normal Zone levels of humidity, so, middle European spring, but rocky.

>Okay, maybe now’s the time to think how you got here, and where your team is, where’s the rookie?

>Okay so, an emission happens when you’re in Limansk, trying to recruit a new member to your team, and because of Bloodsuckers, you hide in a building, a school. The only fucking school that has an unidentified anomaly in its basement, that decides to go haywire once the main part of the blowout hits you.

>And then it sucked you in, so, a portal of some sorts?

>Portal anomalies? But it... Froze? Yeah, froze the flames and the smoke coming from your detector.

>Good thing you have a spare detector, but that one was expensive as fuck, hell, probably the only one of its kind in all of existence.

>Anyways, what kind of an anomaly freezes things? It’s like time itself stopped... Hold up for a moment.

>A Time anomaly?

>Now that’s something new.

>You promise yourself that if you ever get back into Limansk, you’re going to study that anomaly better, maybe have ISG come there with you.

>But... It teleported you. Never have you heard of an anomaly that does that, or well, starts acting differently during an emission.

>Your visuals darken a bit, shielding your eyes from the direct sunlight.

>Hey, the ground looks even healthier than before... And... There is a frog, right on your path, sitting on top of a rock.

>A fuckhuge frog, maybe 40cm tall, anyways, it has a...

>A fucking cane.

>You stop dead on your tracks and look at the frog.

>It’s staring at you, and it’s holding a cane.

>A fucking cane.

>It croaks, and taps its cane on the rock it’s sitting on, then its gaze intensifies.

>Man, it’s like the frog’s trying to make your visor break. Hehe... Visor...

>You clear your throat, and take a few steps towards the frog, who in response, jumps from the rock, flying towards you.

>It lands only a few metres in front of you, and croaks again, accompanied by a few taps from the cane.

>You can’t find any reasonable explanation why the fuck it has a cane, and why is it looking at you like that.

>Feels almost... Human... Yeah, there’s something intelligent in that frog.

>You walk around the frog, and soon you reach the rock it sat on.

>Looks like a platter, it’s oval, and incredibly flat.

>You raise your eyes from the rock, and look at the frog again, but there’s one problem.

>It’s gone.

>The whole area around you is flat and rocky, and the frog is not brown at all, hell, it was dark green, so where the fuck did it go?

>You stand there for a moment, thinking what happened.

>So, a frog with a cane jumps towards you, you walk around it, look at a stone, and bam, the frog’s gone.

>You shrug it off, and continue walking away from the stone, away from the black, desolate land.

>You start tapping your AK’s trigger in a steady rhythmically, bringing some noise to your silent journey.

>Your mind starts wandering yet again, this time to your teammates, comrades? No... More like brothers.

>You smile weakly, remembering your first meeting with Max.

>That drunken son of a bitch, he was hell bent on helping your group, the ISG. Guess he shared the same ideology as you did?

>Then the X-7 happened. You needed information of the Zone, and that old, underground facility had the papers you needed.

>It was a miracle Max survived, hell, you’ve never seen a man filled with so much fear.

>Well, who could have known the place was a home of several Controllers?

>Good thing you didn’t lose a single man back there, And... You gained a friend, a really good one at that.

>And Hunter...

>You remember meeting him in Yanov. That bastard, he decided to ride a pseudogiant.

>Well, he was drunk, and failed horribly, as the pseudogiant just threw him off its head, and proceeded to try to stomp him to death.

>You’ve never seen a man throw boxes with such furious anger.

>Well, he later explained how he got the name “Hunter”, but you had to save him from being pancaked by a pseudogiant.

>It was a small one, so it died easily.

>As he saw his opponent fall, he proceeded to go kick it in the head several times, and then dance on top of its head.

>Crazy bastard, hell, he is the master of moodswitches and all kinds of crazy shit.

>Max thought it was a good thing to join him, and the two of them danced on top of the pseudogiant for god knows how long.

>Then they drank all of your booze.

>Your visuals brighten a bit, accompanied by a signal to eat.

>Suit’s cool, tells you what to do.

>You pop a button near your neck, and your visor opens.

>Ahh, wind blowing on your cheeks, feels good.

>You reach for your vest yet again, and open one of its many pockets, pulling out a candy bar, opening it, and stuffing the thing whole into your mouth.

>You chew the chocolaty goodness and swallow, then pull out a small bottle filled with mineral water.

>And like all edible and drinkable things that are made for Stalkers, it has a small gasmask wearing figure in it, saying something retarded and probably offensive in russian.

>Even though you’re from the ISG, you can’t read russian, which sucks sometimes, good thing Hunter can, and your suit.

>You open the bottle and take a sip of delicious mineral water, which is surprisingly cool.

>Once you’re done, you close the bottle and place it back inside your vest, then closing your visor.

>The visuals go online, calibrating themselves, once done, they scan the area in front of you.

>They pick up movement not far from you, and brighten the area a bit.

>It’s the same frog that you saw before, and it’s staring at you.

>You squint your eyes, and then shrug it off, continuing your journey.

>You’re surprised that it actually started following you, hell, what could it possibly gain from doing so?

>Your movement detector starts blaring all of a sudden.

>Whatever is coming at you is coming from behind, fast, very fast.

>You look over your shoulder, and see a good seven figures, one of them being notably larger than the rest.

>Something about their proportions is odd and very out of place. By no means are they birds, rather, they look like...

>A green shock of lightning strikes next to you, and in response, you take aim and start shooting at the... Things.

>They fly incredibly fast, faster than they should.

>Your visuals try to track their movement, but it’s like against the bloodsuckers.

>Another shock of electricity, again, being green in colour, hits the ground next to you, leaving a small smoking crater behind.

>You’re a sitting duck against them.

>You turn tail and start running, your legs aching from the earlier marathon-like sprinting, but it’s futile, and you know it. There’s simply nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

>You pick up the pace, your suit giving you yet another shot of adrenaline.

>Those things, circling you, you know what they are.

>The same insectoid horses from before, but they’re different, bigger, more of a threat than those other two.

>And one of them is huge, and it sports a horn of some sorts, and it’s the one shooting the lightning bolts at you.

>You stop and take aim at the thing, but before you shoot, a bolt of green light flies towards you.

>It fizzles out before hitting you, your visuals getting small static interference, but other than that, nothing happened.

>All of the insect horses stop flying all of a sudden, and just hover there, eyeing you.

>The big one, who tried to shoot at you, hits the ground in front of you.

>It’s almost as tall as you, the horn making it a bit taller.

>Its figure is even more insectoid than the others, it having holes, and darker chitinous plating, accompanied by two large fangs and two huge worn out wings, but that didn’t slow it down at all.

>The other six form a circle around you, surrounding you, preventing any forms of escape without killing.

>All of them look the same, all of them being almost perfect clones of each other.

>They remind you of warrior ants for some reason.

>You lower your AK a bit, still aiming in the big one’s general direction though. You’re ready to unleash a hail of death if it, or any of the others makes any sudden movement.

>The big one, and the others look incredibly uncomfortable for some reason. You can’t quite place it, but it feels so familiar.

>Ah, the other two things, they were in great pain near you.

>The big one nods its head, and the insect horse next to it jumps into air, and flies towards you.

>You’re too slow to turn towards it, but there is no need as it stops a good five metres away from you, obviously in pain.

>You smile behind your visor. You have some ground against them after all, a small, maybe good ten metres around you are a “safe zone” of some sorts.

>”I didn’t believe you at first, but here it is, a live Void.”

>Huh, someone talked? No, something?

>You look at the big one, who stares at you intensively, almost like trying to kill you by looking at you.

>The guard who flew at you backs away, still in pain, and even once it reaches its original location, it still looks like it’s about to throw up.

>”My Queen, what can we do, it seems to have an aura stronger than the others we have fought”, a raw, buzzing voice says.

>Okay, hold the fuck up.

>Talking insect horses?

>But you’re almost tripping on Anti-Psy drugs, how in the... Ah yes, wormholes.

>That anomaly did indeed fling you into a new universe, dimension, something.

>And apparently the inhabitants are insects, large insects that resemble horses.

>Ugly fuckers, and you know Hunter would’ve killed them already, but not you.

>You’re a scientist, of sorts.

>”Simple, we kill the Void”, the big one says in a sweet tone, eyeing you evilly.

>”What about the aura?”, One of the guards ask.

>”No aura is good enough for the Queen of Changelings”, she laughs, and jabs her hoof towards you, “I will end you.”

>Sheesh, a bug horse who calls herself the Queen of Changelings wants to kill you?

>Now, that’s a funny joke.

>Dozens of Bloodsuckers have tried to do the same, several Controllers as well, but all have failed.

>You’re Visor, and nothing can kill you.

“I’d like to see you try”, you say calmly, and aim at her head.

>One shot is enough, she’d be dead before hitting the ground.

“I mean, your lightning thing didn’t work on me, and your drones get hurt if they get too close”, you chuckle, hell, you’re confused as hell, but no horse is going to kill you.

>She looks confused for a moment, and then smiles at you, “No matter, I will just crush you.”

>Okay, before actually shooting her to death, let’s try one thing.

>You take a few quick steps towards her, and then her expression changes to that of pain.

>Yup, she can’t handle you either, but her tolerance seems to be higher than the others’.

“Besides, I’m just trying to get out from here”, you take another two steps towards her.

>She backs off, obviously in pain.

>Now this is easy, you can just run to her and she’d be incapacitated by pain.

>Well, she seems pretty powerless already, unable to zap you or even get close to you.

>The guards seem pretty scared of the situation as well, hell, they seem to share their Queen’s pain, even though you’re not even close to them.

>She gives you a murderous glare, and then she jumps into the air, hovering away from you, her guards joining her quickly.

>”I will see you dead, Void.”

“Fuck you too, cunt!”, you shout as she and her guards fly away from the scene.

>Your visuals return back to normal, and the motion detector calms down as well.

>That was odd, very odd indeed.

>You face the direction you were originally headed to, and start walking yet again.

>And see the frog, sitting on the ground.

>Again.

>Third time you see that fucker, what is it, what does it want, AND WHY DOES IT HAVE A FUCKING CANE?!

>It croaks and taps its cane on the ground.

>You fucking frog, why are you doing this?

>You walk up to the frog, and kneel down in front of it.

“Okay you, you, frog, whatever you are, why are you following m-”

>You’re interrupted by it as it pokes your head with its cane.

>You motherfucker.

>You stand up, and walk past the frog, not wanting to beat it into a bloody pulp.

>Frogs, talking bug horses and all sorts of crazy shit, fuck this place.

>But hey, the ground looks even healthier than before, there are patches of grass and...

>A fuckhuge forest not far from you.

>A few kilometres from you, but holy shit, that forest.

>It’s huge.

>It spans all the way to the right, and left.

>Hell, this might be the biggest forest you’ve seen.

>You start walking towards it.

>As you walk, your mind starts to wander, going back to those... Changelings? Yeah, those things, that’s what she said at least, so.

>They couldn’t get close to you, and said that you’ve got some kind of an “aura”, and the big one, what did she call you...

>A Void? What does that mean? And the lightning bolts... How and why? How did she shoot them and how did they just disappear before hitting you... And why did your visuals go out for a moment afterwards?

>Hell, you can’t just turn back and ask, she wanted to kill you after all.

>Maybe Voids, or whatever she called them, are dangerous to her kind?

>And why, even though they were a huge threat to you, why in the name of all that is holy did you not kill her?

>Anyways, here’s the forest, and holy fuck does it look huge.

>All the trees are incredibly tall, maybe nearing 20 to 30 metres in height.

>And there is no light coming through the foliage, so it’s dark, and possibly very damp as well.

>Good thing you have dat dere night vision.

>You walk into the forest, and your night vision kicks in, the forest being coloured in shades of grey.

>The trees are very dark, almost lifeless, and there is an occasional white spot, almost like flying through the forest.

>Motion detector is not detecting anything though.

>You reach for your vest, and open one of its many pockets, pulling out a grenade, the grenade launcher variant.

>You plop it inside your grenade launcher, and flip the safety on, so no accidental explosions.

>Then you change your mag, the one you had was almost empty, but still has a few rounds inside.

>You put it in your lower backpack, and then reach for your vest again, pulling out a mag for your AK, popping it in, doing all that gun mumbo jumbo and then flipping the safety off.

>Time for some foraging, this might be fun.

>And thus the Scientist of the Death Guard ventured forth into the Everfree.