S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (70 page)

“Viktor! Don’t make me do this!”

More bullets come by way of reply, chipping sharp pieces of stone from the rocks. Tarasov’s
eyes are blurred by pain and tears as he aims and pulls the trigger. Zlenko recoils, blood gushing from his forehead. Then he falls to his knees, and his body, losing its balance, plummets headlong into the darkness below.

The rope has almost frayed right through. Climbing up plank by plank, with some breaking beneath his hands, he finally reaches up and pulls himself to the safety of the entrance above, where he stays on the dusty ground, fighting for breath and using the most terrible cusswords he knows.

Tarasov’s heartbeat at last returns to normal, but he feels as if all the blood had vanished from his veins, leaving only adrenaline in his muscles and a growing rage within his heart.

Ground Zero

12 October 2014, 16:30:27 AFT

Whatever Tarasov has been through during the past few hours, the only pain he is aware of is in his chest, where the wound has by now almost fully opened again.

Maybe without my artifacts and the exo I would just collapse like an empty sack.

He reloads his pistol. With his Glock drawn in one hand and holding the combat knife in the other, he proceeds into the shaft with determined steps. The walls are made of neatly cut stone, just like the dust-covered stairs that had led down here. Another anomaly lurks up ahead but he walks through the fire columns thrusting up from the ground, ignoring the pain when the flames sear through his damaged armor and painfully lick his skin. From a corner unlit by his headlamp, a shadow detaches itself from the deeper darkness.

He doesn’t even pause as he fires his weapon, now even hoping to witness the pain in the once human eyes as the bullets hit the brawny torso. Throwing his empty pistol away, he leaps at the mutant with a screaming battle cry and thrusts his knife into its chest, driving it around in the flesh before pulling it out and striking again. Then he marches on, not even looking at the dying creature now wriggling on the ground in death throes of violent, agonizing spasms.

The shaft runs straight and leads towards a red glow that permeates from the distance. Reaching it, Tarasov steps into a cavernous room with four earthen braziers in the corners. A grey stone slab lies in the center of the room, undecorated and plain apart from a shallow niche in its middle section. It holds a small stone exactly like the one Nooria had inserted into his flesh.

A sense of devotion possesses him. As he looks around, the light of the fires makes the faded paintings on the wall come to life. They resemble a long line of figures, all looking towards the stone slab with foreboding faces, like a religious procession devoted to the stone – or watching over it.

No more doors to open. Nowhere to descend. I have arrived.

He remembers the faces of all the comrades who died at his side, soldiers and Stalkers alike. It was a miracle anyone had made it –

Yet I am here. No one could stop me. I truly am the chosen one.

He watches the stone darkening to deep black, as if it was a mass of pure darkness itself. His body feels like a freshly forged blade after tempering – pure, cold, its edge ready to kill. Only the pain in his chest reminds him of his human nature.

Nobody and nothing could stop me on my way here. If I leave, I will be unstoppable wherever I go, whatever I want to take.

By now the slab looks like a pool filled by a black void. The room starts moving around him, but he doesn’t feel any drowsiness. The ceiling and floor eventually disappear, and he sees himself standing at the center of a rotating, black orb.

A voice echoes from far above.
“Why are you here?”

Fearfully, Tarasov looks up. The shape of a humanoid figure towers above him like an angel of darkness. Its face is the ultimate conclusion of all the horrors Tarasov has ever experienced in life and also in nightmares.
 

“I followed my orders.”

“What are you orders?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“From now on, it is me who will give you orders.”

“Who are you?”

“I am your essence. I am the essence of your comrades and your victims. I am the essence of the fate of all living souls.”

“Are you the Noosphere?”

“I am the reflection of its anger. I am protecting it. I protect it by destroying what is menacing it.”

“Do you want to destroy the world?”

“How foolish you are! I only make living souls aware of their potential. I give you the means to destroy yourselves. Everyone according to what he does best. I was always here to do that.”

“The ancients built those statues to keep you at bay… and the fanatics set your spirit free when they destroyed them.”

“I see your time here was not wasted. You have a choice now. Yield to your most primordial human instinct of destruction. Each second you spend with me, your body will grow stronger to follow this instinct. You will be the mightiest of warriors.”

With every word echoing in his mind, Tarasov’s rage grows.

“Only two others were offered this choice. Only two understood. One ruled the world known to him. The other was a failure – my partial failure. He had power over his men who were supposed to follow my will and prevent him from reaching me. He himself was supposed to kill those who were with him but he was shielded from my will – but I still have time to come to him, and I will. You should make your choice now.”

     
“And if I don’t yield?”

“Then you will be of no use to me anymore and vanish. What is your choice?”

Tarasov steps closer, instinctively looking up at something glistening on the wall. A small, red precious stone reflects the light of his headlamp. A female shape appears in the light circle, faded, scratched and worn, but he can recognize the tattoo on her forehead. Half-forgotten words resound in his mind with such clarity as if he had heard them just a second ago.
‘You will shed blood and last drop will be yours. If you want me to live, you will have to make a sacrifice.’
The burning pain in his chest intensifies.
‘One part protects you. Two parts bond darkness.’

For a moment, he hesitates between the rage engulfing him and the only humane feeling left in his heart.

“What is your choice, human? Power or oblivion?”

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and raises his combat knife. “I yield to your power. Without you, I could not do what I have to do!”

Tarasov yields to rage – and unleashes it upon himself to overcome his own fear and pain.

He dips the blade deep into his wound, cutting it open and removing the stone. His body suddenly becomes aware of its exhaustion and injuries. Crying in pain, he falls onto the slab. With trembling, bloody fingers, he places Nooria’s stone next to the other into the slot.

When the two parts join, the fires blaze up and a deep, humming noise drones from beneath as if the earth itself was sighing in relief.

Pain and fear captivate Tarasov as he realizes that he is in the depths of a labyrinth, armed only with a knife and bearing wounds all over his body.

But his knees do not tremble now. A sudden feeling of freedom invigorates his exhausted limbs as he runs from the chamber and soon he reaches the exit of the shaft. The depth beneath his feet seems bottomless. Seeing no other way of escape, he starts descending the ruined rope ladder. Reaching the end, he looks warily into the abyss.

There’s no other way than into the chasm.

Hoping that his exoskeleton still offers enough impact protection to save him from breaking his bones, he lets himself fall. After what seems an eternity, he hits the ground, the titanium alloy body frame of his armor creaking from the impact. He doesn’t need to check the exoskeleton thoroughly to know that this was the last time it had saved his life.

Getting up, he sees broken planks from the bridge on the rocky ground. Without anything to guide him, Tarasov follows his instincts. He gives a start as the light from his headlamp falls on a corpse.

Such a waste,
he thinks
.

He closes Zlenko’s lifeless eyes and takes his pistol from its holster. His instincts do not fail him. Not far ahead, the lights of the cage room glow high above. The major recalls that one of the cages was lowered. Hoping that it will offer him a chance to get out from the abyss, he moves forward. It doesn’t occur to him that the cage was not empty when lowered until he hears a howl.

Oh no… this isn
’
t even remotely fair.

Two red dots emerge in the darkness above. Prepared to be attacked by more than one enemy, Tarasov recoils and desperately looks around to find a position to defend. The dots grow into a pair of luminescent eyes. It is not two mutants but one, the hugest he has ever seen, blocking his way.

He has nowhere to hide, so Tarasov turns around and runs, hoping to find a way out from the cavern where the mutant would be unable to follow. He stumbles and tries to get up but his muscles begin to seize up in terror. It was not a stone that had made him fall. Phosphorescent light glows an arm’s length away from him. He rolls to his side and recoils, still on the ground. The snake is faster. Reaching him, its fang-filled jaws open to tear into him. Then the snake turns its head away. For a moment, the humanoid mutant and the snake face each other… and then the snake strikes down upon the mutant. With lightning-quick reflexes, the enormous hands grasp the scaly body. Panting heavily, Tarasov watches them wrestling for life and death over a prey that would be him. He removes the Jumpy artifact from the container.

I need fire
.

Meanwhile it is the roaring humanoid that is gaining the upper hand. The snake’s jaw opens wide in agony from the suffocating stranglehold. Tarasov only has a few moments left before the humanoid turns on him. He throws the artifact to hit the mutants and, aiming as best as he can, plunges the fire-alloyed combat knife into it. He has only one second to be surprised about his own accuracy when the enhanced blade hits the artifact, triggering a thunderous explosion of fire and acid. Blood and shreds of ripped flesh splash around him as he huddles on the ground.

Climbing to his feet, he realizes that the half-ruined exoskeleton, until now perfectly fitting his size, seems to have shrunk, become much too tight in places.

I better get out of here before I become a mutant myself…

For a long moment, he studies the dead, humanoid mutant. Then he pulls the laptop from his backpack, which most probably contains descriptions of experiments leading to the creation of such abominations, and smashes it on the ground. He tears Sakharov’s notes into tiny pieces too.

Removing his knife from the carnage, the major moves on towards the dim blue light coming from the bridge above. To his relief, the cage is there but without any device or switch to operate its elevating mechanism. He starts climbing up the cable, holding himself with all his strength on the slippery, greasy steel and kicks the metal trapdoor open.

Climbing into the long room spanning over the cavernous abyss, he feels as if he has arrived in the safest place on earth… until the sight of the two corpses brings him back to reality.

Both of them deserved a better grave than this.