Seventeen years ago, we walked those swampy paths that led straight into the heart of the Zone for the first time.
For some, it was just another venture, for others — the beginning of a long road through danger, betrayal, and discovery. Time has passed, but the memories of those events are still both warm and disturbing.
The smell of damp marsh filled the air, old walkways swayed with a creaking groan, and the sky pressed down as if about to pour with leaden rain.
Back then, Clear Sky still kept their base somewhere among the reeds. They spoke of balance, of the need to preserve the Zone, and of how excessive activity could tear it apart.
How it all ended — you remember yourselves.
Today, only rusty barrels and cracked walls remind about their campfires. But their steps can still be heard in the fog — in abandoned stashes, in yellowed pages of journals, in the words of those who survived.