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Post by Διμι on Jun 23, 2010 15:02:57 GMT -5
The massive shape of the "Jupiter" radiofactory loomed over the small dirt pathway, plunging the small group into the shadows as they walked by the massive structure. Once bustling with activity, the massive fabrication complex was now silent and abandoned, only a quiet relic civilization had left before it had been swept away by radioactive dust. A small grove of trees lay right behind the street dead ahead. Beyond the tips of the trees, Seth could see the roofs of dozens of concrete buildings, straining skywards. Pripyat, the Freedom leader thought, the group had at last reached their destination.
The sky glowed eerily as a sudden crack penetrated the unnatural stillness of the air. The cloud cover above the group seemed to split apart as a bright yellow light streamed through. The clouds themselves twisted and spiraled in bizarre patterns, the occasional crackle of lightning piercing through and illuminating the land below. "Another blowout soon, stalkers." Seth muttered grimly to the rest of the group "I reckon we've got an hour or two to find shelter before hell really breaks loose." The Freedomer consulted the map in his PDA "If we keep moving in this direction, we'll hit the Town Hall and amusement park, and from what I've heard, there's Monolith bastards aplenty in there."
He paused "If we try to head any further north, we'll hit the stadium, and then we'll really be fucked if one of their patrols decides to investigate who's intruding. As much as I hate to say it, we have to head down back to the south. There's an abandoned sports shop or something of the like not too far from here that will make a decent shelter. We can make it if we hurry."
"Well, you've certainly got balls if you really wanted to go with me all the way to here," Lutiy muttered to the massive dark stalker sitting beside him as he rowed. The haze covering the area began to dissipate, and the small wooden craft slowly emerged from the fog, alighting on the docks of of the abandoned city. Lutiy quickly pulled himself up onto the pier, and waited for Khan to do the same.
A massive statue of Prometheus, holding up the stolen flame, seemed to greet them. Beyond it, Lutiy could see the dilapidated Ferris wheel reaching into the sky. The sky had grown turbulent once more, as if another blowout was slowly brewing. Lutiy cursed, glancing at the shifting and occasionally flashing cloud cover.
"How long do you figure we have before this shit goes down?" the bandit asked, turning to the guide.
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Post by Afterburner on Jun 23, 2010 15:54:09 GMT -5
"Sports shop? Last time I heard, there were zombies 'round that place, not to mention pockets of radiation enough to make you glow green inside out...Not that it'd hurt me, I've already gone through enough shades of gray, thank you very much. There's this place on...Lazarus street? It's a bit down the road, and it's a decent vantage point if something was to happen. Overlooking the crossroads too. We'd have to clear some rats out of the building, but that would be about it."
Dimitri and his two boys followed slowly.
"This place...I can still remember."
They were all dressed in green, proudly sporting the best weaponry they had. NATO rifles, prototypes, everything. Dimitri suggested that they hole up for the night.
"Worst mistake I ever made."
The group was massacred during the night. Somebody, or something, attacked the group. Dimitri never saw anything. He never remembered anything. From that point until the point he regained his sanity, there was a big, gaping hole in his mind.
"Anywhere. Anywhere. Literally, anywhere. Just don't wait for the night."
________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Fourty minutes. Exactly."
He tied the shabby boat to the dock and stepped after his companion.
"This place...I have rarely ventured into this town. And yet, people lose lives fighting for these ruins every day. And for what? I do not know. A piece of street, building, concrete. It disgusts me. Let us move onwards and waste no time, for the Zone is to strike once more."
He crept up to the corner, checking for any movement.
"The streets are clear. I suggest that we stay hidden, and only cross them when we need to. Wait."
He stopped suddenly , raising his hand.
"Kiril, I hear someone coming. Actually, two of them."
He peered behind the corner; two Monolith grunts were walking down the street, mumbling something incoherently.
"Shall we rid ourselves of these monstrosities or shall we move onwards?
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Post by Διμι on Jun 23, 2010 18:39:19 GMT -5
"As you wish," the Freedom leader replied "I'll trust your mercenary friends' judgment, but personally, Lazarus is somewhere I wouldn't want to go just yet. The nearby 'Culture Center' as well as the amusement park are both just crawling with Monolith scumbags, since it's right in the damn center of the city, where the Monolith HQ is reckoned to be located." the Freedomer mulled over the idea, consulting his PDA, which showed no signals in the vicinity "But it's settled then, as Burner says," he finalized "we'll wait there 'till the Zone takes its piss, and move on."
The Freedomer reached the end of the fence surrounding the factory, and looked down both sides of the street. The factory road was empty and deserted, old soviet cars stalled randomly in some areas. The skies let out a resonant rumble once more. Seth glanced up anxiously "We'd better have enough time to get up there. Lazarus is a good way off, and something tells me we don't even have an hour. God forbid something stalls us."
Closing his visor, he drew his SVU and slowly began making his way down the factory road towards the next left turn.
Forty minutes was time aplenty to deal with the two goons and find shelter around here, Lutiy reasoned. And making a Zone with two Monolithians less would do everyone in it a favor.
He slowly crept up to the edge of the Pripyat Cafe, behind which the two had been hiding. "Keep an eye on the sky," he muttered "I wouldn't want to make too much excess noise around here, with Prometheus hardly a hundred meters away."
The bandit waited until the lightning shocks traveling about in the reached their climax, and fired just as the sky discharged in a deafening thunderclap, the gun's noise blending in perfectly. He saw Khan do the same beside him, and the two Monolithians dropped instantaneously, as if God's hand itself had smitten them with the blast.
Lutiy retreated back behind the cafe wall and pulled out an old, rumpled map of the city. "There's a sanitary hospital not far from here," he noted "those walls should be thick enough to protect us, and there's probably a solid basement in there too. I'd say it's our best option if we are to survive this thing."
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Post by Fusebox on Jun 23, 2010 23:42:40 GMT -5
Fyodor watched carefully the city before him. Laying on his stomach, hidden by the ghillie suit he wore on, the merc waited amongst the dead trees and knee tall grass. Ahead of him stood a pair of monolithian sentries, keeping guard over their city from the roof of the old military checkpoint.
The building was no more than a hundred meters away, and despite their use of makeshift camouflage and personal armour, they were exposed, and armour piercing rounds were made for a reason.
Orange took aim at the Monolithian on the far right. He was laying down some kind of scoped rifle in hand. A muffled thud accompanied his pulling of the trigger, and milliseconds later, Fyodor saw the Monolithian go limp as the round punched through his visor, and then his head. The merc shifted to his next target. Same scenario, same outcome.
Fyodor waited for about ten minutes before beginning to crawl across the field towards the city, confident that so long as he stayed low he'd reach the cursed place unmolested.
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Post by Karcentric on Jun 24, 2010 3:50:16 GMT -5
Rurik was jogging towards Pripyat his group right behind him. The sky was showing sign of another blowout threatening start soon. He slowed to a walk as they approached the Military Depot, he put his hand up as a caution to the group, holding the Groza ahead he peered into the gloomy building, stall air was all that greeted him.
"Well done team, we've made it to Pripyat locating Seth hasn't been easy and now it's about to get a lot harder. There's hundreds of Monolith soldiers prowling the city as well plenty of mutants hunting for a meal. I've said it before but keep alert and quiet." Rurik warned his group. Now where should we go first? He thought to himself gazing at the landscape, looking to his PDA, to his dismay all of the roads seemed to be very long and straight from where they were. Deciding that moving towards the center of town would be a good place to start.
"We'll head north towards the town center. We'll need to stay to the side of the road however that way anyone looking down the road won't see us. Let's move." Rurik said moving cautiously along the side of the road.
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Post by Basil on Jun 24, 2010 6:08:37 GMT -5
"Such a charming place", said Adder as Rurik and the rest of the squad moved out, "not to mention the splendid weather."
The sky seemed wracked by some kind of mighty turbulence. Clouds flashed with lighting, and the firmament was slowly turning crimson.
"-Indeed", replied Maginot. Earlier on, back in Limansk, he had tried to leave Rurik's group and go looking for Seth. Adder had dissuaded him from doing so. Her old ecologist suit, which had suffered quite a bit during the squad's brief romp (a romp during which they had lost two members, most notably Chaos, a man Adder did not miss in the least) in the tunnels below Limansk, had been exchanged for a simple Sunrise suit with extra kevlar plating. Maginot still wore his merc suit.
"-This emission is making me sick", said Adder, looking green and strained. The effects of the snake bite she had suffered in Limansk were coming back with the change in atmosphere, and her mutated pupils were dilated, two large pools of black in her eyes.
"-Rurik?", said Maginot to the Dutier, "shouldn't we find some kind of shelter from the emission? It seems to be worsening rapidly."
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Post by Διμι on Jun 24, 2010 18:11:53 GMT -5
"Reactive levels in the atmosphere are going to hit critical in fifteen minutes, maybe less." Victor announced grimly, checking the electromagnetic sensor on his suit "This is a big one, much bigger than the one that hit Yantar two days ago. If we don't find shelter in short order, we'll be drooling, mutated sacks of meet within the next twenty, no matter how well-engineered our protection is. We'll never make it to the town center, much less drive out the Monolith from even one of the buildings we could occupy."
"We need to find shelter now, not to mention possibly clear it out." he explained, glancing at his PDA's built-in map "There's a fairly large general store on the other side of the block according to my PDA. It should have a decent size storage room in the basement. The only places near the center that could serve as the same are the Town Hall, the Hotel, as well as the Trading Center, all of which are rumored to be under heavy Monolith control. We'd better wait this one out before we move on any further."
The sky let off a deafening crack as Leon and his team stalked through the huge field of smashed or partially damaged greenhouses. The plants within had long since mutated or overgrown.
"Looks like we have a blowout on our hands, gentlemen." he said to the three remaining stalkers beside him "and we're still conveniently not even close to the town center."
He eyed the line of high-rise buildings in the distance "I don't know how long we have before this one erupts, but I'd rather let it do its thing, and move on only once it's over. Those apartment complexes look thick enough to protect us from the majority of the emissions, if we manage to hole up in one of the core corridors. Let's go, for all I know, we could have five minutes before the sky decides to crash on all of us."
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Post by Fusebox on Jun 24, 2010 23:17:14 GMT -5
Fyodor sprinted across the exposed street, before diving back down amongst the weeds and overgrown greenery. Judging by the fact he wasn't being shot at, he felt confident that he had gone unnoticed by any Monolith in the area. Looking north he figured he knew why. The churning sky told him an emission was about to hit, hard. Despite their complete lack of self preservation, the disciples of the Monolith were smart enough to take cover from the emissions their precious zone sent out to kill and mutate everything in their path.
Fyodor too, was smart enough to know that when the zone sent out everything it had, you'd best get the fuck out of the way. And that's just what the merc scout intended to do. His mission to observe monolith forces in the area and plot a course to assault the city could wait. Right now he needed some good solid concrete between him and the energies the center was about to let loose.
To his left, the gun for hire spotted a general store. From the intel he'd been given before leaving, he'd been told that the freezer in the basement should have been strong enough to withstand whatever the zone was about to throw his way.
Judging by the intensity of the glow emitting from the centerer, he didn't have enough time for stealth. Fyodor kept that in mind as he began jogging toward the worn out building. He quickened his pace as a deafening boom erupted from the north, shaking the very earth he stood on.
Fyodor's heart came close to stopping halfway to his destination. Not fifty meters away stood a group of armed men. Fyodor began sprinting. He didn't get a good enough look at them to know if they were Monolith or not, however he felt it safe to assume they were.
Fyodor rammed his shoulder into the building's back door, breaking it right off it's hinges. Ignoring the pain and possible injuries, the merc moved quickly through the racks of old goods that it once sold and located the door to the basement. Luckily the door was unlocked, and the merc charged down into the darkness.
Switching his mask's night vision on, Fyodor took up position in the darkness behind a crate of long since disintegrated food. If they turned out to be monolith, he wasn't about to let them get the first shot off.
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Post by Karcentric on Jun 25, 2010 0:11:13 GMT -5
Rurik looked at Maginot and Adder after the Frenchman's question. "Yes we should, we'll go with Victor's idea, what was that? Rurik said catching the slightest glimpse of someone or something ahead. "Must of been a mutant. Let's head for the store." He said moving quickly while the storm around them intensified. They arrived at what must of been the back entrance of the store, the door was knocked off the hinges, had there been more time Rurik would have inspected the door but instead he rushed into the store, making sure the entire group was in he put the door back in place before dragging a heavy crate to block the entrance.
"Let's find he basement quickly, Adder isn't looking well." Looking around they spotted the steps leading to the basement, "One second let me check to see if it's clear first." He said stepping cautiously down the step turning his NV on sweeping the Groza slowly scanning the the old storage area. In one corner he spotted someone who had a gun trained on him. Lowering his own gun so that it was pointing at the ground he turned to look at the man, "If your going to shoot you probably should of done so as I was coming down the steps. Lt. Rurik of the Duty faction and you? I have several people with me and we're seeking shelter from the oncoming emission." The man was still pointing the gun at Rurik despite the introduction.
Rusty was following closely behind Leon, looking to Duke who was along side him, "You know there's bottle shops in this town, probably untouched since the 86 disaster. If I get the chance I'm gonna have a look, maybe take a few bottle of whiskey, I'm getting sick of vodka." he said, looking up at the apartment blocks Leon was indicating, "They look nice and cosy, I hope they've got descent seats in there, that hospital was the second worst place I've ever been." He muttered
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Post by Fusebox on Jun 25, 2010 1:15:05 GMT -5
A look of confusion made it's way across the ghillie suited merc's face as he kept his rifle pointed at the alleged Dutier's forehead. This man was either incredibly confident or one of the stupidest people he'd ever met. Probably the former judging by the rank. Markovnikov began speaking, voice muffled by his gas mask "You're very trusting. For all you knew I was one of those Monolith fuckers." As Fyodor began getting to his feat, the man started speaking, however the merc quickly cut him off with the ker-klak of his L85's bolt. "I'm not so trusting. Keep that rifle down and don't move a damn inch or you'll have a new hole where you really don't want one."
With his left hand, Big Orange reached for the flashlight built into his mask, flicking it on with the click of a button. With the man now illuminated, the merc saw he was in fact, a Dutier, or at least wearing their armour. Never the less he still didn't fully trust anyone at this point.
"Alright, you check out. Bring your buddies down here. Weapons holstered, hands where I can see 'em, no sudden movements. Got it?"
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Post by Afterburner on Jun 25, 2010 3:25:12 GMT -5
"A hospital you say...Very well, let us proceed."
The two stalkers crept out into the streets of the damned town. As they slowly shuffled through the bushes on the side, Khan suddenly stopped again.
"Kiril, I feel that we are being watched by something extraordinary. While we were in that building, a large shape suddenly disappeared behind the edge of the building on the opposite side of the road. I also seem to be hearing heavy breathing as if though it is an elder man. Let us move on...I do not wish to experience being caught unawares again...One time was enough. I was too careless. I was mesmerized with the sight. I swore to myself never to be careless and off-guuard ever again. I withdrew to the forest where I secluded myself from the rest of the Zone and it was there that I trained my senses."
He sighed heavily:
"That was before me. Kiril, I believe we have around fifteen...minutes before it starts. Now, we would be best-stop, do not move. I remembered something."
Khan stopped, creeping up to the edge of the crossroads. He peered behind the corner. He whistled loudly and suddenly, three stalkers appeared out of the building on the left. One of them was wearing an exo-skeleton while his friends were both clad in black SEVA-suits.
"Chiron! I have barely remembered that you still reside here. What have you been up to?"
Chiron responded casually
"Hunting, as always. What forced you out of your forest habitat? I thought you were out there, meditating and praying and whatnot. Look, Pripyat's slowly becoming a warzone. We've got all kinds of stalkers rushing in from the south, Monolith fanatics up from the north, all kinds of mutant shit in the middle... Anyways, it's good seeing another hunter. But, the deal is, we can't handle Pripyat any more. We're slowly running out of food and ammo and the mutant body collection is not really compensating for those...well, at least here. We were just about to leave, maybe go to Yantar...I heard those scientists pay good money for this crap. See you around, Khan!"
Khan put his hand on the man's shoulder.
"As always. If you are looking for a refreshing alternative, visit Jupiter. Many mutants have their lairs there, and the stalkers are either hiding or out there losing their lives to these monsters. If you wish, I will join you. But first, there is something I must attend to. You do not know Kiril, I presume?"
Khan turned around to Lutiy
"Chiron is a good man, and his men are "crack-shots" at their worst. His team was lost in the forest, and I felt obliged to show them out. However, we were attacked by a migrating pack of bloodsuckers, led by the vilest pack-leader one could see. It was a gigantic, vicious monster. If only we had killed him back then. This trio brought half of them down in a second before the others dispersed."
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Post by Basil on Jun 25, 2010 5:12:18 GMT -5
"God damn it you fucking morons there's a fucking emission happening out there and everyone's threatening to shoot each other...", grumbled Adder, her voice rising threateningly. She was probably just about to start shouting when she fell quiet and mumbled:
"I think I'm going to be sick again."
Adder charged off across the old store and vanished behind an old metal shelf. Maginot heard the gurgling sound of someone's stomach violently rejecting what contents it still had. A couple of minutes later, Adder returned, looking pale and humble.
"I feel much better now..."
"-Got the morning sickness, woman?", said Maginot jokingly. He quickly realised his mistake as the butt of Adder's Vintorez whacked into his shoulder.
"-Shut it Frenchie", she said. "It's that snake bite I got in Limansk and that stupid emission that are messing me up. Besides, I bet all men in the Zone shoot blanks what with all the radiation hanging around in the air. Not to mention the ovaries of the small female population. Probably as knackered as an old drain pipe."
She chuckled at the thought.
"-Adder, you have a twisted sense of humour."
As they entered the basement which was so savagely defended by the lone ghillie suit-wearing merc. Adder and Maginot kept their weapons holstered, and, as Maginot had discretely advised her to do so, Adder kept her mouth shut.
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Post by Fusebox on Jun 25, 2010 13:50:02 GMT -5
Fyodor let out a sigh as he shined his flashlight on the two new stalkers. Satisfied that they weren't lunatic fanatics, the merc lowered his L85.
"Sorry, can't be too-" Fyodor was cut off as the earth violently shook, the result of another boom from the center. "Fuck! Get away from the entrance before you get cooked!"
With that, the merc retreated deeper into the basement, as far away from the stairway as he could get.
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Post by Διμι on Jun 26, 2010 0:52:16 GMT -5
"Shit," Victor muttered as the geiger counter on his suit began to crackle slightly following the shock. The sky outside was steadily changing from a multitude of tints of yellow, green, and orange to a flat crimson red. The blowout was scarcely minutes away.
The loner slammed the door shut and turned the bolt as the group hurried inside and descended. He quickly closed the door to the basement staircase as well as soon as everyone made their way down. Outside, the cracks of lightning, and occasional violent rumbles were steadily becoming more frequent. The emission could occur any second, releasing enough radiation and psy waves to obliterate anything in its path that wasn't wise enough to take shelter.
"Now," the loner said, staring pensively into the wall "we wait."
"You know there's bottle shops in this town, probably untouched since the 86 disaster. If I get the chance I'm gonna have a look, maybe take a few bottle of whiskey, I'm getting sick of vodka." Leon heard Rusty say to Duke, as they approached the apartment complex. A heavy tremor rocked the Zone around them, as the sky let out another violent roll of thunder. The entire city was enshrouded in an eerie red light, glowing ominously before the emission.
"You bastards just can't help it, can you?" Leon muttered, dragging the heavy metal door into the building open and ushering everyone inside "we've barely even gotten out of the Forest, where Dodge decided to walk straight into a fucking vortex, and you're already thinking of booze again?"
He hurried over through the dimly lit room they were in towards the staircase. "There's no basement in here," he noted "so we might as well take the second floor if something decides to come in after us into here. If this apartment building is made the same way as all of them were in the old Soviet era, there should be a central hallway, with no windows of any sort, and ringed by apartments on all sides. It should offer decent protection against the emission."
The mercenary hurried up the stairs as the building shook from another tremor. He exited on the second floor landing, arriving near a padded door into the main hallway. "Locked." he muttered, probing it. The assassin's augmented fist crashed into the lock's frame, smashing it into pieces. The door swung open.
"Get inside," he said to the rest of the group urgently "from the looks of it, we don't have much time." And indeed, the landing of the staircase was already illuminated with a ghostly red light. The blowout had almost begun.
"We might not live to see him again if we don't get to the hospital soon." Lutiy replied to the guide grimly, eying the sky, which had slowly turned a light, uniform shade of red. A low tremor shook the ground. "Let us go." he resolved "the Zone isn't going to wait for us."
The large building of the hospital became visible in the distance, and the two picked up the pace as they approached it. Lutiy's geiger counter crackled slightly, and the cracks emanating from the sky and the Zone's center had ceased, and were replaced by a more eerie and steady rumbling. The bandit rushed to the door, and quickly pulled it open, switching on his night vision in the process.
The inner confines of the hospital appeared to be deserted, but the outlaw held the 9x39mm Desert Eagle at the ready as he entered. Medical equipment, gurneys, and tattered pieces of white and blue cloth were strewn about, making for an eerie picture. "Lovely place." he muttered aside to his guide companion "you think there might be anything, or anyone in here?"
"Fuck!" seethed Seth as a tremor shook the very ground beneath the group, and the sky evened out into a uniform red glow "We'll never make it to Lazarus if this goes on at this rate." the group had only reached the first turn in the factory road, and was slowly making its way towards the main blocks comprising the abandoned city.
"We're going to have to go with the Sports Shop, folks," he announced to the squad "looks like the emission didn't want to wait for us." The expedition would have to make do with waiting before it would get to the center of the abandoned city. The Freedomer hurried down the street towards the shop, scarcely visible through the growth of trees that had covered the street corner in the decades that had passed.
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Post by Basil on Jun 26, 2010 3:39:25 GMT -5
"Uuuh, actually I'm laying off the booze friend-o", said Duke to Rusty. He could feel the pressure in the atmosphere in his muscles and bones, like a huge weight crushing him into the ground.
"-We've barely even gotten out of the Forest, where Dodge decided to walk straight into a fucking vortex, and you're already thinking of booze again?", muttered Leon.
"-Hey! I'm not even considering touching a bottle", said Duke indignantly, and, strangely enough, he wasn't lying. Coming to Pripyat seemed to have put him off his boozing, maybe it was the weather?
I feel like the monster reincarnation of Barbra Streisand, thought Duke, wait where did that come from? Streisand's a fucking whore!
Duke and Rusty quickly got into the windowless hallway just as the light turned a violent red, flooding through the building's ruined windows like a flow of blood. Once Leon had slammed the door shut behind them, Duke slumped to the floor, feeling somewhat tired due to the effects of the emission.
"And now we wait eh, I guess I won't smoke because for one I don't have any cigarettes left, and if I did have any smoking in here would annoy you two."
The building shook violently and the air outside became filled by a monumental and omnipresent rumble akin to a million stones rolling down a rocky hill. The noise was muffled by the building's walls, but the stalkers could still hear it from their refuge of fortune. Duke sat on the floor and waited silently, staring at the wall.
___________________
"Oooh God..." Maginot heard Adder mumble incoherently. It was pitch black down in the cellar save for a small oil lamp someone had lit after the door was closed. Maginot looked at Adder, who was leaning against him, and saw to his alarm that her face was slick with sweat. Her eyes were also going awry, with one pupil excessively dilated and the other excessively retracted.
"Fucking venom", she muttered, "fucking...uhhh..."
Her face suddenly softened, and her grimace of discomfort was replaced by a soft, peaceful smile. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world. Maginot laughed when he recognised her demeanour.
She's fucking high, for some reason, she's high.
"-Well Adder, at least you're happy right now", said Maginot with a chuckle. Adder slowly turned her head to look at him before softly stroking his cheek with her hand. Her eyes, despite the freaky pupils, were filled with simple love and joy.
"-Isn't it great here?", she said softly, "in the dark..."
She leaned her head on Maginot's shoulder and sighed contentedly. Maginot was surprised at the total absence of tension in her body since Adder disliked contact with other people. He noticed Victor looking worriedly at them.
"-Heh, she's tripping balls", said Maginot, "right now she's probably the happiest person in the entire Zone."
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