Here I am sitting in front of my desk thinking of what to write in my last farewell letter to my sister and mother. My father died years ago leaving us with substantial inheritance and as such, I didn’t have to worry about their well being even if it would take them a while to receive all my fortunes. I already made a delayed transfer with almost all my money on their account and the only things left were stocks, the house and my car. From a legal standpoint, those would be up in the air before my status of missing and deceased became active.

So what should I write? I am sorry mom, your son has a brain tumour and it apparently drove him crazy so he decided to have one last adventure? Or that my adventure would bring me to a place that only 30% of visitors managed to escape? Healthy and prepared visitors at that. Those that don’t live on a timer. Don’t have constant headaches and sporadic feelings of nausea. Those that had armies to support them. And most importantly that didn’t break countless laws of almost every country in the world by simply going there.

Obviously, I wrote nothing of that sort. A simple farewell will do the job. No need to go deep into the reasons, just stating the fact that I have only 6 months to live and I don’t want to spend this time watching them grieve over my still living but gradually wasting body will be enough.

As I was writing this letter I couldn’t help but wonder. If I didn’t have that mental whip that threatens to drive me completely insane pushing me to visit that Hell on Earth, would I still leave everything? Would I try to distance myself from those close to me during my last living days? I think I would. Just writing my last wishes made me imagine that scenario and I didn’t feel conflicted about such an idea. Regretful that it had to be this way but not conflicted.

Finishing up the letter by putting medical documents and notes from my doctor into the envelope I stood up from my seat and went to grab a cup of coffee. These past few months gifted me with a habit of drinking coffee all around the clock. Helps to fight an unwelcome sleep.

Pouring down the drink I started to wonder what else I might need to do before this trip. Preparing supplies and baggage would be meaningless. They will provide us with a standard kit on the other side of the border so I would need to bring only personal stuff and be mindful of how much space it would take. Smuggling people into the Zone isn’t a similar experience to anything else, as no other place on Earth is guarded 24/7 by at least 7 different armies. So I guess Nikolai Airlines would not appreciate me packing a tent, survival kit and 6 months of change clothes for this vacation.

So only personal stuff. What could that be? A couple of photos, a lucky pack of cards, my father’s lighter, a small flask my sister gave me as a gift and a simple bracelet I received from my mom when I was a kid. These things would accompany me in my grave or at least that’s my plan. Quite a meagre collection of grave goods for a self-made millionaire. Even if that money came from pure luck, what self-respecting tycoon would only bring 60$ worth of stuff to his grave.

Whatever, it’s time to get my sarcastic ass to make some concrete plans as well as gather information. My computer is packed to the brink with all the rumours about the Zone so I need to once again have a look at all those made-up stories, cooked up by the media. If even a tiny bit of it is true, it might be helpful in the future.

Taking a sip of coffee I was reminded of the bruise that started coming up. Nikolai’s friends leave speaking to those who can at the very least string a couple of sentences together. They much prefer to communicate with their fists. Especially they managed to translate their frustration very well. It only took me a right hook to the chin and left uppercut in the guts to understand their feelings. Thankfully 100 000$ helped me to convince them and Nicolai that they would be very well compensated for the traumatic experience they had to live through a couple of hours earlier because my psychotic ass decided to show up on their porch.

The deal ended up being quite simple. I pay 100 grands right now and transfer the remaining 100 on a different account. After getting to my destination I would tell them how to get access to that account and that would be the end of the deal. They don’t even need to worry about me reappearing in the future. Without extensive connections with the army guys, there is no chance of leaving that place alive.

The deal was simple but negotiations were quite strenuous and somehow, by the end of it, I managed not to get myself killed. I clinched the deal and came out of that place mostly in one piece. Substantially poorer but still alive. A weird thing to worry about when you know that monsters and cancer are just around the corner waiting for their turn.

Sitting back in my comfy office chair I booted up my computer and opened my collection of rumours, news articles and reports about The Zone. Half of it is coming from the UK tabloids full of nonsense like a woman giving birth to a mutant, soldiers coming back with 3 eyes, people claiming they saw Jesus walking among monsters or something else of that sort. All of it is absolutely useless. Everything else might be of some use.

The most trustworthy would be this small introductory article from the New York Times in celebration of the Zone 5th anniversary. Unfortunately, it was followed by reviews of trashy thrillers and brainless romance novels inspired by the subject of discussion.

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The Zone. The most mysterious and deadly place on Earth. At least that's what people say about it on the news and the Internet. 2001 was the year that started it all, gave birth to The Zone and created the New Era.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was the cause of a great tragedy in 1986 and was supposed to stay a silent and deadly testament of human mistakes, woke up like a sleeping giant after a long slumber that year. It woke up and reminded everyone how fragile human lives are. The Eruption as we call it now was an unexplainable and sudden burst of energy that enveloped everything in the radius of 100 kilometres with Chernobyl being the heart of it. The whole area became an irradiated wasteland teeming with mutants, unexplainable and incredibly dangerous traps and survivors of the Eruption.

For the next 2 years, governments would send armies into The Zone. It was an ideal place for countless opportunists. Politicians advertise their campaigns with a fight against evil mutants to the public while in reality fight for every meter of irradiated dirt in hopes that the next garbage pile would hide an artifact. Corporations spent billions in hopes to get their hands on those things and research their mysterious properties. Mercenary business blew up to the point that even army service stopped being a requirement, at least unofficially.

The problem was, that for every person who got out from The Zone there were dozens of those who stayed there forever. For every person who got out of there in sound body and mind, there was another dozen who lost their souls in there. Every attempt to bring people outside was met with failure. After 2 years of futile attempts to conquer The Zone directly, governments all over the world decided to isolate it from the rest of us and left “the exploration and colonization of the New World” to “aborigines” - the people who learned to live in that place and would rather die than leave their new home.

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This small article summarized the situation quite nicely. Of course, there are countless things it didn’t mention, for example, proxy wars going between countries inside The Zone, new drugs that apparently came from there, survivors of the Eruption fighting violently against evacuation and other things that were both expected and not in this situation.

To block information about The Zone most countries learned and copied the phenomenon observed in British media that happened during the first days of the Eruption. There was so much nonsense flooding the news that people didn’t know what to believe and it makes my quest to learn more, almost 8 years after the fact, almost impossible. But what is known doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

I guess the rest would have to be learned from personal experience because I don’t plan on dying sooner than my deadline or at least before I find out what bloody ghost calls out to me from the depths of Chernobyl.