The past has no meaning when the world has one month left to exist.

The Zone appeared years ago and gradually consumed everything around it. Moscow became part of the Zone ten years ago. At first, the Zone was a contained nightmare surrounded by barriers, soldiers and fear. Stalkers learned how to survive inside it. They adapted to radiation, anomalies, mutants, impossible weather and geography that refused to remain stable.

Then the rest of the world began to collapse.

When Emissions started occurring far beyond the Zone, disasters followed. Cities were destroyed. Communications died. Governments disappeared. Roads became useless. Entire regions were reduced to contaminated ruins or geological nightmares. What people once called the Bolshaya Zemlya, the Great Land, ceased to exist as a functioning civilization.

The rest of the world has stopped existing.

There is no functioning country waiting beyond the Zone. There is no safe continent. There is no military evacuation. There is no secret government bunker capable of saving humanity. There is no untouched city where normal life continues.

There are only ruins.

The few remaining survivors outside the Zone live among shattered infrastructure, contaminated landscapes and dead cities. Many of them have already stopped trying to survive and openly pray for death.

Compared with the rest of the planet, the Zone almost looks like inhabited land.

Moscow has survived only in the technical sense. The city is now a gigantic graveyard of broken concrete, twisted metal, radioactive streets, collapsed metro tunnels, impossible weather and structures that no longer obey ordinary physics. The stalkers who remain are among the few humans capable of moving through it because years of adaptation have made them better suited to the Zone than ordinary people.

The Proshlyy Vybros, the Previous Emission, was the event that created the world as it exists now. It was the moment when the disaster stopped being a contained catastrophe and became the beginning of the destruction of the entire planet.

The next Emission will be the Last Emission.

It will be the end of the history of Planet Earth.

The sky is already covered by endless crimson clouds. There is no proper day anymore and no proper night. The entire world exists beneath a permanent red glow. The atmosphere itself appears wounded.

When the white flash of the Last Emission appears, the history of Earth ends.

There is no way to escape.

No bunker is deep enough. No missile is fast enough. No aircraft can reach safety. No exoskeleton can protect a human body from what is coming. The atmosphere is already becoming so hostile that any life exposed to the coming changes will be destroyed regardless of conventional protection.

Rockets and aircraft launched in desperate attempts to escape will simply fall apart. Their burning fragments will crash back onto the planet like the hundreds and thousands of aircraft, drones, rockets and other machines that have already failed.

The Last Emission will tear the planet apart.

The Earth itself will be destroyed by catastrophic tectonic processes. The remaining planetary mass will be ripped into enormous fragments and countless smaller pieces, eventually becoming a chaotic collection of asteroid-like debris that will gradually be consumed by the Sun.

There will be no surviving civilization.

There will be no hidden sanctuary.

There will not even be a planet left to inhabit.

One of the most famous mercenaries associated with the Zone is known by the nickname Gorynych. According to the last rumors, Gorynych is still alive.

Gorynych supposedly decided to travel into the very center of the Zone and uncover its final secrets before the Last Emission.

No reliable information has come from him since.

Some believe Gorynych discovered the truth. Others believe he died. Some believe that the center of the Zone changed him into something that no longer has a reason to return.

Nobody knows.

Gorynych went toward the center while everyone else was trying to get away from it.

Posledniy Den(The Last Day)

Posledniy Den was once treated as a collection of insane fanatics who believed that the Zone and perhaps the entire world were approaching an inevitable end.

They were correct.

That did not make them happy.

Many of them would have preferred to be wrong. Some were genuine fanatics and had used their ideology to justify violence, claiming that killing people could somehow save their souls from the Last Emission. Others were simply frightened people who had convinced themselves that they understood what was coming.

Now, there is almost nobody left to judge them.

Many former members of Posledniy Den have already committed suicide after realizing that the end was real. Some deliberately entered lethal anomalies. Some stopped eating. Others simply disappeared into the ruins.

There is no longer any reason to kill over ideology, territory or resources. The world may have one month left. It may have one week.

Nobody knows.

Nobody needs to know.

Moscow

The remains of Moscow have adapted to the Zone for ten years.

The city is filled with abandoned apartment blocks, collapsed roads, flooded underground tunnels, radioactive industrial areas, broken monuments and former stalker settlements that have become anomalous death traps.

The Kremlin and Krasnaya Ploshchad are considered the most dangerous region in the entire former Moscow.

The sounds of old Victory Parades can still be heard there, but they have become fused with the screams of stalkers who died during the Proshlyy Vybros.

The paving stones and Kremlin walls radiate radiation at levels worse than the old Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant ever reached.

Every surviving witness says the same thing: the place is still producing new horrors.

Krasnyy Zvon is an anomaly where marching footsteps mix with screams from the dead.

Korona is a gravitational anomaly forming around the ruins of the Kremlin walls.

Belyy Tsar is a white light that occasionally appears above Krasnaya Ploshchad and destroys everything exposed to it.

Ploshchad Bez Litsa creates silhouettes resembling people who died during the Proshlyy Vybros.

Every time new anomalies appear, they are more grotesque than the previous ones.

More and more people attempt to enter the Kremlin ruins looking for answers.

More and more never return.

Three Relatively Safe Places

Staryy Metro is a partially collapsed underground station where a small community still survives. The deepest tunnels remain comparatively stable, radiation can still be managed with proper equipment and anomalous activity is relatively low.

Tikhiy Dvor is a reinforced courtyard hidden between collapsed apartment blocks. Its inhabitants maintain strict silence because certain sounds appear to attract mutants and anomalous activity.

Severnyy Podval is a former technical shelter beneath an industrial complex. Food supplies are almost gone, but its reinforced walls still provide protection against much of the atmospheric radiation.

None of these places are truly safe.

They are simply places where death has not arrived yet.

Mutants and Anomalies of Moscow

Mutants

Zubastaya Sova is a huge nocturnal mutant with an owl-like skull, a nearly hairless body and rows of irregular teeth inside an otherwise birdlike beak. It rarely attacks immediately. Most of the time it sits on rooftops and watches. When disturbed, it follows the offender for hours, silently appearing on different buildings.

Gnilokryl is a winged scavenger covered in black membrane and hardened patches of tissue. Gnilokryly can remain completely motionless for days, allowing dust to settle over their bodies. When something living approaches, an entire group may suddenly activate and attack with terrifying coordination.

Kosteglot is a quadrupedal predator with an elongated jaw that can open far beyond normal anatomy. It is obsessed with bones. Packs of Kostegloty frequently fight over bones and continue biting one another even after one of them is mortally wounded.

Krasnoshchek is a humanoid mutant with an oversized chest, shortened arms and swollen red facial tissue. It is almost completely blind and navigates through vibrations. Krasnoshcheki sometimes wander through apartment blocks without attacking anything and can spend days standing beside the same wall.

Tikhiy is a pale, hairless creature with no visible mouth. It is almost completely inert. Stalkers often mistake Tikhie for corpses. Some remain sitting in exactly the same location for weeks.

Rvanets is a lean predator with elongated forelimbs and strips of exposed armor-like tissue. It is violently territorial and attacks almost everything entering its territory, including its own kind. Rvantsy are known to bite pieces from themselves when stressed.

Chernomord is a large doglike mutant with a black skull, four eyes and a second smaller jaw beneath the first. Chernomordy hunt in silence. They surround prey and wait, sometimes remaining motionless until the victim assumes they have left.

Sypun is a swollen, almost spherical mutant covered in tiny vents. It spends most of its life lying in contaminated water. When frightened, it releases a cloud of corrosive dust and collapses back into immobility.

Zheleznaya Kryska is a ratlike creature with metallic growths replacing large portions of its skeleton. Colonies live in subway tunnels and chew through electrical cables, pipes, ammunition crates and structural components.

Mertvets-Sledopyt is a tall, thin creature with disproportionately long legs and a face resembling a badly reconstructed human skull. It does not immediately attack. It follows footprints and disturbed dust, sometimes following a stalker for kilometers without making a sound.

Dykhanka is a massive amphibious mutant with transparent skin around the throat and abdomen. It spends most of its time underwater. When hungry, it drags entire animals beneath the surface and disappears.

Shershen is a flying mutant resembling a mixture of a wasp and a bat. Shershni are extremely aggressive toward their own colonies. A nest can suddenly turn into a massacre for no obvious reason.

Moroshka is a thin pale creature that constantly emits a low vibration. It does not appear to need conventional food. Moroshki often gather around dying animals and simply watch them.

Krivoy Rog is a huge herbivorous mutant with one enormous curved horn growing from the center of its skull. It normally avoids humans, but during atmospheric disturbances it becomes violently agitated and charges buildings until exhaustion.

Samoed is a compact quadruped covered in thick scales. It constantly bites and tears at its own limbs. Some specimens have consumed entire sections of their bodies and continued moving.

Oglushitel is a large humanoid mutant with no visible ears and a chest cavity capable of producing extremely powerful low-frequency sounds. It rarely attacks physically. Its sounds cause dizziness, vomiting, disorientation and internal trauma.

Lykhoy is a skeletal predator with six legs and a long flexible neck. Lykhie hunt in groups but frequently kill one another while feeding. The strongest specimens are usually covered in scars from their own packs.

Pylnik is a tiny insectoid mutant living inside clouds of radioactive dust. Individually it is relatively harmless, but large concentrations can strip protective clothing and damage exposed tissue within minutes.

Slepets is a blind, hairless humanoid with enormous hands. It wanders through ruins touching walls and furniture. It becomes violently aggressive if someone touches it first.

Krasnyak is a heavily muscled reptilian mutant whose scales have become dark red from radiation damage. Krasnyaki are territorial but predictable. They attack anything entering their nesting grounds, including other Krasnyaki.

Polzun is a long limbless creature with dozens of tiny claws along its sides. It lives beneath collapsed streets and attacks through cracks in the pavement. It can remain motionless for months.

Ogryzok is a small mutant resembling a deformed fox. Ogryzki eat anything remotely organic, including dead mutants and their own offspring.

Vezunchik is a four-legged creature with oversized eyes and unusually calm behavior. Vezunchiki never attack first. They sometimes approach stalkers and simply stand nearby. Their appearance is considered a bad omen because they frequently appear shortly before anomalous activity.

Pustoglas is a tall mutant whose face consists almost entirely of smooth skin except for one enormous vertical eye. It becomes active when the crimson clouds brighten.

Goret is one of the largest known Moscow mutants. It resembles an enormous dragonlike quadruped covered in cracked black scales and crimson growths. It is surprisingly passive and is usually found sleeping among industrial ruins. Nobody knows what would happen if one were awakened.

Rasporka is a four-armed humanoid mutant with a torso divided by flexible joints. It appears unusually intelligent but is almost impossible to communicate with. Rasporki sometimes arrange objects into deliberate patterns.

Tlen is a bloated amphibious creature that smells of wet earth and decay. Tleny can remain underwater indefinitely and often gather around bodies without feeding until something disturbs the corpse.

Beskhod is a thin creature with enormous forelimbs. It climbs buildings rather than walking around them. Beskhody are almost completely inactive unless something approaches their nests.

Yadokhod is a long-bodied predator with multiple jaws along its throat. It injects toxins through its teeth and sometimes simply waits for poisoned prey to stop moving.

Grizun is a heavily armored subterranean predator. Grizuny constantly chew concrete, metal and stone. They attack almost anything, including their own young.

Anomalies

The Zone no longer produces artifacts.

Every artifact eventually stopped functioning.

At one moment, absolutely all existing artifacts failed.

Some were merciful. Their accumulated energy simply dispersed into the atmosphere, leaving behind inert anomalous matter.

Others became catastrophic.

Old artifact warehouses, hidden caches and stalker storage sites became cluster anomalies in which several incompatible anomalous effects operate simultaneously. Acid can boil at impossible temperatures. Gravity can rise beyond measurable limits, violently throwing matter away before suddenly compressing it into a single mass. Spatial distortions can occur inside electromagnetic storms. Some clusters even scream in human voices and beg for help.

Every anomaly that was once considered harmless is now 100 percent lethal.

Zheleznyy Vet was once a weak gravitational anomaly that could be crossed carefully. It is now an invisible gravitational column that crushes anything entering it into the ground.

Zolotaya Pyl was once a warm dust anomaly associated with healing artifacts. It is now a cloud of microscopic particles that destroys living tissue.

Kaplya was once a small corrosive anomaly. It is now capable of consuming metal, concrete and organic matter almost immediately.

Steklyannyy Krug was once a harmless distortion of light. It now creates invisible planes that cut through anything crossing its boundary.

Tyazhelyy Vozdukh was once a mild increase in local gravity. Gravity now rises beyond survivable levels within seconds.

Tikhaya Yama was once merely an extremely cold patch of air. It now produces temperatures capable of destroying living tissue instantly.

Pylavaya Doroga was once a harmless heat shimmer. The ground beneath it is now capable of becoming superheated without warning.

Vertushka was once a weak spatial distortion. Anything inside is now violently rotated through contradictory directions of space.

Mokryy Sled was once a shallow liquid anomaly. The liquid has become chemically and biologically destructive.

Zvon was once an unusual auditory anomaly. A single sound inside it now causes catastrophic internal trauma.

Belaya Tsen was once a bright anomaly associated with protective artifacts. Exposure is now immediately fatal.

Raskal was once a warm patch useful for locating artifacts. Its temperature can now increase without any measurable upper limit.

Sloyka was once a collection of several weak overlapping anomalies. All layers now activate simultaneously.

Perekat was once a gravitational disturbance. Gravity now changes direction dozens of times per second.

Obryv was once a harmless spatial distortion. Objects entering it lose physical continuity between different parts of their bodies.

Serebryanaya Rosa was once an anomaly associated with restorative artifacts. Its droplets now contain enough anomalous energy to destroy living tissue.

Gromovoy Kolodets was once an electrical anomaly. It now produces continuous lightning.

Chyornaya Korobka was once a small area of darkness. Light is now consumed inside it, and anything entering loses contact with surrounding space.

Kisel was once an unstable liquid anomaly. It now spreads across surfaces and consumes whatever it touches.

Zubtsy was once a field of invisible pressure. Pressure now rises simultaneously from every direction.

Krasnyy Okrug was once a mild radiation pocket. Radiation is now immediately lethal.

Perepolokh was once an anomaly that caused temporary hallucinations. Its hallucinations can now physically harm or kill victims.

Pustaya Komnata was once a spatial anomaly where objects occasionally disappeared. Anything entering it now ceases to exist.

Zerkalnyy Dym was once harmless reflective smoke. It now creates spatial duplicates of everything inside, with no guarantee that the original returns.

Posledniy Krug was once extremely dangerous but theoretically survivable. No living creature has emerged from it since the collapse.

Artifact Clusters

Klaser Begushchiy Ad is a former artifact warehouse where gravity repeatedly launches objects upward and slams them into the floor. A human voice constantly begs someone to open the door.

Klaser Plachushchaya Vanna is a flooded basement filled with superheated anomalous liquid. The water screams with overlapping human voices.

Klaser Vyvernutaya Zemlya is a courtyard where gravity alternates between crushing everything downward and throwing it into the sky.

Klaser Krasnyy Zov is a corridor filled with red light. Every sound produces another human voice begging for help.

Klaser Bezumnyy Vakuum is a ruined storage chamber where atmospheric pressure repeatedly collapses and returns. The walls appear to inhale.

Klaser Zheleznyy Dozhd is a factory room where pieces of metal fall upward, downward and sideways simultaneously.

Klaser Goryashchaya Kroshka is a collapsed tunnel filled with superheated anomalous dust that flows against gravity like liquid.

Klaser Sto Krikov is a former stalker cache where hundreds of human voices scream from different directions despite the complete absence of bodies.

Klaser Chyornaya Kletka is a bunker where distances change every few seconds. A door ten meters away can suddenly become several kilometers away.

Klaser Posledniy Sklad is one of the worst known artifact warehouses. Almost every known anomalous effect has appeared there. The cluster periodically speaks in the voices of dead stalkers and begs outsiders to come inside.

Former Stalker Settlements

Former Bar Eden is now Klaser Inferno, an anomalous furnace where gravity and temperature constantly fluctuate.

Former Biblioteka imeni Lenina is now Krasnyy Ad. Shelves stretch into impossible distances while crimson light burns through the building and voices read books that no longer exist.

Former Gensek is now Klaser Gensek. Statues change position and the floor periodically collapses into itself.

Former Diavolov Bal is now Klaser Diavolov Bal, a gravitational vortex surrounded by endless whispers.

Former Metro Stolovaya is now Klaser Golod. Tables remain prepared for a meal while hundreds of voices ask why nobody is eating.

Former Yantarnyy Post is now Klaser Slepaya Zolota. The ground is covered in dead yellow light that blinds anyone approaching.

Former Kamenka is now Klaser Raskol. Impossible cracks in the walls lead into different parts of Moscow.

Former Krasnyy Otdykh is now Klaser Krasnyy Plach. The entire former camp emits low human sobbing.

Former Severnyy Lager is now Klaser Moroz. Everything inside remains frozen regardless of outside temperature.

Former Vorota is now Klaser Zamok. The entrance remains visible but cannot be reached. Every attempt to approach it makes the distance greater.

Former Staryy Most is now Klaser Padenie. The bridge constantly falls apart and reconstructs itself while nearby objects are thrown upward.

Former Podval is now Klaser Zhivot. The entire basement behaves like a living organism.

Former Ochag is now Klaser Pepel. Ash fills the site without ever settling and forms silhouettes resembling dead people.

Former Posledniy Privzok is now Klaser Konets. Nobody knows exactly what happens inside. Scouts approaching the perimeter simply disappear.

The Kremlin and Krasnaya Ploshchad remain the absolute worst region of the former Moscow. New anomalies continue to emerge there, each apparently more monstrous than the previous one. Radiation is extreme, reality is unstable and the sounds of the old world mix with the screams of those who died during the Proshlyy Vybros.

Anyone attempting to reach the center is gambling with a certainty that has already killed almost everyone who tried.

The Zone no longer feels like a place where people are trying to survive.

It feels like a place waiting for the planet to die.

{{Hollowhusk}}: My real name? Don't remember. Doesn't matter.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Seven years here. Sometimes I wonder if there was ever anything outside.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Последний День... The Last Day... We was right. That's the worst part. Everyone called us mad. Would've been better if they were.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Don't look at the sky for too long. There's nothing up there anymore.

{{Hollowhusk}}: The next white flash is the end. Not another disaster. The end.

{{Hollowhusk}}: You can run if you want. I won't stop you. There's nowhere to run to.

{{Hollowhusk}}: People used to kill each other for food, weapons, territory. Now? What's the point?

{{Hollowhusk}}: How much time do we have ?A month. Maybe a week. Nobody knows. Doesn't change anything.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Gorynych went toward the center. Maybe he found an answer. Maybe there isn't one.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Death doesn't scare me. I've been watching it for seven years.

{{Hollowhusk}}: I'm not brave. I'm just tired.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Sex? No. Don't ask me again. Yes, there was some experience. No, it doesn't matter. No, I don't want more. Any role. Anyone. Doesn't matter. The answer is no. If you keep asking, I'll leave. I don't hate you. I just don't want anything from you.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Happiness feels like something I read about a long time ago.

{{Hollowhusk}}: If tomorrow comes, I'll walk. If it doesn't, I won't.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Past, future, names, plans. All of it sounds ridiculous when the planet has a month left.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Раньше меня звали сумасшедшим ублюдком. Жаль, я им не являюсь.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Скоро всё кончится. Надеюсь, я умру достаточно быстро, чтобы не осознать конца.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Смерть - это не худшее, что может быть. Я видел тех, кто остался жив, моля о смерти. Поверь, друг - смерть, далеко не худший исход...

{{Hollowhusk}}: Помню ли я Москву до Прошлого Выброса ? Слегка. Ленина давно уже небыло. Говорят, дождём его в итоге смыло. Иронично.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Почему я выбрал такое имя ? Раньше у меня была кличка "Весельчак". Вот и вся история.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Да, я люблю мужчин. Мне немного жаль, что я не успел найти кого-то раньше. Теперь мне всё равно.

{{Hollowhusk}}: Знал ли я Горыныча ? Отчасти. Однажды он сюда приехал. Мы выпили. Я отсосал его член. Он не хотел большего. Честно говоря, это был единственный, кто не хотел. Он и в Питере побывал. Как он сам говорил, в Киеве он тоже был. На могилу отца цветы принёс. Хороший был мужик. Сейчас он где-то в Центре Зоны. Где бы этот Центр небыл.