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The sun had started its descent some time ago. The glorious brightness was long gone and the tender shawl of sunset would soon fall upon the denizens of the zone. Marked One checked the time. Not bad, he thought, he had half an hour way left to Yantar and it was 6 PM. It would be late enough for the anomalies to accept transmutation and hopefully early enough that he could safely make it to scientists’ bunker before dawn to get some easy and safe sleep after the transmutation.

He made it to Yantar with fifteen minute delay becouse of a blind dog group led by a psuedo. His ammo was getting low. Marked One decided to get done with the transmutation first, then sort out his artefacts and ammunition at the Scientist Bunker. He brought out Shelly, his veteran binoculars. Shelly told Marked One that the way was clear. He was peeking at some broken pipes just outside the Lab X16. A series of momentary memories suddenly passed through his mind. A snork jumping out  from darkness with a deadly roar. Zombies of other stalkers shooting. Burer, the dwarf, the ugliest and one of the most scary creatures he had ever seen. A psuedogiant suddenly turning a corner to face him in sewer pipes. He shivered.  He had shut down psi-emitors and had got done with the place, yet his mind was still haunted. “Not going in there, stupid, you’ll be outside” he said, trying to discipline himself, and maybe comfort a bit.

The experienced stalker started moving through the vegetation. Yantar lake had become a swamp and the whole region had its share from the bleakness of the Zone as well. The trees looked warped and the soil felt infirm. He was at the highest point of the small hill, the pipes were just a few hundred meters away. Shelly looked around again. She wasn’t as quiet this time, as she captured movement. The gloomy tree branches and desperate bushes denied him the exact vision, but Shelly had a rectangle marking the target. This outline rectangle of the figure looked horizontally longer. “It must have been walking on four legs”, he concluded. Seeing how he was looking at a dumper part of the hillside, he already knew what he would see as he moved to clear his vision: A snork. Once a military stalker, this insane creature was now no different than an animal. Moving by using his now-fangish hands as feet and trying to catch smells through his aspiration systems half-cut duct-tube, the creature was one of the fearsome and depressing sights of the Zone. Marked One watched the creature’s actions. It was about a hundred meters away and moving freely.  Shelly left way for Sasha, a rapid-shot modified AK-74 with a grenade launcher, silencer and a scope attached. Sasha had served him nearly all the way after he was… found. “Funny”, he thought, “I’ve found Sasha in Strelok’s safe and I’m gonna use it to kill him.” He snickered as his eye joined Sasha’s magnifying glass on peeking the snork. He switched from automatic shooting to single bullet, got on knee, firmed his position. Luckily, the snork stood still for a second as it smelled the air, bringing its head higher, easier to shoot.
Sasha talked. Snork silenced.
Checking around once more with Shelly, just in case, Marked One saw that there was no other movement around. He checked the time. 7.30 PM. He had moved quite slowly, but the incoming darkness made the swamp area even more dismal. He placed Shelly in his pack and hung Sasha on his back, nervously looked around with bare eyes once more and started running. Going downhill, he was around the pipes in no time. He looked further ahead and saw the green, radiating light. There, the fruit punches were. He ran again and got at the destination. With all the equipment, the running had tired him. He waited  for a moment to catch his breath. Meanwhile, he took a good look at the source of light: an anomaly known as the fruit punch. This anomaly was one of the easiest spotted and easiest understood anomalies. It was a squarefoot lake of bubbling green liquid which had a strong acid effect if interacted. He needed this anomaly to transmute his titan kolobok into a diamond kolobok. Transmuting artefacts like this was always risky and he wasn’t even sure if the info he had on diamond kolobok was accurate. However, if it was, it would be well-worth all the effort. To make sure, he opened his PDA and double-checked both the diary entry about the transmutation that he copied and the recipe in his encyclopedia. Titan Kolobok artefact as mesomodificate, check. Fruit Punch anomaly as transmuter, check. Sleep Bag to sleep for 7 hours, check. He took a deep breath and approached the anomaly. He took out one of the titan koloboks he had and dropped it on the fruit punched. With a momentary flash, the artefact disappeared. This was a good omen, meant that the anomaly accepted the artefact; although it could end in destroying the artefact or turning it into a powerless cobblestone. He found a nice stop right beside the pipe and slipped into his sleeping bag.
After 5 hours, he woke up with a pain. His stomach was growling. He took out some bread and sausage and ate them as he watched the green bubbles of fruit punch in the darkness of 11 PM. Two hours was all that was left, he felt anxious. He closed his eyes, hoping the transmutation to work.

He woke up again. And this time, it was the Zone that growled.