Once you’ve been caught in the Zone of Exclusion, it will never let you go. That’s why the former stalker Shtopor, who left the outskirts of Chernobyl long ago, decides to return—to retrieve some stash left at one time in the Cordons. Much has changed in the Zone during his absence, so Shtopor hires two experienced stalkers as guides—Inok and Guron. They still don’t know that they’ve signed up for a mortally dangerous undertaking, where they will be opposed by special services, the military, and the legendary stalker faction “Monolith.” And Shtopor himself has a heavy, dark secret—one more dangerous than all the mutants and treacherous traps of the Zone…