My last trip into the Zone began much the same way as dozens of others before it. I remember how I built rainbow plans for the future then: I’d come back, take my well-earned vacation, straighten out all my home affairs, and run off with my beloved girlfriend somewhere to Hawaii… But the Zone had other plans for me. Climbing out of our “Kasatka” on that fateful day, I didn’t know that… in a couple of hours, I’d be the only one left alive from our expedition; that in two months I would become a stalker; and that in a year and a half I would die… And be resurrected—but in a completely different form.