Into the Dark - Kiril Ivanov's Departure from Freedom

[Paintcheck]

((Alright well due to some OOC shit and some IC factors Kiril Ivanov went over to the military. Felt like the story could be entertaining. This is going to be a long story. I think this is as good as "Be Free", and I hope you all like it. Radek you're in this one again, as is Wazer Wifle and Doomburger and a few other people who aren't mentioned by name. You know if you were there.))

The night was black, cold, and rainy. Kiril stared up at the ceiling of the Freedom barracks, listening to the soft patter of rain on the corrugated tin roof. He was lost in thought. The events of the previous week had shaken his faith in Freedom. For days he had been restless, lying awake at night and contemplating his options. The steady, even breathing of the Freedomers sleeping did nothing to ease his mind. Absent-mindedly he touched the tattoo on his left upper arm.

The black circle had 3 lightning bolts crossing through the word "Chernobyl" at its center. Above it was the number '88' and at the bottom was the word "Lightning". This was Kiril's big secret and part of the source of his current discomfort. He had been a soldier once, conscripted at age 18 to fight in Chechnya and later the Zone. He had spent several years of his life fighting alongside the people he now fought against as Freedom's Coleader. Very few people knew that about Kiril. He was not proud of what his old unit had done in the Cordon and elsewhere. The rampant corruption and senseless murders would haunt him on some nights as he stared at the ceiling of the barracks and prayed for daylight to make the ghosts of S.T.A.L.K.E.Rs go away. Seeing no other solution to the corruption present he decided to desert, seizing his opportunity during a raid on a bandit camp.

As he lay awake in Freedom's barracks he thought back to that night. The Military had been conducting raids mostly at night because even the Ukraine's primitive U.S.S.R era night vision was still superior to anything the bandits would have. He remembered he was on overwatch for this raid. Occasionally he had kicked in doors himself but his skill at machining rifle parts had resulted in him possessing the most accurate SVD in the company. He was positioned on a hill overlooking the old car park. These bandits had caused no end of grief to Loners and military patrols alike, raiding and ambushing anyone who stepped into their territory. One of the bandits in the group had sold out his comrades for the promise of a hefty payment. The only payment he ended up receiving was a 9X18 mm brain hemorrhage but his intel had proven to be valid enough.

Kiril remembered lying on his belly in his "nest". He hadn't planned to desert that day. Actually he hadn't ever put real consideration into deserting at all, other than tossing the idea around in his head as he waited for daylight on those sleepless nights. He was next to useless at his current position. The bandits had set up in the basement level of the car park and so Kiril had nothing to shoot through and nothing to see. He reported his lack of knowledge to the squad leader and returned to waiting. Who knows, thought Kiril Maybe one will run into the open.

It was over very quickly, almost in the blink of an eye. The well trained soldiers surrounded the car park, made entry from all 4 corners and quickly gained control of the situation. Kiril listened in on his radio as the troops finished up, often hearing screams and pleas from wounded bandits as they were executed on the spot. Ivanov shuddered involuntarily. They may be bandits, but they at least deserved a prison cell. The last echoes of flash bangs and gunshots had barely dissipated when the unit returned to the top. All four squads had captured several of the bandits in the ferocious assault. Kiril watched in horror as the bandits were lined up to receive a pistol shot to the head. The more cynical part of his brain told him he shouldn't be surprised at this but it still left him sick to his stomach. Over the radio he voiced his concern.

"Sir is this really necessary? Can't we take them down to the prison in Kharkov?"

The only reply Kiril received was laughter punctuated by another gunshot. That was the last straw. It was bad enough that he had been conscripted and had had to fight in Chechnya and the Zone. But doing it all for a sadistic, uncaring commander and almost equally evil fellow soldiers pushed Kiril over the edge. He wasn't even sure where he was going or what he was doing at the time. Tearing his radio off and yanking his BDU jacket over his head, Kiril ran. And ran. And ran. For a few months he became a Loner but he disliked the loneliness of being on his own. Although most of his squadmates were sadistic fucks, Kiril did have some friends among them and there was something comforting about living together in a strange land with people like himself around. He had heard about Freedom and had met a few of its members in his travels. Working his way North, he reached the Army Warehouses and was accepted into the faction.

Those first few weeks with the Freedomers had been...a bit shocking. Kiril had always been a fairly controlled, disciplined boy and the draconian regulations of the Ukrainian military furthered that. In Freedom Kiril discovered...well...freedom. He could come and go as he pleased, drink whatever, smoke whatever, do anything. And he had comrades to share it with. It was a perfect life, one Kiril would never have given up...or so he thought then.

That seems so long ago. thought Kiril as he lay awake. He had not been back to the Warehouses for some time. The Northern Freedomers received a radio call from the Faction in this area of the Zone and Kiril volunteered to head south to help bolster them. His arrival south hadn't accomplished much. He somehow managed to land himself under house arrest the day after he got there. He remembered being furious at Tenel Asire then, wondering how such a man who punished raids on Duty could possibly be a fit commander. It had been two months ago that Kiril had left the Warehouses and the situation was only decaying more. New recruits weren't sticking around, the older hands were slowly being killed, and no place was safe from attack by Duty or the Military.

In fact it was just last week that Kiril had been walking through Sector 2, just for fun, when the military got its hands on him. Kiril had been tracking a bloodsucker, looking to bag a set of tentacles as a trophy. He followed the beast to the warehouse when he came upon Corporal Krystal Mertz. Although she was a soldier, Kiril liked to think she was a friend. The two had hit up Freedom's bar together several times before, with Mertz wearing a trench coat to disguise her faction affiliation. He approached her.

"Yo Krystal. There's a sucker out here I've been following...might want to be careful."

Krystal didn't respond. She just glared at Ivanov. He wondered what he might have done to upset her. He had always sort of liked the girl and he liked to think that maybe she had some feelings for him. He quickly realized that those feelings may have just been daydreams because at that moment Colonel Vladimir Stovsky stepped out of the warehouse, weapon raised.

Kiril quickly swung his LR 300 up to his shoulder. He had spent hours putting it together. The handguards were milled out in a "ripper" pattern and the bolt and piston had been machined from titanium to reduce weight, recoil, and increase rate of fire. The two men stared each other down.

"Colonel you know what a Mexican standoff is?"

"Drop the gun, Freedomer. There's two of us and one of you."

"That maybe true but the bloodsucker is on your side of the warehouse."

Kiril kept his eyes focused on the Colonel, who seemed unconcerned by the supposed sucker. He had forgotten about Krystal, whom he didn't think would be a threat. The smack of her rifle butt against the back of his skull proved otherwise. Kiril dropped like a sack of rocks. He was quickly relieved of his weapons and handcuffed.

When he woke up, dazed, he was being half-carried, half-dragged through the Sector 3 checkpoint by Krystal.

"Fucking OW," was all he could manage, the moan ignored by his captors.

The military band dragged him up to the roof of one of their buildings and sat him in a folding chair. The was an arc welder next to the chair and another soldier at the top who Stovsky introduced as Nikolai Yurdansky. Stovsky seemed uninterested in Kiril, instead focusing on the Freedomer's weapon, which he expertly field stripped and examined, muttering to himself about the quality of the parts occasionally. Kiril glared at Krystal angrily. Finally the Colonel broke the silence.

"What's your name and rank?"

"Well in Freedom we don't really have ranks but I'm an Expert. Which is about equivalent to your Captain or Major."

"His name is Kiril Ivanov sir, he's Freedom's Co leader," added Krystal.

Kiril mentally swore at the girl. She was a mistake

The Colonel smiled.
"You know the last Freedomer I did this to was very young...couldn't have been more than 18..." his voice trailed off ominously. Yurdansky approached the welder and fired it up. Kiril had an idea what was coming next.

"Take his shirt off," ordered Stovsky.

Krystal yanked Kiril's BDU off, exposing his bare chest...and something else on his left shoulder.

"Yeah that's right. 88th Chernobyl Lightning," said Kiril.

The look of surprise on the soldiers' faces was almost worth it. Almost.

"Tell me, Colonel I've been away from my unit for a while. They still around?"

"No they aren't. Regrettably they were wiped out in a particularly vicious ambush that no doubt your brethren concocted. I think you need an updated tattoo, Deserter," spat Stovsky.

The welder came on as Nikolai stepped closer. Kiril desperately worked at his handcuffs, managing to loosen one enough to slip his right wrist out. He bit his tongue against the pain as his hand slipped free. Nikolai stepped in with the welder. Kiril's hand shot out and grabbed it. He shoved it in Nikolai's face, forcing the soldier back. With his left hand he grabbed the folding chair and bashed Yurdansky's face in with it, then flung it at Krystal who was fumbling with her AK. A round went off and connected with Ivanov's leg as he lunged for Nikolai's rifle.

The two men landed in a heap, Kiril bleeding furiously from his calf and Yurdansky dazed by the chair across the face. Kiril tried to grab Nikolai's pistol as Nikolai went for his knife. Nikolai attempted to skull fuck him with his blade. Ivanov threw up his left arm to block the strike, snarling in pain and rage. Against almost anyone else in the Zone, Kiril's military-taught hand to hand techniques would easily defeat the clumsy, street fighter styles of the average S.T.A.L.K.E.R. But Yurdansky and Kiril were evenly matched. Nikolai even had an advantage in the two other soldiers that were diving in to separate the two. Kiril cursed as Krystal and a newcomer yanked him off Nikolai. He struggled against their arms but was hurt by the knife and the bullet wound. The two soldiers dragged him over to the edge of the roof.

"You're more trouble than you're worth Freedomer. If you survive this we'll drag your ass back to Freedom territory as a warning."

Kiril cursed the day he was born as he tumbled through the air off the roof. Luckily he managed to land on a fire escape a story down. Both his legs were broken by the impact. He flitted into unconsciousness. When he work up again, he was slumped against a wall in Sector 2. He checked himself over for any new marks the military might have left on him and found none, which was slightly relieving. And then he realized his rifle and suit were gone, as was his radio. He crawled towards Freedom's territory, grinding his teeth against the pain. It was a long crawl.

Kiril's legs had healed quickly with the help of a few artifacts. The knife wound had been deep enough to scar. Kiril touched it as he lay on his bed. Earlier today Dutyers had bombed a building in the middle of Freedom territory and the Military was moving about with impunity. He had been thinking for hours straight on the survival of Freedom. All his thoughts came back to one crushing realization: he was unfit to be a leader in Freedom. If he couldn't even keep himself from getting captured, what good was he to the men who looked up to him? Freedom was doomed to die, and that meant he had only one option at this point.

Kiril set his radio on his bunk and folded up the spare uniforms he had. He scrawled a note on a piece of paper. It read I can't take this anymore. I'm so sorry. Leaving this on his bunk, he took a long look at the sleeping forms on the bunks next to him. The smell of marijuana hung in the air and Kiril bit his lip to keep himself from crying. He silently walked out the door and into the dark, heading for Sector 3.

He arrived at Sector 3 after a few hours and approached the checkpoint, hands held high in the universal "don't shoot me" sign. The privates manning the checkpoint were surprised. This had never happened before. Kiril silently bore being shoved against the wall and frisked, half expecting the Colonel or someone else to come down and have him shot immediately. He wrists were flex cuffed and he was led to the base.

Kiril sat in another folding chair in another interrogation room. His interrogator seemed surprised at Kiril's surrender. Kiril answered the soldier's questions as quickly and quietly as he could, unable to even think about what he had just done.

"Well Freedomer I'll have to talk to my superiors about this but the current acting commander sees no reason for us to waste you. Take off your uniform and I'll have someone escort you to your new quarters", said the interrogator.

Kiril rubbed his wrists as the flex cuffs fell away. He slowly pulled off his uniform. He looked at it almost longingly before tying it around his waist. The soldier seemed to recognize the tattoo on Kiril's arm but said nothing. A Private arrived presently to escort Kiril to the barracks. With a last look back towards the Sector 3 tunnel, Kiril stepped out of the interrogation room and into the dark of the predawn twilight.

[Chaos]

I was there on my Ecologist. Good story.

[Locke]

The best part is, all of this really happened in the server.

[Paintcheck]

Every story I've written happened in server. BTW sorry for not being able to get on today Locke but I had a friend over who would not leave. Like I had to do homework and I couldn't get him to go home. I'll try and be on during the week but that's unlikely.

[Radek]

I love these storys, The light of my day. You would think that it wouldent get much better then the last story sence it was awsome.. And then you come and drop this bomb on us! Amasing Paint It's Superb :D

[Silver Knight]

The best part is, all of this really happened in the server.

No.. fucking way.. 1500? What the hell... Shit, i need to post more ;(

[Locke]

Hells yeah. Im coming for you silver.

[Radek]

The World will end When Locke Get's more popsts then Silver!! Repeant! Repeant!

[Silver Knight]

The World will end When Locke Get's more popsts then Silver!! Repeant! Repeant!

RADEK, GET OUT OF HERE, SAVE YOURSELF !

[lolKieck]

as always, epic story

[ISPYUDIE]

The World will end When Locke Get's more popsts then Silver!! Repeant! Repeant!

RADEK, GET OUT OF HERE, SAVE YOURSELF !

Everybody evacuate ASAP!!

And to stay on-topic- Another epic story paint, bravo! :P

[Paintcheck]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. My school sucks cock so I don't get on the server much during the week. So I write these for my "RP dose".

[Radek]

I will start a new Colony on Mars With only the Elite... And The Smoking hot girls. Paint you can come to This story is epic enough.

[lolKieck]

it will not be the end of the world, but a worldwide zone, mutated fairies and chickens, oh god

[bto]

Every RUn, Run. . . All Run, Run for the Hills

Silvers Going to have his. . .Period!. . . Into the TUnnel, Everyone Into the Tunnel!