#pechorsk

A new book by Natalie Caves, a famous — or rather infamous — so-called ‘investigative journalist’ accomplishes an unlikely feat of encompassing everything that is wrong with contemporary media — sensationalism, unapologetic profiteering, and poor journalistic procedure. The book, which is supposed to ‘shed light’ on the secrets of Pechorsk Radius zone, is riddled with factual errors, unsubstantiated claims, and leading assumptions. Natalie Caves is well known for her casual approach to facts, but with ‘Legends of the Radius’ she hits a new low, serving up a preposterous, unseemly and borderline insane collection of stories which, supposedly, had taken her years of legwork and interviews to compile. 

They say to never judge a book by its cover, but in this case, you can --- ‘Legends of the Radius’ is as vague and without substance as one would assume from its looks.

We all know the story of Pechorsk — a small Eastern European town that was tragically hit by an asteroid, resulting in the near-total decimation of its population and the creation of Pechorsk exclusion zone, which is maintained by a special UN committee to this day. Natalie Caves, however, tries very hard to paint a different picture, which is not only vulgar but also disrespectful to the memory of those who perished, not to mention completely laughable. She gives voice to those crazy conspiracy theorists who made Pechorsk into a deranged obsession, complete with insinuations of alien involvement, paranormal activity, and ghostly apparitions appearing from thin air.

Let’s take a closer look at these insinuations. One of the most popular — and most frequently debunked — legends surrounding Pechorsk is the existence of so-called Artifacts. These objects are supposed to be infused with miraculous powers like healing, turning lead to gold and even granting wishes. Natalie Caves insists that she interviewed a former UNPSC official — conveniently without naming them in an unconvincing attempt to “protect the source” — who used one of these Artifacts to cure their son’s terminal cancer. In another chapter, she describes the process of gaining attendance to the black market specializing in items smuggled from the Pechorsk Radius — the whole thing reads more like a spy thriller than a journalistic report. Nowhere does she provide a shred of tangible evidence that these Artifacts exist outside the realm of urban legends, nor can she — because they quite obviously don’t. 

An artistic representation of one of the so-called Changed, as drawn by an ‘actual witness’.

Another prime example of the bizarre myths this book tries to provide with credibility — ineffectively — is the widely circulated ‘theory’ that some of Pechorsk citizens had survived and still live inside the Radius. These people were supposedly changed by the Radius, hence the pretentious moniker ‘the Changed’. Natalie Caves provides several accounts of their sightings in the areas surrounding Pechorsk, all of them strangely unverifiable, and even a few grainy pictures taken by the locals. The Changed are, if we were to believe her, unable to leave the Radius, or rather leave it and survive for more than a few hours. Still, it appears that several of them chose to spend these last hours telling horror-esque stories of their lives inside the Pechorsk exclusion zone, where they are forced to scavenge for Artifacts while avoiding ridiculous ‘anomalies’ and fighting similarly ridiculous monsters. She even provides some sketches of what these monsters supposed to look like! The gall! I can’t imagine an editor allowing these to be published, and yet someone did.   

One of the preposterous monster sketches created by Natalie Caves from oral descriptions. Maybe she should stick to writing... on second thought, maybe not.

I’m going to give Natalie Caves the benefit of the doubt and assume that she has some integrity, if very little, and that this disgraceful book is the result of naiveté, not indecency. Perhaps she put too much trust in her interviewees when instead she should have questioned their mental states more thoroughly. It’s not unknown for a journalist to become intoxicated by the personality of their subject, although not one as experienced as Natalie Caves claims to be. In any case, her book should be branded as what it truly is — a harmful piece of sensational, opportunistic rubbish. 

Shocking new reports surfaced today with the release of a previously undiscovered cache of cassette tapes smuggled out of the Pechorsk Exclusion Zone.

While the information and persons on the tapes cannot be verified, the scandal ridden UNPSC has swiftly denied any validity to the latest tapes scandal.

A disturbing recording of a Changed survivor.

A  leaked Explorer's log will shed some light on what it's like to become the Changed.

The Explorer shares his thoughts on the fate of the Changed through the leaked log tapes.

In his final tape, Explorer Mikhail reflects on repercussions of an endless reincarnation.

This page is especially dear to our hearts here at Pechorsk Radius News because it seems to be the last one Alexey had ever written, in this diary or elsewhere --- if he was, indeed, a real person. The authenticity of this page has been a subject of heated debates even between those of us who don’t question the diary itself: it’s not hard to notice that the handwriting on the last page of the journal differs from that on the others. While some take it as a sure proof of a knock-off, others argue that Alexey had to switch his neat writing to a messy cursive due to the lack of time and deteriorating condition of his dominant hand. In any case, here is his last goodbye:

(high-resolution scan of the page)

Transcript:

I think this is going to be my last entry

I’m in a bad way

The Sphere its so close now. It almost seems like I can touch it

but I’m hurt bad. weak. bones broken flesh burning

Everything hurts. But I am… used to pain used to dying used to walking with blood running down down down

I am Changed

There’s only a thin line of sand between me and the pit now. I see the row of people standing on the edge of the pit, in the shadow of the Sphere, their backs turned to the chasm, their faces turned to me, watching silently as I die

Only they’re not people not Changed. They are corpses, skin decimated by wind and ash, terrible wounds visible through the tears in their uniforms. They were soldiers, once; but now they are dead

Behind them the pit goes down down down, deep down into the earth, into the black shadow cast by the Sphere

I’m going to leave this journal here, and maybe one day someone will find it

or maybe not

anyway

no time to waist

shame i didn’t get to see the stars

 one last time

time to go look what the dead are hiding

it’s Alexey, goodbye

Dear Readers, the editorial team of Pechorsk Radius News is overwhelmed and humbled by the response we received after publishing the first fragment of the infamous Alexey’s Diary earlier this month. We had high hopes for this publication, but even our bravest predictions were smashed to pieces by your inspiring enthusiasm. Now that the stagnant discourse concerning Pechorsk was revitalized by this incredible discovery, we are proud to present the next chapter of Alexey’s Diary: Town Proper. 

The journey to the center of the town was more eventful than my walk to the amusement park. I was reluctant to waste ammo on the Ash Ghosts, knowing that the sound of shooting might attract the hunters, but ended up in a short firefight anyway. Surrounded on three sides by the ghosts and a poisonous mist. As soon as the last ghost exploded into flakes of black ash, I had to run for my life from the mist, finally finding shelter in an abandoned school. I spent a couple of hours there, wearing out the filters on my gas mask. The school was dirty and sad, ash covered the overturned tables and chairs. There were children’s clothes on the floor, bags with rotten textbooks and broken toys. No bones, though — a small blessing.

The mist disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, and I decided to explore the school a little. I stood for a minute near the basement landing, listening to a muffled noise coming from below. It sounded a lot like something large being chewed by a multitude of tiny jaws, so I turned around and walked away. 

Then I was carefully moving through the streets, staying in the shadows cast by the empty buildings, most of them intact, some collapsed. I had my rifle ready and searched intently for any sign of movement in the black empty windows, trying to be as silent as possible. The town was an eerie place: an empty forest of concrete and brick, both blackened by ash, the same black ash covering the ground, with the gray silent sky above. It was a place designed for life but devoid of it. Even strange plants growing on the outskirts of the Radius avoided it. More disturbingly, there weren’t a lot of signs of destruction: whatever had killed all the inhabitants left no mark on the town itself. Oh, there was damage, of course: some of it done by the relentless entropy of time, some by the Changed themselves. But not nearly enough to explain the somber emptiness and desolation. It almost looked like one day people just left the town, all together, for some unknown reason — if not for the stench of death I remembered too well to ever forget.

I approached the town square, as empty as everything else around. By that point, loud alarms were wailing in my mind: I knew that the hunters heard the shots, and were coming for me. I almost wished for them to attack. Waiting and uncertainty were stressing me out. What if they were all dead? What if I was the last living thing in the Radius? 

However, the sight of the square made me forget all about that. There was something in the center of it, a black mass sprawling dozens of meters wide, as tall as the buildings surrounding it. A barrow of human bones, thousands and thousands of them, all put meticulously in place by someone’s hand, doused in oil and burned. I saw scorched skulls staring at me, the wind blowing black ash from their empty eye sockets. I saw spines, femurs and ribs, delicate metacarpals, tibiae and scapulae, and more. 

(high-resolution scan of the page)

What I didn’t see, being consumed by horror and awe, was the slight movement in one of the windows across the square. I felt it, though, with some predatory instinct, and lunged to the side just as the shot ranged in the silence of the ghostly town. 

The bullet tore through my shoulder, spinning me around. I hit the ground and rolled, the second bullet sending a fountain of ash into the air where I had been a moment ago. A second later I was behind a pile of concrete, pressing myself to its soot-covered surface. A third shot ranged, followed by silence.

I looked at my shoulder, which was spouting black, viscous blood. Where blood droplets hit the ground, ash boiled and moved, as though suddenly alive. Then I looked at my rifle, dropped where I stood a few seconds ago, now hopelessly beyond reach. Lastly, I twisted my neck and looked at the giant pile of burned bones that lay between me and the shooter.  

Alexey's Diary is one of the most famous and elusive pieces of lore surrounding the Radius. Its authenticity, origins and even existence have been disputed for years, with no definitive conclusion. Is it real or an elaborate hoax? We are happy to announce that now you can judge for yourself. For the past two years, the editorial team of Pechorsk Radius News has been hunting for Alexey’s handwritten pages. Finally, our quest has come to fruition. In the coming weeks, we’ll be publishing several of the more credible fragments of the diary for your consideration.

Fragment #1: “Ferris Wheel”

The following text is a direct quotation from the diary, as written by its author: 

… I have little memory of my life before the Radius. There are bits and pieces, a fragment of a recollection here and there, a familiar smell or a melody that sometimes finds its way into my head. I’m almost sure that I used to wear a white coat — a scientist, perhaps, or a medical doctor. But other than that, not much. One thing I do remember vividly is looking at the stars through a telescope. The radiant night sky, warm summer wind, familiar constellations. A nice enough memory if you only get to have one. There’s no stars in the Radius, just ash and the wicked black Sphere hanging menacingly in the distance. Many of the Changed had tried to reach the Sphere, but as far as I know, no one has actually managed to survive the journey. I’m not really interested in trying. What I am interested in, though, is seeing the stars one last time. I figured that by climbing high enough I might get above the mist and see the sky again. The problem was that there weren’t a lot of tall buildings in the Radius to begin with, and even those had collapsed a long time ago. There was, however, a massive and largely intact Ferris Wheel at the outskirts of the town, in the remains of the amusement park, most of it obscured from view by ash. I looked at the research station for the last time (in this life, at least) and started walking. It was going to be a long hike, but relatively safe — I was going to walk along the edge of the Radius, where danger is minimal. Somewhere to my left, behind the gray wall of ash mist, were the ruins of the town, far more deadly, and beyond that — better not to think. There are things in the Radius worse than death.   The landscape was dull and depressing. It was devoid of color and life: everything was dead, dying or deadly. Here and there stood rusty cars, long ago stripped of everything useful by marauding Changed, myself included. I remember a time when there were bones in these cars, but they were mysteriously gone now. Few things tend to stay in the same place in the Radius. The ground was covered with a thin layer of ash, which hides all sorts of things: empty bullet shells, shards of glass, mangled metal fragments. Thankfully, out here it’s not deep enough to hide other things… things that lie in the ash pits waiting for someone to step into their hungry maws, or ensnare them with one of the tendrils reaching for hundreds of meters underneath. 

(high-resolution scan of the page)

Editor’s note: the was, in fact, a Ferris Wheel in Pechorsk. However, it was nowhere near seventy meters tall.

Luckily, I reached the amusement park without any incidents, which was surprising. Even here at the edge of the Radius I expected to meet at least an Ash Ghost or two — strange creatures made of ash, often aggressive but mostly just brainless. But the park was empty and silent, with broken attractions waiting hopelessly for children to enjoy them. Those children were long dead. I felt a pang of guilt walking past the attractions. In a way, the concept of enjoyment was also dead here in the Radius: maybe I should try harder to feel joy once in a while just to spite it. No time now, but perhaps in the next life, if I’ll return with at least some sanity left. The ferris wheel was probably seventy meters tall, and only around a third of it was visible through the mist. I looked at the rusty metal construction, which seemed almost eager to collapse, and sighed. Chances were that I would die right there and then, buried under tons of metal. My infected hand was pulsing with dull pain now, skin had turned oily black. Well, it was as good a death as any. I found a service ladder and started climbing. The rungs were rusted through and shaky. A couple tore off from the frame they were attached to; there was no cage around the ladder, so the only thing that saved me from falling was my quick reaction. My muscles started to ache by the time I reached the middle of the wheel. There was nothing but gray emptiness around me, with only skeletal metal beams protruding into the fog. The ground was obscured, as was the sky: it was easy to imagine that they didn’t exist anymore, nothing existed but ash, and I was lost in the middle of this nothingness with nowhere to go but up. The problem was, there was no way up. The ladder ended with a small platform halfway up the wheel, where the main support frame ended. There was another ladder, on one of the beams, but it was some distance from the platform and pointed up at an angle. I sat on the platform, dangling my feet in the air, resting. I looked around, seeing nothing but ash, took a sip of water. I ate one of my ration bars. Then I stood up, took off my backpack and rifle, ran a few steps and jumped. Yee-haw! Air rushed past my ears. For a moment, I felt like I was flying. It would have been exhilarating if not for the fact that I also felt ready to shit my pants. My healthy arm almost reached the first rung. The fingers brushed the cold metal, but slipped. I thought that this was it, I’m dead. Then the fingers on my infected arm wrapped tightly around the rung, abruptly arresting the momentum of the fall. The pain was unimaginable, but I didn’t let go, literally clinging to life. Every one of the Changed knew pain too well to be its slave. I hoisted myself up and continued climbing. Sometime later I was on the highest point of the wheel’s rim, seventy meters above the ground. There were no stars. Only ash.

(high-resolution scan of the page)

Editor’s note: the “Sphere” Alexey is referring to is another persistent piece of Radius lore. However, its existence was never confirmed.

The following article was copied with the author’s permission, in its entirety, from his personal blog at marcapollo.blogspot.con (UPDATE: the blog is now either deleted or closed to the public).

Marcapollo: Heeeeeeeeelo my fellow Radiusaurs! Its ya boy Marcogniac comin to you w/ hot scoops. And this one is HOT  like daaayum! Get this. I got myself a few pages from the real top-secret classified unpsc (fuckers) report! Life’s too short to explain how I got my hands on it, but lets just say that it was initially published by the respectable brother Nikolay Yang, who then immediately got ceased and desisted by s-com (fuckers). I don’t doubt that theyre gonna go nuclear on me as soon as I publish too, but I aint afraid of no s-com (fuckers!) cronie, as you all know. No one has even accused ME of being respectable, lol. You know what to do people! Copy and paste this shit EVERYWHERE, they cant delete the whole internet ;D

Or can they?  D:

Image #1 as published by the author

Editor’s note: the following transcription was added by the Pechorsk Radius News editorial team for your comfort.

A Short Summary of IIA report #15/1IV, UNPSC Scientific Division Subsection 6

From: Chief ECO Officer Dr. [redacted]

To: UNPSC Chairman [redacted]

CE protocol: CIPHER algorithm Xi

TOP SECRET

For your eyes only

Report Subjects: 

Soil Physico-Chemical Analysis, P-Tr Remnant Quantification, Incubation Ratio Assessment, Microbial Biomass Assessment.

Soil samples provided by [redacted], harvest time and date [redacted], harvest sectors A17, Q3, L20 (confirmed), and C9.

Note: Due to the decreased number of IR assets sample pool is currently limited to ThL Ochre sectors.

Results Summary:

Soil chemical composition presents without change. The high concentration of P-Tr remnant epigenetic formations confirmed in sector L20, harvest depth [redacted]. Theory of artificial dissemination is now effectively debunked; remnant deposits are most likely the result of P-Tr event natural fallout. [redacted], as determined by gravitational and magnetic manipulation, continue to rise, however with an insufficient increment to regard it as something more than statistical error. 

Microbial biomass presents as usual, with [redacted]. The prognostic algorithm remains ineffective, suggesting the absence of a logical pattern. As previously, samples degraded quickly. While decomposition coefficient remains unchanged, distance/degradation correlation is growing. It is safe to assume that we are on the brink of another expansion, most likely on the same magnitude as [redacted], i.e. ~227mm per activation period.

Incubation attempt using [redacted] showed [redacted], but eventually failed as all the previous attempts. Lastly, reported anomaly with the sample from sector Q3 was determined to be simple contamination, contaminant being the asset’s blood. The corresponding complaint has been filed to UNPSC Personnel Division. 

UNPSC Chief ECO Officer Dr. [redacted]

Date: [redacted] 

Image #2 as published by the author

Marcapollo: Glory hallelujah! Some of you are crying like babies right now, because your wet dreams have come true. “Contaminant being the assets blood”! Live assets in the field, people! We have a real confirmation that the Changed DO exist. And yeah of course s-com gonna claim that they’re using animals, like trained monkeys or some shit, and scraping dirt from their feet, but we all know the truth dont we? THEY EXIST. Now, uh, I would like to stay with you longer and really analyze that bitch (like what is all that P-Tr stuff, anyone knows what it means?) but time’s a-waistin! It’s been an honor bringing hot scoops for you fellas, Marcogniac signing off for the last time (under this nickname anyway lol). Chiao!