Name: Dimitri Voyla Date of Birth: April 26th, 1992 Status: Unknown Alignment: True Neutral Gender: Male Orientation: Straight Height: Six feet Eye Color: Green Hair Color: Dark brown Affiliations: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (formerly), Ecologists Profession: Iskra Scientific Research and Investigation Team Possessions: AK-74, Colt M1911, VSS Vintorez, Sunrise suit, 'Bear' detector, collapsible guitar, Jellyfish artifact, Kolobok artifact, unknown artifact (refers to it as a 'glutton' artifact) Likes: Cold vodka, fresh bread, exploring Dislikes: Bandits, Monolith, Ukrainian Military, Duty, Bloodsuckers, Snorks, Whirligig anomalies

My name is Dimitri Voyla, and this is my story.

In 2009, I entered the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as a boy with dreams for adventure. I was young and foolish back then, and my first day was spent getting a Makarov unloaded into my chest. Yet for some reason, the Zone saw fit to spare me. Perhaps now, years later, I am beginning to understand why. I left the Zone in 2012, but the Zone never left me. For the next two years, I'd lie awake at night being called by voices to return. I treated the Zone with humility, and it rewarded me with riches and adventure beyond my wildest imagination. In three short years, I became a weary old man, and the Zone had decided my luck had been spent. In a final warning, it spared my life one last time--but only narrowly. I still remember it like it was yesterday; staring down the barrel of a Kalashnikov in the hands of a bandit gang leader, ready to pull the trigger, all over a few rubles and some artifacts. I escaped by dropping a flashbang when I was ordered to turn out my pockets, and even while blind, dizzy, and ears ringing, I somehow managed to scramble away before they started shooting me. I vowed never to return after that day. Rather, I vowed my days as a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. were over. Perhaps I was naive to think the Zone would let me go so easily.

For months after leaving, I was plagued by nightmares. It was always the same dream, at least once a week. I would see the center of the Zone, and a pale little girl with white hair, red eyes, just standing in a hospital somewhere in Pripyat, begging over and over, "Help me. I'm sick." Then the skies would turn red, as if an emission were happening. The building would disintegrate, and I'd be vaporized, and cast into the wind. Not like an explosion, but a psi-storm of inconceivable proportions. I would then return to my newly reformed body as if nothing ever happened, but I'd not be in control of my thoughts. It's as if someone else were ordering me like a robot to walk this way, shoot that way, speak this way, act this other way. The worst part is, I could never wake up from these dreams. I would see figures in the shadows, machines in labs, a great cathedral, and lightning shooting from towers into the skies. Then there'd be another emission, and I'd hear the little girl again. "Help me." Then I would wake up.

I decided to spend the wealth I attained from the Zone to get an online degree. I eventually got my bachelor's in Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics. I quickly applied to become a scientist for the ecologists working on behalf of the Ukrainian Government to study the exclusion zone. Maybe, I thought, the Zone wanted me to return, not as a S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but a doctor that might heal it. When my application was accepted and I did finally return, I could feel it in my gut immediately. Something was... off. The way the anomalies behaved, the places we'd find mutants, or just the behavior of the STALKERs themselves. Artifacts were becoming less and less common, and new artifacts would appear, with even stranger properties than the ones we knew. One such artifact I discovered resembled that of a glowing green crystal, and I discovered it in an fruit punch (acid) anomaly. Through laboratory analysis (and a little unapproved field testing) that it causes the user to become incredibly hungry, and somehow it affects cell growth, allowing the body to stretch in ways it normally does not. In the same way a mother's growing belly grows new cells to accommodate a child, or a person practicing yoga becomes more flexible, the artifact rapidly accelerates this adaption process and makes it permanent. I theorize that when combined with my Kolobok artifact which increases your metabolism for rapid healing, that I could recover from even the most serious injuries in mere minutes.

Yet, as wondrous as these new artifacts are, they are a symptom of the Zone's sickness. It's as if the Zone is crying out for attention by producing these new artifacts in hopes that it regains the interest of the scientific world. It's changing the rules. All of our old data, even that which had been consistent for years, is now being thrown out bit by bit as the Zone continues to surprise us. I feel like it wants us to find something, but isn't sure how to tell us.

Trouble is, I don't know what I'm looking for either...