As a native Chernian, my island was relatively unknown until the ‘nekzarik’. Let me paint you a picture:

The island was poor, but as it was poor there was no one to compare to. Everyone was in and around a similar level of wealth, so we suffered and celebrated together. The cities were filled with what we needed but not much entertainment, so as a child the main source of exploration was of the vast woodland. All settlements were just breaks in forest, so in between Vybor and the neighbouring woodland was nothing but thick, dense forestation. Furthermore, dangerous animals didn’t exist on Chernarus, only omnivores. This meant playing out was safe. Nothing was going to eat you and no one was going to steal you as they’d be caught very quickly.

Me and my best friend, Rezinov, were fascinated by the local airfield and military base. As an obscure Russian island, we were prime military land. We often watched drills from the trees and watched planes take off from the hills. We both decided we wanted to become soldiers when we grew up.

Little did we know that in our first month of training, our island would be swept by a flesh eating infection that turns anyone infected into what can only be described as a zombie hungry for uninfected human.

As we had been obsessed with the military our whole lives, we were far ahead when we first joined. We had been waiting til we were 21 so we could officially join, but had been training since the age of 14. We were pretty much competent enough to pass the relevant tests already, but had to do a 6 month course minimum to qualify to take it. Little did we know how useful the training we had undertaken all our lives would be.

When the infection hit, no one at the military base was affected. We held it for around a month, but were overrun.