A land where no human had came out sane. An area filled of mysterious forces, hidden from outsiders. Those who trespassed never saw the world they had once known again. Either they succumbed to the land, or were driven insane by the powers floating around.
Those who had not succumbed and escaped with their life still close to their souls had told stories of strange creatures roaming the land, powerful beasts that instilled them with a freezing horror. Some had been brutally killed by these monsters; others had managed to kill them. There were a lot of these creatures they had said and they tried to stop others to venture into the lands.
New expeditions were sent out, but soon enough people realized it was for nothing. More people died or came back insane, and so they decided to stop venturing into the area. The coast of the land soon became void of life as the expedition parties returned to the mainland and their respective nations. They named it after its nature, implying that no one set their foot there again, else they wanted to be consumed by it.
The Forbidden Nation, or just The Zone as a few call it, fell into the shadows and was only told in legends to scare small children. Soon enough people forgot about the land to the north and didn’t bother to go there at all.
That is, until the spacecraft known as the Himalaya crashed and Cancri entered a new era. While the technology and the four nations flourished, some began to think about going north again, into the Zone, to find out whatever was hidden inside with the help of devices and more properly trained soldiers. It was discussed for a long while before a decision was made to send another expedition up north.
The operation was on a small scale and they left the mainland on a sunny Monday morning. They travelled by boat, on a large research vessel named Maria that was supposed to transport them over the rough Lobrok’s Sea and help them reach the land on the other side.
The trip took only a few hours, the distance being not that much of a challenge. The sky was cloud-free all day long and allowed them to safely reach the opposing shore. There they unloaded their equipment, said goodbye to the ship’s crew that would stay behind to wait for them until their return, and ventured across the border to the Forbidden Nation.
What they had expected to encounter after a few hours of travelling didn’t come. The forest was thick and snow covered the entirety of it. It was white, soft and calm where they walked, without as much as a sound. Some of them found that strange, as not even a single bird made a noise in the forest. No singing, no animal rushing to cover in fear, no wind blowing. It was all still and silent.
They eventually came upon a few ruins very similar to those they had seen in pictures that had survived other expeditions. They investigated them thoroughly but didn’t find anything worthy to look into more closely and so they moved further into the lands.
The radio and satellite communications devices they had brought with them still functioned properly but the signal was becoming weaker the further they went. They kept one of the soldiers talking at all times with the Maria’s crew to see when it would break.
After a few minutes of talking, the first horrifying event occurred. It was about time, since they had been undisturbed for so long.
It wasn’t a monster or mysterious creature that had caused it, as the stories had told, but one of the twelve members of the party had to sacrifice his life to something the others couldn’t figure out what it was.
When they had walked through a particularly thick part of the forest, that unlucky soldier had gone off far to the side to try and find another, easier way through. While the others kept an eye on him they saw how he suddenly froze in the middle of a step. They shouted at him, asking what he was doing but he didn’t respond. His eyes were full of fear.
Then his body started to levitate over the ground. The other soldiers stood wide-eyed and couldn’t believe what they saw. The soldier floated further up into the air until he began to spin with an increasing speed. He screamed at the top of his lungs as the gravitational forces suddenly reverted and his body exploded in a red cloud.
Nothing was left where he had walked and the rest of the party stood silent in shock. Eventually they moved on, coerced by their leader. While they had lost a comrade, they couldn’t stop this far in.
Their march continued for hours. Now and then new things happened that caused one of the party members to lose their life. Some was burnt to death by strange electrifying anomalies; others were suggested to have been poisoned by long, slender plant-like things hanging from the trees. Each death affected the party tremendously, but they knew they had to move on. Their comrades’ life had been for nothing if they returned.
Then they finally reached another building, one they had never seen or heard about. It looked like an abandoned bunker, its rounded roof sticking out of the ground with a heavy door sunk into the ground next to it. The few that were left, a total of four soldiers, gathered around it and managed to open it. They one by one entered the darkness to investigate what was inside.
Hours passed outside the bunker. It was still as silent and peaceful as it had been when they first arrived, no noise travelling through the forest. The sky was cloudy, as it always was over the Zone, caused by some strange natural phenomena no researcher had ever managed to figure out. If it was due to the atmosphere of Cancri, the location of the Zone or just this particular weather system, no one knew. It was always, without falter, cloudy.
A noise suddenly broke the silence. One of the soldiers, a woman, came running out of the bunker, screaming with horror. She was drenched in blood and made red spots in the snow where she ran. She continued to scream as she ran in the wrong direction, only venturing deeper into the Zone. What awaited her there no one knew, not even herself. All she could think of was to get away from the bunker. She entered the thicker parts of the forest again and disappeared.
The crew of the Maria, when they had waited for two days, finally unanchored and travelled home to the mainland. What had happened to the expedition party they didn’t know. The whole operation was deemed a failure and the relatives of those that had disappeared were notified. Funerals were had and tears were shed.
From that day onward no one ventured to the Forbidden Nation again. It has now been several years since anyone set their foot there. However, once again new forces are gathering, new motivation getting stronger.
The Zone will soon have new visitors.