The zone has always been dangerous and unpredictable. Death is so commonplace here that the stalker gets used to it, gets used to the idea that his friends and acquaintances will not return to the fire one day. “A stalker does not die of old age” - this truth of the Zone forever changes the people living here, on these dead lands. But why is it so bitter in the soul, why does the heart burn from such familiar, familiar news? After all, they weren’t even his friends... And then the official authorities decided to eliminate all “unregistered persons,” and it is now much more difficult for stalkers to survive in the Zone than before. The life of stalker Freon changes dramatically after this news. Lack of money and chronic bad luck are superimposed on the collapsed system of relationships between “free vagabonds” and scientists. Freon now needs to earn a living, and he is forced to sign up for a strange task from a huckster merchant. The Stalker does not yet know that this unusual trip to the Zone will become his Path...