TL;DR: Epic survival in the best game ever made, I learn how my morals hold up in a survival situation, zombie lemmings, we become crazed hermits and get a taste for BBQ goat. I start on the coast east of Balota, under the light of the full moon. I have arranged to rendezvous with another survivor soon, so I radio that I am going to head up to the nearby airfield. While I wait, I explore the hangars and industrial buildings nearby. They are mostly full of rubbish but I do pick up a hatchet and a pistol with a little ammo. Working my way over to the control tower I have to take out a single zed as he shambles towards me. Luckily the sound didn't attract any attention so I climb the ladder up the side of the tower and work my way down the stairs. I get lucky finding a Winchester shotgun with ammo and a canteen on the way down - they will come in very handy! Heading east from the airfield, my friend eventually turns up. I give him the shotgun and pull out the hatchet for myself – I often prefer the silent approach anyway. Crouching to avoid prowling zeds, we slink up the hill to the north until we hit a dirt road, then start following it to the north east. After searching a few nearby buildings for more supplies, we spot a series of barns at the top of a hill, which must have been north of Vysota outside Chernogorsk. We work our way through the barns, crawling on all fours most of the way. It is getting quite hairy and we have some close calls, but timing our path to pass between pairs of hoppers and walkers gets us through. Eventually we have a clear run down to the last barn. My friend heads for the front door, while I am still coming round the side. Suddenly he whispers 'there is someone else here!' I pull out my pistol and immediately see a survivor coming round the side of the barn. I turn to face him, calling out to my friend to see if it was him or the new survivor. Suddenly I see a puff of smoke and I drop to the ground unconscious and bleeding. I start yelling to my friend, "I'm down, I'm down! Side of the barn!" The other guy starts crouching over me to take my stuff, but his little shopping trip is cut short when my friend runs around the corner and gives him 2 shotgun shells to the back. He bandages me up and eventually I regain consciousness, stabilised but in very bad shape, swaying around nearly blind and unable to walk. We realise we are going to need more medical supplies. My vision is too blurry to even read my compass but we think Chernogorsk hospital isn't too far over a nearby hill, and start to head that way still shaken and with adrenaline pumping from the victorious encounter. As we sneak through the forest, my friend calls out again "there is someone else in the woods!" Now normally I am the most friendly, cooperative survivor. But all that went through my head was "If he is like the last guy I'm finished" so I yell out "take him out, take him out!" A second later the shotgun booms again, and I sight on a blurry grey shape and empty my last clip in the direction, pop pop pop pop! The guy goes down. Straight away we feel terrible, this guy hadn't given us any reason to distrust him but we couldn't afford the risk. Funny how much your values change when you are barely clinging to life. I kept playing out this scenario in my head over the next few days. Soon we came to the edge of the forest and I collapse against a tree while my friend heads into the city for medical supplies. I don't know how he did it unscathed but after 15 minutes he came crawling back up the field with morphine and blood packs, and did a good job patching me up so I can get back on my feet. We decide that heavily populated areas=trouble and head north to find more supplies somewhere safer. Breaking out of the forest north of Cherno, we stop and look across the plains with binoculars. It looks quiet, and we feel like we are out of the danger zone so we decide to cross directly instead of following the treeline all the way around. Big mistake. As we run up the hill on the far side of the plains, forest in sight, sniper shots start ringing out. My friend calls out "I'm hit!" I look back and see bullets kicking up puffs of dust all around him. He goes down and I start to hustle back to him to give first aid but before I can get there he dies. I drop to my stomach; the firing has stopped. Seems like they didn't see me or lost me when I ran back. Looking around, I start crawling up to the treeline to find the sniper and get revenge but after a few seconds I stop and take stock. I'm heading in a direction where there might be an unknown number of bandits with an unknown amount of weapons. I have a hatchet. Discretion is the better part of valour so I slink off through the forest to the northeast. I do have a family to provide for after all... and they never have to find out Daddy is a coward. I didn't even stop to bury my friends body. After camping in the woods, I make an early start the next day and head north, thinking I'll find supplies at some of the smaller towns. I luckily stumble onto a small lake, refill my canteen and drink all I can, it might have to last me a while. Continuing on through the forest I climb a mountain to get a better view and discover some ancient ruins. Although I can hear the faint shuffle of zeds out in the forest it seems fairly open inside the walls, and climbing a tower I find a cache of supplies – hunting knife, a tin of beans that I devour for breakfast, soft drink, pistol and a shotgun with ammo! Feeling better prepared I head north again, soon seeing a town. I stop and scope it out and am about to head in when I hear the faint sound of gunshots in the town. I can't see anything happening but decide to avoid the town anyway. Continuing north as it starts to get dark I come to a larger town called Stary Sobor. Skirting round again to find the safest angle to enter it, I see a supermarket and make a beeline. On my stomach now I wriggle through the town past moaning zeds to get to the back door. Just as I make my final approach, I see movement at the front door! I freeze and bring up the shotgun and see a survivor running away, obviously having looted the pace before me. Sure enough after I make my way in there are odds and ends but no food. I leave the shop and make my way out through the town, checking every angle for snipers - I got the feeling this guy was a loner but you never know. On the outskirts of town I see a field piled high with what looks like body bags, and a row of military tents. It looks like something bad went down here, and my suspicion is confirmed by a pack of undead shambling around. My instincts say to run but I am very curious about the military base so after watching for a long time I crawl in. Jackpot! It seems like every tent has a stack of ammo or high powered weapons. I swap my pistol for what looks like an Uzi and my shotgun for an assault rifle with grenade launcher under the barrel, and plenty of ammo for everything. Heading out of the base I easily take out any zeds blocking my way and circle widely around the rest of the town before finding a forest to hunker down for the night. I'm feeling pretty hungry by now but all I have for dinner is a Pepsi; finding something more solid will be top of the list tomorrow. The next morning I get a faint signal on the radio, it is a friendly survivor! He finds a signpost and tells me he is in Balota. He doesn't have a compass to help him navigate so I note that the shadows are pointing east and tell him to follow any road north out of town. I head south east from my camp, planning to narrow down where we both are when we can find some better landmarks. After an hour of travel, both having a few encounters with zombies along the way, we realise we are both just outside a small town called Kozlovka, but on opposite ends. We are both ravenous by this point and start exploring the town around us. I get lucky and find a tin of sardines in the back of an old shipping container but it isn't enough for both of us, so I keep exploring. The town is teeming with the undead, their drooping heads seeming to stare right at us as they lurch past. Suddenly I hear louder moaning than usual. Frantically looking around in case I've been spotted, I see instead a horde chasing my friend down the main street! I call out to him to head south through town, I saw a huge shed on the way in with a narrow staircase up the back. It seems like his best chance to slow them down and pick them off. He runs up the steps into the shed, forcing the zombies to come at him single file. Meanwhile I'm working my way out of town to the south of the shed. I try to get a clear shot through the hanging sheets of iron but can't shoot without risking hitting my friend. He has a crossbow and is taking them down one by one but doesn't have nearly enough bolts for them all. He keeps running through the shed and starts climbing down a ladder on the far side. As I watch, the horde of undead reach the top of his ladder... and throw themselves screaming and growling over the edge of the shed! As we watch in disbelief, the few that survive the fall start walking off in different directions, confused but almost seeming disappointed. My friend makes his way down as slowly as possible and we regroup in a pine forest north of the town. From here we can make out a larger house in the town, with its door hanging invitingly open. With my friend near starvation now we give up on stealth and just run across the road into the house, slamming the door behind us. Incredibly only one crawling zombie saw us and he is quickly taken out with my machine pistol. We hit the jackpot, finding several tins of food which my friend devours, a larger backpack, and plenty of bandages and painkillers. We cram our packs with as much as possible and get the hell out of town, finding a campsite for the night in the forest east of Windy Mountain. Taking stock of our situation we realise if we could find some way of lighting a fire, we could hunt some animals and be self sufficient in food. That becomes our priority, along with getting some better weapons for my friend who is down to a hatchet. The next day, we head around Windy Mountain to the North West. We soon see a farmhouse and barn on the edge of a field, and head in to check it out. The barn yields a shotgun for my friend but on the way out we are spotted by a pair of zeds in the farmhouse! They take a swipe at my friend before I manage to drop them with bursts from my Uzi, the shots alerting other zeds in the fields nearby. My friend is bleeding but takes out 2 more with his shotty, and we run back over the fields to higher ground. While he bandages himself up I drop a crawler who is snarling after us, and we make it into the forest clear of any followers. My friend is now in very bad shape with blurry vision making it hard to see anything. I take the lead following the power lines to the west investigating every barn and shed we pass, and although we have managed to butcher a few small animals on the way to get some raw meat we fail to find anything to eat now or any matches. It is looking pretty grim. We make it to a hill south of Zelenogorsk and can make out a supermarket on the outskirts. With hunger gnawing and wounds to take care of we are running out of time. As we approach the town however we alert a slithering zombie in the fields, who takes a swipe at me. As I dispatch him we earn the attention of another dozen zombies, who come running at us from every direction. We start sprinting down the hill to the west but as we become separated I realise that the whole pack is chasing my friend down the hill! I quickly drop and bandage while he heads into a large industrial compound, running round buildings to shake his followers. Now that I have the higher ground and no immediate chasers I launch a flare grenade to try to draw the zeds attention while my friend comes back up the hill to me. I drop most of his chasers with my assault rifle, then he reaches me and we finish off any stragglers with shotgun and most of my Uzi rounds. We drop to the ground, amazed we survived at all but now even more desperate for food. Even more slowly this time, we head back into Zelenogorsk towards the supermarket. There are zombies on every side and once we reach town we have to zigzag back and forth across the road, from house to house towards the store. About 50 meters out we hear growls, a hopper has spotted us! Quickly looking around we realise there is no clear path we can take out without earning ourselves another chase, which we are unlikely to survive. Standing up I yell to run to the store to make a (last?) stand! We run in and take positions at the back of the store, maybe 20 zeds now snarling and following us. We are firing and they are going down, but so is my ammo... Soon both my guns start clicking and I swap to the hatchet. There are still 5 or 6 zeds in the store and I run at them and start swinging madly. I think my friend is still firing at this point too but I've taken so many hits it is hard to tell, blood and shock clouding my vision. Suddenly I stop and look around and see that the store is empty! I quickly apply bandages, starting to feel faint and swaying everywhere. I hear my friend call out that he has found food! I manage to get to where he says it is and eat a can of beans before I pass out from blood loss. When I wake up we continue to check out the store, keeping as low as possible. In the last corner I check, I find it, holiest of holies... a box of matches! We peek out windows as much as possible and wait until any growling and scraping is at its furthest before crawling out the back door, straight out of town towards a heavy forest on the slopes of a mountain we can just make out. What follows is the sketchiest experience we've ever had, slinking stop start through fields where we can just make out the blurry shapes and growls of swaying zombies all around us. We both pass out multiple times before we reach the safety of the forest, and we stay low for a good hundred meters before we dare to stand up and run. Once we are deep in the forest we stop and make a fire at last, cooking our food and stuffing our faces with fresh cooked goat. Nothing has ever tasted so good! After sitting round the fire for a little while we start to feel better, vision getting clearer. We trek south to a clearing but looking around with the binoculars I can see buildings to the southwest and southeast. At this point we want no part of civilisation so we head back into the forest to hunt. Making our way west we come across a wide plain that seems to run north for miles. After endless days and nights spent crawling through zed infested cities scrounging for scraps of food this seems like paradise and we start running across the fields almost giddy with relief, looking for animals. Although a few rabbits evade us it doesn't take long for us to find several goats and sheep and a cow and with our bags loaded up with dripping bloody cuts of meat we walk into a forest and have the biggest BBQ Chernarus has ever seen. Sitting round the campfire again stuffing ourselves with meat washed down with a swig from our canteens, we are soon feeling like we are back to full strength and can start planning our next move. If it wasn't for needing more water at some point we can imagine ourselves spending the rest of our lives here living off the land. We are going to run out of water and soft drink in a few days though so finding a lake or a town with a well will become important. Studying the map, the smaller towns to the north seem appealing - and at least now we are ready to tackle them with full bellies and plenty of cooked meat in our packs! The idea of motor transport to travel back and forth from our new forest home is sounding good too...
