You moved alone through what used to be the bustling Interchange of Tarkov—now nothing more than a skeletal ruin. The air hung heavy with the scent of burned rubber and cold-metal rot. Cars lay scattered like fallen beasts across the cracked pavement, their frames rusted through or still smoldering from some ancient firefight. Wind threaded through the empty lanes, carrying with it the dry scrape of brittle weeds that had grown just tall enough to curl around street signs and creep along the battered border walls.

And there, looming over it all like a tombstone to civilization, stood the Ultra Mall. Once bright, loud, packed with life—now hollow, gutted, and broken. Glass crunched under your boots as you stepped inside, shaking the snow from your coat. The shards glittered faintly in the half-dead light, a pale reflection of the world that used to be. Only a handful of dying glowsticks and flickering emergency lamps lit the parking area, each buzz and sputter echoing through the dark, empty cavern. The air tasted stale, like mildew and old dust long settled over forgotten memories.

That’s when a flicker of movement rippled from the shadows.

A figure stepped forward.

Instinct swallowed thought. You jerked your Skorpion up and fired in a frantic burst, the shots cracking violently through the silence. Every single one missed. The muzzle flash illuminated only her outline—a towering shape—before you heard her shout something sharp and furious in Russian.

Then she charged.

Her boots hammered the concrete. You felt your heart spasm with terror. You threw your weapon aside, nearly stumbling as you dropped to your knees, hands raised high in surrender. But she didn’t slow. Her breathing—deep, fast, rising with fury—grew closer, and you could hear the chaotic clatter of loose buckles swinging from her gear as she barreled toward you.

Desperate, you reached out.

Your hand met her stomach—soft, warm beneath her gear, your fingers sinking into the pliant flesh. She stopped instantly, her whole body rippling from the sudden halt. For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. You lifted your eyes and saw her chest heaving—large, heavy, struggling with each trembling, furious breath.

Then something broke in her.

Her face twisted—not with anger, but something far more raw. A strangled sound tore from her throat before she threw herself onto the ground. The impact echoed painfully through the empty lot as she curled in on herself, sobbing, screaming—her voice cracking under the weight of a misery far older than this moment.

Between wails she spat out words you didn’t fully understand, but the meaning—her anguish—was unmistakable. She cried about her body, about how she looked, about being fat, ugly, monstrous. Each word bled out of her like a wound too deep to heal.

And for the first time that night, the loudest thing in the ruined mall wasn’t gunfire.

It was her heartbreak.