Kasper Kopiński's Story

Ionna stared out the window of the busy tour bus, reading the road signs as she grew nearer to the abandoned city. A female guide at the front of the bus spoke to the group about rules and regulations of the tour, which included where they could and could not go. Ionna paid careful attention as her parents had warned it her how dangerous this trip could be. The tour guide walked down the rows handing every individual person a small electronic device. It was explained to them as being able to detect levels of radiation and had several alarms that would sound if the levels became too dangerous. Ionna glanced over the device learning how to use it and growing slightly fearful of what she had gotten herself into. But she had been told that this was the safest tour around Pripyat and the group would only be exploring areas that they would not be terribly exposed.

Ionna glanced around the bus to notice that most of the other passengers were around her age, apart from a few. The small, half-sized bus was nearly full and Ionna counted about 17 including herself, the guide, and the bus driver. She felt excited to visit the city where her parents had been forced to flee before she was born. Ionna oldest sibling, who was nearly twelve years older than her, had also been born in this city, which Ionna found interesting.



Kasper slouched down in his seat feeling angry that he had been convinced into something so boring. Not to mention this bus was cheap and uncomfortable. And no doubt the city would be filthy and his shoes would need to be thrown away. His professor had managed to convince him into several things during their trip but this had the be the dumbest one. Kasper supposed that his professor was still trying to make him learn something, even though he had finished school nearly two years ago. The tour guide was loud and blabbering away about things Kasper couldn't care less about and the device he'd been handed looked like it needed a good cleaning.

Kasper couldn't believe how many people had willing signed up to visit a city that didn't have anything in it. It was just dirty and overgrown, what was there to see in all that? He had expected everyone on this bus to be as old as his professor but none of them were. SO Kasper slouched further and scowled and everything around him. His professor looked down at him and shook his head.
"This journey is not just about seeing opera's and dining at fancy restaurants, it is a life experience." His professor encouraged, but Kasper was not believing one word of it. Not to mention it was Kasper who had been paying for this entire trip in the first place, they should at least be doing what he wanted.

As the bus pulled nearer to the city, it drove toward the old parking lot of the famous Pripyat Amusment Park.



Tours were filled with safety precautions, supervision, and limits. Dominik would have none of that. He didn't even bother to check if there were any tours to the city but instead decided he would go by himself. He had driven as near to city s he could without somebody stopping him and walked the rest of the way. He was determined to see every single part of the city, every building, and every tree, even if it took him days. He didn't care about the radiation warnings, from what he'd learned, he would probably been fine. Either way he was going to visit the city of his dreams. He was going to take pictures of everything he saw, and explore every inch of every building.

As he reached the edge of the city he could hear the sounds of an oncoming vehicle and hid behind bushes while a bus drove by. That was unfortunate. Perhaps he should have check tour schedules after all. He was going to have to avoid this group of people and it seemed they were headed to a place he was extremely interested in visiting, the amusement park. That place would have to postponed on his list of areas to explore. He had no intention of getting caught in the city, and no intention of his trip to be ruined. He walked down a hill after the bus was far enough away, and made his way to inner parts of the city.

As Caroline sat on the full bus she listened to the tour guide ramble on. She stifled a yawn as she flipped the device over in her hand before staring out the window. She listened carefully to make sure she knew everything she needed to but she really had no interest in it. Besides she ended up here out of spite of her parents and the fact that she really only had enough money for a cheap flight to this place. She sighed, pulled out her phone and scanned through a view pictures that she had picked up about this place. The amusement park looked like the coolest thing here so she hoped they would spend the most time there. She finally took the time to scan the other people in the bus, almost everyone looked her age which made her feel better about the fact that she ended up on this crappy tour.

She made sure to memorize a few faces just in case she got wandered away from the tour and had to find her way back.
She noted three girls, one blonde, one red head and one strange haired girl. She then scanned the people that were in front of her and memorized an older gentlemen's face, there was someone else in the seat with him but she couldn't see him clear enough to get a good enough picture. Once she was satisfied that she could pick these people out she turned her focus to back out the window.

~~~

Sydney checked off and repeated all the things that the tour guide told her, she noted all the things that the device would do and everything that she had to do. She made sure to look out the window once they grew closer to their destination and picked out objects that would act as landmarks in case things went wrong. Wrong? Nothing would go wrong, she was on a safe and totally planned tour. Sydney forced herself to erase any uneasy feelings from her brain and allowed safer, more peaceful thoughts to fill her mind. She looked up at the tour guide and cocked a small grin before snickering quietly to herself.
"Yea this tiny tour guide can protect us if anything freaky happens." She thought to herself as she shook her head and looked around the bus.

As they started to pull into the parking lot of the amusement park she became all eyes and started to take in everything that was outside her window. old run down rides, rusted and long forgotten with trees and other greenery growing over it. Graffiti lined a lot of the stone walls, some old and some new from other tourists who dared to stumble into the city. She grinned as her body became giddy with excitement but she soon calmed herself as the tour guide began talking again.

~~~

Katherine had spent most of the trip on her phone reading the article of this place over and over again. She was looking for flaws in this plan, in this tour and in her train of thought. This couldn't be just a simple trip in and out because nothing was ever this simple, Katherine wouldn't let it be. She was the type of girl that would pick apart a situation until she found any type of flaw or rip in the plan. This trip seemed strange in itself with so many people that were her age on the bus but little to no adults. No offence to the people on the bus but Katherine guessed that most of these kids planned this last minute like she did and are doing it for shits and giggles. She hummed quietly as she looked through another site until the tour guide cleared her throat and looked at Katherine. The red head paused and looked up from the light of her screen and gave her a questioning look which the tour guide shook her head to.
"Do you know how to use the device miss?" She asked.
"Yup." Katherine described each button function before grinning.
The tour guide, clearly satisfied, went back to her talking and ignored Katherine for the rest of the trip. Once Katherine knew the tour guide had stopped paying attention again she popped back open her phone and went back to work.

Ionna stumbled off the bus and looked around in awe. Everything was grown over and had a chilling vibe to it. The town felt darker than Ionna had imagined, and somehow pretty. Everything was still and the only life in the area was the people from the tour. Ionna liked this and breathed in deeply smelling the air; it was foul. The air was musty and polluted, which shouldn't have surprised Ionna but somehow she had imagined it differently.

"The Pripyat Amusement Park was to be opened on May 1, 1986 in time for the May Day celebrations, As you can see there are still decorations for this event around the city. But the grand opening plans were interrupted on April 26 when the Chernobyl disaster occurred a few kilometers away." The tour guide explained. Ionna listened closely while taking in the sight around her. The tour was in English as many of the people on it were not from the Ukraine. This hardly effected Ionna as she had studied English in school from the time she was a child. There were words her and there that she missed but she generally understood what was being said.

The Iconic Ferris Wheel, that appeared in most pictures of the city, was larger than she had expected and had stuffed animals placed in the seats. Ionna could only assume they were some kind of remembrance piece or tribute to the disaster.
"We ask that you stay on the concrete of this area and be weary of areas that moss is growing. The radiation levels in some areas have built up dangerously high. The devices I handed out will sound a warning if you get too close." The tour guide warned, Ionna stepped away from a mossy area when she heard about this.



Kasper was the last person to get off the bus as he was not in any hurry. He was hesitant to take even a step off, although the ground looked normal enough it was somehow dirtier to him. The air smelt and felt unclean to him and everything looked out.
"Wasn't this place only built in the 70's, what the hell happened to it?" He said rudely and ignorantly, not noticing if anyone had heard him or given him a dirty look for it. He did not care what happened here, nor the history of anything. The small device on his hand let out an annoyingly high-pitch sound as he followed the group. Not listening to the tour guide, he ignored it and search for the off switch to the stupid device.

He looked around at the rides, there were only four. The Ferris wheel, bumper cars, swing boats, and a paratrooper ride. Kasper scoffed at this and made a mocking face.
"What a shitty amusement park, it doesn't even have a roller coaster."



Dominik slowly strolled through the streets of the city, stopping to take a picture of everything he found remotely interesting. He was in a more residential area, which didn't interest him as much as other places would. He explored through one of the apartment buildings and took pictures inside. These were not areas that had been photographed before as tours did not generally go through old apartments.

Outside he could smell the same air but it was refreshing to him and caused him to grow more excited. He opened an old map of the city he had brought with him and found his bearings. It looked like the nearest most interesting building to him was an old school. Dominik quickly made his way to his destination, taking in the sights around him.

When he arrived at the school he took note of the unstable door frames. Inside where tables that had long been neglected but were not in terrible shape. Several gas masks had been abandoned in a pile and Dominik could not guess why. He photographed many unique objects and found himself quite satisfied.
Hearing an unusual noise outside, Dominik glanced to the window quickly. He could only see the still trees outside and assumed he had imagined the noise. There was nothing in the city but him and that pesky tour group, but they were likely only just getting off the bus.