No one knows where the Zones came from. Some say they're the creation of some mad scientist. Others blame global warming. Some insist that they're the result of humanity's ecological destruction, some kind of unleashed terraforming disease or bizarre "revenge of nature". Some claim they're a weapon the government(s) of choice was attempting to perfect but which went haywire. Some believe aliens did it. Others think they're some sort of dimensional interlap. Whatever the truth is, the Zones appeared out of nowhere, all over the world, and in their wake they brought armageddon.
They call them the Shadow Zones because they can be distinguished by changed atmospheric conditions. Within the Zone, the sky is perpetually covered by thick, unearthly clouds that block out the sun and the moon, oft lightning-wracked glowing vapors that leave everything shrouded in a perpetual non-light. These clouds descend like mist at the edges of the Zone, so that one can barely see a hint of the Zone's contents through the murk, a natural border for the Zone. Not that people wish to see into the Zones, for beyond lies a fate worse than death.
Humans who enter the Zones grow sick and weakly. You can never truly predict how long a person will last, but without special protective gear, Zone Sickness will overwhelm any and everyone who exposes themselves to a Zone's baleful influence. Such unfortunates are known as "Zonies", a portmantau of "Zone Zombies". This infection -there is no other way to describe it- does something to the Zoney's brain, eroding free will, higher consciousness, reason, personality, everything, leaving behind a mindless automaton, the perfect image of a pre-Romero zombie. Zone Sickness also causes ocular discoloration, as well as causing gross lesions and boils and rashes to sprout on the Zoney's flesh, a visual marker that warns the uninfected to stay away.
Zonies don't seem to eat, breath, age, or really do anything aside from mindlessly roaming the Zone, making them disturbing, but harmless. The only time they react is if someone attempts to remove them from the Zone, whereupon they turn on that kindhearted person with animalistic savagery. If their rescuer persists and manages to drag the Zoney outside of the Shadow Zone, then the light of the natural sun has a curative effect- skin clears and eyes brighten, the mind returns to its old self. The Zoney becomes a normal person again.
Why then do people not do their best to cure all of the Zonies?
Firstly, the Zones have enveloped many prime production areas of the world- starvation and insufficient resources are something the diminished populace is already suffering under, so every extra human added to the crowd is another burden. In fact, there are people who simply become unable to take life in this practically post-apocalyptic world any more and willingly step into the Zones, sacrificing their humanity for the comparative "comfort" of being a Zoney drone.
Secondly, the capacity for producing anti-Zone protective gear is limited at best, and without them, every would-be rescuer simply risks losing their own humanity and becoming a Zoney themselves. Those who do have access to protective gear are often focused on tasks the scattered governments consider more important, like recovering goods, raw materials, equipment and other valuables from the Zones. They may attempt to rescue the occasional Zoney, but this is a tertiary goal at best.
Finally, the Zonies aren't alone in the Zones. Nobody knows why or how it happens, but sometimes, people who succumb to Zone Sickness don't become Zonies. They retain their minds, their personalities, everything they were... but they lose their humanity. The disease, radiation, whatever it is that causes Zone Sickness, it increases their physical abilities and powers, but it mutates them, and renders them unable to leave the Zone; if forced into the natural world, sunlight causes them intense agony, forcing them to retreat back into the darkness of the Shadow Zones. Some have speculated that prolonged exposure to the sun would cure a "Zone Lord", as such mutates are known, but it has never happened. Either the test subject has fought its way back to the Zones, it has been slain in the attempt to do so, or it has perished from the sheer trauma of being exposed to the light.
Though each Zone Lord has its own unique mutations and unnatural abilities, all share two common powers. Firstly, they have an innate ability to command Zonies- the infected obey them like mindless automatons, flocking to their side and doing whatever they command without any restraint or sense of self-preservation. Secondly, Zone Lords are extremely tough to kill and have what can only be called regenerative capabilities- some speculate that the Shadow Zone somehow sustains them, rejuvenating them from injuries that would otherwise be fatal. However, when a Zone Lord heals in such a manner, it always mutates further, becoming stronger, more dangerous, less human. So the more "deaths" that a Zone Lord has survived, the greater the threat it poses to others.
Most, if not all, Zone Lords are either fiercely territorial or unambivalently hostile towards "normals". While they battle and squabble with each other over resources in the Zones, they will instantly put aside their differences to attack intruders from the world beyond the Zones. This makes them the greatest threat to humans who enter the Shadow Zone.
Nobody knows where the Zones came from. Nobody knows how to diminish them, never mind remove them. And people think that the Zones might be getting larger. It is up to brave heroes to enter the Zones, to keep the Zone Lords from gathering their strength, to study the Zones in hopes of finding a way to destroy them, to rescue Zonies and retrieve the items that help humanity survive another day.
Who are these heroes?
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(Posted Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:28)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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