The sands swelled and several whales appeared. They cried as they breached the surface and slammed their massive bodies onto the shore. More followed suit, stranding themselves on the sands. The entire Beach was getting buried in the corpses of whales that neither came from the sea nor could return to it.
“We’re all of us a part of the Death Stranding,” Higgs declared.
It didn’t seem to matter how Higgs explained it, but Sam never understood. As long as all he wanted was Amelie, he would never see the truth. Higgs had once been the same.
“And this place, this fucking ‘Beach.’ There’s no repatriation here, no. One of us dies, that’s it. He goes to the other side. Nice, huh? Lucky loser gets to put an end to this rinse-and-repeat bullshit once and for all. So… No BTs, no voidouts, no bullshit. Just a good old-fashioned boss fight. Stick versus rope. Gun versus strand. One more ending before the end… One last game over.”
All Sam had was his ID strand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how this fight would end. Higgs aimed his assault rifle and pulled the trigger. This gunshot will sound in the beginning of this rite of extinction.
* * *
It wasn’t long after Peter assumed the name of Higgs that he joined forces with Fragile Express. He may have professed himself to be the God particle and may have worn a mask to imitate the pharaohs, but he was still painfully aware of his own lack of power. The leader of the organization, Fragile, had DOOMS more powerful than Higgs had ever seen. Her organization was better than the one Higgs was a part of, too.
Now that Bridges I had finally departed on a mission to rebuild America, terrorist attacks and assaults by Homo Demens were on the rise, and that, combined with the BTs and the MULEs, made it harder and harder for Higgs and the others to work. That’s why it was better to join forces. The more porters they had, the easier it would be to cover the entire continent. Luckily, Fragile agreed with Higgs and they began working together.
Fragile’s DOOMS was even more incredible than Higgs had first heard. Not only could she sense the Beach and the BTs, she could actually use the Beach. Compared to that, Higgs was nothing. All he had was the power he had received as the human corpses necrotized and became BTs. But now he didn’t need it. He could use Fragile’s abilities to make deliveries. Higgs didn’t want to rebuild America as it once was, like Bridges. He wanted to create a new world on this continent, one that protected the freedom and liberty of every single person living within it. Higgs was practically drunk on that vision.
Yet he knew that it was a brittle and fragile dream.
AMELIE’S BEACH
Jeering at Sam, Higgs thrust the rifle at him. Out of bullets, it was now just a steel stick to beat Sam with. Even though he had a spare magazine, he no longer felt like using it. He wanted to fight Sam man-on-man.
Sam had already lost a lot of blood and was gasping for air, but he had lost none of his fighting spirit and continued to glare at Higgs. Unlike Sam, Higgs barely had a scratch on him.
“You just don’t get it, do you. What do you think you’re going to achieve by struggling like this? Fragile was the same. She gave up her time just to save a town that was gonna to get destroyed anyway. It’s not like they’ve got long left here after all this. Now she’s stuck livin’ inside that shriveled body, just giving them hope for a fake future. Listen up, Sam. There is no future. If all there is to do is waste away waiting for tomorrow, isn’t it better to graciously accept extinction? That’s what the planet wants. So, you’d better start groveling before me. Then at least you might be remembered as a wise man. If you don’t want to, then kill me,” Higgs declared, waving a knife at Sam and slamming it into his windpipe. Sam managed to get away with a stagger, but Higgs simply tutted and closed in on him once more. As Higgs lunged, Sam’s ID strand caught the arm that was flailing the knife. As he pulled on Higgs and Higgs braced his feet against the ground, their strength was evenly matched. The ID strand stretched longer and longer, looking like it might snap at any moment. Sam was breathing heavily with his shoulders, but it didn’t feel like he would loosen his grip anytime soon.
Higgs could feel himself growing impatient. The situation was overwhelmingly in his favor, yet their fight was not progressing as planned. I need more power. He sent his will to Amelie asleep in the spider’s web, but she didn’t wake up. What does this mean?
Sam’s injury-riddled body suddenly seemed to look much more imposing than before.
* * *
Things between Higgs and Fragile Express went great at first. But Higgs soon had to face their limits. No matter how great Fragile’s abilities were, they couldn’t turn this world into one that he dreamed of for everyone. Even if they were able to make deliveries and keep people connected, people still couldn’t go out into the outside world.
This world where the timefall fell, where BTs attacked, and layers of chiral cloud separated them from the rest of the universe would never change. It couldn’t change.
Now that Bridges’ plan to rebuild America had been put into motion there were more terrorist attacks than ever before. And with more terrorist attacks came more bodies and more BTs. Voidouts were happening everywhere. If they had just kept quiet and stayed put then this would never have happened. The Earth was crawling with different motives and purposes, each battling it out to reign supreme, but it felt to Higgs like he was the one choking on them all. These were the limits of humanity.
But then he met someone who surpassed those limits.
Her name was Samantha America Strand and Higgs knew from the moment he first spoke to her that she was the only one who could make his ideal world a reality. She told him that she would lend him the power to restore the world to its former glory.
The symbol of her power was a human-shaped BT sensor called a Bridge Baby. It wasn’t a real baby. Instead, according to Amelie, it was a child who had been born on the Beach and who could connect the realms of the living and the dead. She explained that if Higgs used one, he could always stay connected to her. She told him that BBs were the new children born into a new age.
I’m no ordinary porter.
I’m the one who’ll create a new world.
Higgs didn’t need to borrow Fragile’s abilities anymore. Now, he was able to dream again.
BBs were dolls who took the form of babies. But they weren’t just any old dolls. They were neither living, nor dead. They were something in between human and doll, much like the mummies of Egypt with only their shriveled, dried-up hearts still in place in their chests.
Higgs believed the BBs were a symbol of humanity.
The Death Stranding was the sixth mass extinction event to strike life on this planet. Higgs saw it all in his visions. The visions that he was sure he was being shown because of his connection with the BB. In other words, the visions that were being shown to him by Amelie.
The voidouts that had suddenly occurred the world over one day, and the subsequent transformation of the dead into BTs that caused ever more, were all phenomena to speed human extinction along. It was already set in motion.
There was no meaning whatsoever in trying to rebuild America. No reason to sacrifice the lives of those already living for the chance of a tomorrow that would never come.
Higgs asked Amelie the true meaning of the Death Stranding. But she never answered him. Whether she knew it or not, she never told him anything. But Higgs somehow understood it all. So did Amelie. Extinction was a foregone conclusion.
Yet Amelie was still trying to rebuild America. Perhaps that was the final struggle. The final hesitation. Higgs couldn’t understand what was going through Amelie’s mind, but if she was hesitating, then he’d make the decision for her. He’d bring extinction to everyone on this planet. That’s why he needed to get stronger. Detonating a nuclear bomb had been an expression of that urge. He wiped the whole of Middle Knot City off the map. Fragile had been the one to smuggle the bomb into the city. She didn’t have the slightest idea that she was the one who delivered its destr
uction.
The city had blown up because of its connection to the outside. Connections brought ruin. It had been well documented for centuries. When people began to move between continents they brought new diseases with them, sometimes so bad that they wiped out over half the native population. The human race would die. Now even the delivery systems were being used to hasten the extinction. That must have been why Higgs had joined forces with Fragile. Why they had expanded the delivery network. Everything had been preordained from the start.
It was around that time when Higgs first heard about Sam Porter. He had DOOMS and the exceedingly rare ability to repatriate from the dead. When Higgs found out that he was Amelie’s adoptive brother, the jealousy drove him insane. Sam had found meaning in survival by connecting people to people without connecting to them himself. Higgs felt like he was looking at a past version of Peter, and that only further fanned the flames of his envy.
After researching Sam, he realized something. Amelie was constrained by Sam’s existence. She seemed to believe that if anyone could rebuild America, it was him. If Amelie was ever going to be able to demonstrate the true extent of her power as an Extinction Entity, Higgs needed to sever her bond with Sam.
After finding out that Sam was near Central Knot City, it was him who had formulated the plan to leave a dead body within it and cause a voidout. When he found out that the body had been discovered he summoned a BT to consume the men on the Corpse Disposal Team. Central Knot City was wiped out just as planned. Not only was it the self-proclaimed capital of America, it was also home to Bridges HQ and Bridges II. Higgs had wiped them all out. The plan to rebuild America had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
But Sam repatriated.
So even a voidout doesn’t kill a repatriate? What a stubborn creature.
When Higgs found out that not only had Sam repatriated from the dead, but that he had now departed as the sole member of Bridges II, it only enraged him further. He decided to speed up the inevitable conclusion to this saga even more.
Your DOOMS abilities are worthless. I have SODOM. And with this power, I’ll turn the Earth into my power’s namesake and watch it burn in fire and brimstone.
AMELIE’S BEACH
“I am the bridge who brings the extinction!” Higgs screamed, letting go of Sam’s ID strand and making Sam tumble back into a swamp of tar. Higgs took advantage of Sam’s fall and charged. Connecting the Extinction Entity to this world and ushering in the extinction was his purpose. The tar grabbed at Sam’s legs, making it more difficult to move as Higgs lunged at Sam’s hips and took him down. Sam was half-submerged in tar as Higgs grabbed his hair and punched him in the face. It no longer looked human, covered so thickly in blood and tar. He knew the truth of the Death Stranding. The meaning behind the Sixth Extinction that neither Sam nor even Amelie understood. Its horror. Higgs punched Sam again as he tried to shake Higgs’s arm away. He gripped Sam’s skull tight, wanting to crush it into dust, and plunged him deeper into the tar. It didn’t matter that he was a repatriate. If he suffocated him here, Sam wouldn’t be able to come back. It was time for Sam to die. “You can watch this world go up in flames from the realm of the dead. There’s no way back for you this time. You’ll just have to be satisfied with the show!” Higgs ranted wildly, strengthening his grip on Sam.
Then a jet-black hand grabbed Higgs’s arm.
It was jutting out of the tar. It belonged to Sam. The tar’s grip on him was slackening. Higgs’s own grip on Sam loosened as the hand grabbed onto him with a newfound strength that made Higgs’s bones creak.
Sam dragged Higgs down into the tar as well.
Higgs’s vision was immediately plunged into darkness and a sticky tar-like substance mercilessly rushed into his mouth. The tar that he had always been able to manipulate freely was going against its master’s will. How could this be? Higgs was backed into a corner.
Their positions switched and Sam was now straddling Higgs. Sam had him by the chest and punched him in the face over and over. Higgs felt like he was blacking out each time.
The extinction is already set in stone. I’ll deal with Sam first and then exercise Amelie’s power. It’s already decided. So, what’s happening now is just some meaningless detour. Right, Amelie?!
But Amelie didn’t answer.
The extinction can’t be reversed. That’s why you first appeared, right?
Instead of Amelie, Higgs was answered by Sam’s fist.
As the taste of iron spread through his mouth and blood gushed into his throat, Higgs realized that his nose had been broken. Was he supposed to choke to death? Was that really the way he was to go out? Higgs was grabbed by the chest and shaken until he vomited out a mixture of blood and tar. He could breathe again. It was only afterward that Higgs realized how great a contradiction his feeling of relief was. How could he believe so fervently in extinction yet feel such relief when he was able to keep on living?
It was only then that Amelie finally answered.
“Sam!”
Why wouldn’t she call out his name? Discouragement and doubt extinguished what was left of Higgs’s fighting spirit. He saw that Amelie, wearing his golden mask, had broken free of the spider’s web and was now standing on the Beach. It wasn’t time yet. Amelie’s appearance betrayed Higgs’s vision.
“Well, congratulations. You won the game. Too bad you didn’t stop shit. Well? Get on with it,” Higgs said, staring up at the sky once Sam had hauled him out of the swamp of tar. Those words were half for Higgs’s own benefit. If he abandoned his prayers, they would never come true. Even if he died, the path to extinction would never be blocked.
Sam looked down at him and shook his head.
Higgs could hear somebody approaching in the sand. They weren’t Amelie’s footsteps. Sam’s face disappeared from his sight and was replaced by another.
“Fragile?”
Before he could ask her what she was doing here, she spoke: “Guess I left a lasting impression.” His ex-partner’s face drew near, a dreadful smile forming upon it. “I’m Fragile… but I’m not that fragile.”
Those were the words she had recited back when Higgs made her dispose of the nuke.
“This time, you’re the one who’s going to break,” she warned him.
“Is that right? I think you’ll find our bond is made of stronger stuff,” he sneered back.
Higgs knew it was all in vain. But he felt like he really would break if he didn’t say anything at all and couldn’t stop himself. He looked to Amelie again. She was stood there leaning on Sam, but it didn’t look like she was fully conscious yet. She was still wearing his mask. In that case, he wasn’t finished just yet.
“Give me power, dammit!” he screamed.
Amelie woke up, removed his mask, and simply discarded it onto the sand.
“Oh? What’s this? You’re already broken,” Fragile remarked indifferently.
“What the fuck!? I’m Higgs!” he raged. “I’m the particle of God that permeates all existence. What are you? Honey, you ain’t nothing but damaged goods!”
Fragile removed her glove and stroked Higgs’s blood-and tar-stained face. It was a gentle gesture, like those she would make back when they were partners. But it was the first time he had felt it through her aged hand.
Fragile’s smile filled Higgs’s field of vision. Then came a thump and intense pain as her fist made contact with his face.
“You’re damaged goods,” she replied.
* * *
“Here you go. As promised.”
Fragile grabbed Higgs’s bound body along with his rifle and magazine of ammo. He looked so small now. The golden mask of his that lay nearby looked shabby and fake. Nobody needed it anymore.
“I’ve got a delivery for you, Sam,” Fragile said as she stepped toward Sam and Amelie and presented Lou’s pod. “Babysitting is hard work. Take your little one.”
Sam took Lou’s pod, but looked confused.
“I was going to ask Deadman to look after Lo
u, but he couldn’t make it. After I jumped you here, the Beach became unstable, so I had to keep the kid with me. I managed to bring it here by picturing it as ‘equipment.’”
Inside the pod that Sam cradled, Lou laughed. Fragile returned the smile and opened her umbrella.
“The Beach is stable for now, so where should I send you?” Fragile asked.
“He doesn’t need your help. He’s got the Chiral Network. And he’s got me. We can jump east together,” Amelie interrupted.
“Lucky him.” Fragile closed her umbrella.
“We appreciate everything you’ve done for us, we really do. But we’re good for now. Besides, I’m sure they need you back at Fragile Express,” Sam explained.
“Yeah. Who better to scoop up all the pieces and put them back together? Wouldn’t want to settle for anything less than perfection. We’re square. Nothing owed, nothing left to say. So long, Sam.” Fragile turned her back on Sam and said her goodbyes, this time a rifle over her shoulder instead of an umbrella.
As she listened to Sam’s and Amelie’s voices grow more distant as they walked east along the shoreline, Fragile took a deep breath and gently lowered the rifle until the barrel pointed at Higgs.
* * *
The first memory Higgs had was of the gloomy ceiling of the shelter. He must have been crying, because right then a big hand appeared and blocked out his view. It was his father. He had come to shush the crying Peter and shouted something at him angrily, but Peter couldn’t understand the meaning of his words.
The man wasn’t Peter’s real father. His real father had died while his mother was still pregnant. Then, just after he was born, his mother passed on too, of an infection. Baby Peter was entrusted to his mother’s brother and moved from his parents’ shelter into this one. His uncle was reluctant to become his foster father, and all Peter could remember from his childhood was abuse and violence. He had no memory of ever being loved. He was brought up to believe that the shelter was the entire world and that he and his foster father were its only inhabitants, but one day he dared ask the innocent question of where their food and resources came from. The only reply he ever received was a punch. But once it had taken root, that question never disappeared from Peter’s mind. One day, he stole a glance at the monitor when his foster father wasn’t looking, and it showed him the outside world for the very first time. When he asked his foster father about it, he was served with yet another fist to the face.
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