Death Stranding--Death Stranding

by Hitori Nojima

  Although Deadman had denied it, what if Sam had been dreaming this whole time? He couldn’t shake the idea from his mind. Maybe he was still inside his mother’s womb, just tormented by the laws of this nonsensical dream. Not that there was any guarantee the outside world was any more sensible.

  Was he dreaming? Was this real? The world all this was taking place in was so convoluted. Numerous threads were entangled with one another and wove a complex and mysterious pattern. To escape from his dreams and to confront reality, Sam would have to head for their source.

  Between the ridgelines to the north, Sam could see the faint shadow of a tower. It belonged to the incinerator where he had burned Bridget’s body. Sam wondered what would have happened if he had just left her body in its hospital bed instead. Would her ha, with its umbilical cord that connected her to the Beach, have necrotized and turned her into a BT? Would she still have felt a strong attachment to America and tried to come back? Would she have betrayed her wish to see this world connected back up and caused a great extinction in its place? Questions kept running through Sam’s head.

  That incinerator was the first place where Sam connected with Lou. It was the place where he had sent Bridget off to the next world and begun his mission to save Lou. It seemed both so long ago and like something that had happened only yesterday.

  When Sam finally approached Capital Knot City, all he could see was decay, like an old monument that had been slowly chipped away with the passage of the ages. Perhaps it was all in Sam’s head. Maybe it had always been like this. Large cracks ran through the outer wall that surrounded the periphery of the city and the Bridges logo on it was dirty and faded. The air was heavy with the smell of rusted iron, to the point where Sam hesitated to breathe in. It looked nothing like the capital city of an America on the brink of being rebuilt. It was a city of death.

  Nobody came to welcome Sam, so he took the elevator to the basement alone. It was the same route he had used when he brought Bridget her morphine. Even when the cage reached the elevator hall, Sam couldn’t sense anyone around. Most of the lights were out. Sam proceeded through the gloomy hallways and opened the door to the president’s old room.

  “Sam!” Lockne burst forth. Sam instinctively moved out of her way. Sam grimaced at himself as he recoiled from his friend who had been waiting for him all this time. He could change the way the entire world worked, but he still couldn’t change himself. Perhaps he just didn’t want to.

  “You’re back! It must have been one hell of a journey, especially on your own.” Deadman approached Sam, trying to gloss over the awkward atmosphere. “But now the whole team is together again,” he continued, even though the only other person Sam saw was Heartman in cardiac arrest on the sofa. Deadman read Sam’s puzzled expression and showed him to a bed against the wall. Lying there on the hospital bed was Fragile. She was hooked up to a respirator and a drip. Her vitals were being monitored by the surrounding equipment. Despite their earlier conversation, it still seemed like she had a way to go to recover. The sight of Fragile lying there like that reminded Sam of Bridget on her deathbed. He shook his head to try and get rid of the mental image.

  “That’s our fault. Too much traveling to and from the Beaches in such a short span. It’s not just from transporting us. She’s been looking for Amelie, too,” Deadman explained. “Chiral matter contaminated her cells, effectively causing jet lag on a molecular level. Because of that, her homeostatic mechanisms were shaken. Don’t worry—she’s not in any danger. But she needs some rest.”

  Sam didn’t understand all of Deadman’s explanation, but he was relieved to see a bit of color in her face while she slept. When Sam heard the phrase, “jet lag on a molecular level,” he had imagined an even more serious version of what she looked like from the neck down.

  “The director—sorry, Die-Hardman—is back, too. He’s being looked after in another room. Bridges personnel found him lying outside the isolation ward… Similar to when you came back from Cliff’s Beach,” Deadman added.

  Then it seemed like the whole team was back together.

  The AED kicked in and brought Heartman back to life. At first, he looked surprised to see Sam there, but his serious expression soon returned as he looked over to Fragile. He nodded as Deadman informed him that he had told Sam everything, and this time turned to Sam.

  “This world is in a similar state to Fragile. Nothing is integrated anymore. The cells that make up her body are all running on different time axes and egos. In Fragile’s case, the solution is very simple. A single person is made up of a myriad of different components all intersecting and working together, but what connects all these components is a person’s will. It’s this will that will correct any misalignment for her. Now, in the context of this world, humans, and by extension our Beaches, play the same role as the cells in Fragile’s body, and in much the same way, we also require a higher plane, an equivalent to her will, to retune everything so that we’re all running on the same time axis again.”

  Sam thought he suddenly saw Fragile move from the corner of his eye, but she was still sleeping with the exact same expression as before. He had been tricked by a floating creature near her head. It was a cryptobiote.

  “Traditionally, all of our Beaches have existed independently. We have connected to each other not through the idea of the Beach, but through talk of family and tribes, concepts of this world, the universe, and this planet. These concepts and connections formed the driving force behind the survival of Homo sapiens. But now we have this new concept called the Beach, which we have connected to our reality via the Chiral Network with the added component of the existence of an ‘Extinction Entity.’ Amelie’s Beach exists on a higher plane that can control other Beaches. If each of our Beaches is a single capillary, Amelie’s Beach is the heart that pumps blood to the rest of us. Capillaries are subordinate to the greater whole. A whole governed by the heart, which gives direction. Which dictates flow. You may be the only one able to travel against the flow and reach her.”

  Sam seized the cryptobiote as it floated by. When Fragile had first recommended one in that cave, he had been skeptical and turned it down, but he had found himself munching on one a few times now.

  “But, having done so, if she does not wish to let you go, if she wishes to keep you, she can,” Heartman finished.

  “Fragile and Die-Hardman broke free from her Beach, didn’t they?” Sam refuted, releasing the cryptobiote.

  “I don’t think it was any different from what happened to you. I didn’t get out because I wanted to.” It was Fragile’s voice. She was sitting up in bed, chewing on a cryptobiote. “I was forced out. ‘Repatriated,’ if you will. By her.”

  Deadman looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes and immediately checked her vital monitors. Heartman was looking at her fondly with a look of paternal concern.

  “Welcome back, Sam. Guess you need me after all?” Fragile grimaced as she tried to get out of bed. Lockne immediately lent Fragile her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” Fragile whispered as she tried to grab another cryptobiote that was floating around the room. Sam plucked it out of the air and laughed.

  “You want it?” he asked.

  “There’s no time to waste, right?” Fragile said, chewing on the cryptobiote and looking Sam straight in the eye. “Look, Sam. She wants you. Wants you to go to her. That’s her final wish. Don’t you think?” Fragile commented.

  The words “final wish” rang in Sam’s ears. How could Fragile be so sure?

  “So that’s it, huh. Amelie’s the EE, and this is her endgame.” That was the only way Sam could bring himself to ask. Fragile hung her head, but Sam couldn’t tell if that was an answer or not. “Just so we’re clear: if I want to stop the Last Stranding and come back in one piece… I need to go to her Beach and talk her out of it. That about right?”

  “Correct. As clichéd as it sounds, you’re our only hope,” Heartman spoke up. “Though, quite frankly, I doubt even you can change her
mind.”

  The room fell silent. Deadman was the one to break it.

  “If you can’t make her see reason… you’ll have to kill her. And if you kill her…”

  “You’ll save the world, but you’ll be stranded outside of it. Forever,” Lockne finished Deadman’s sentence, looking down at her feet and biting her lip.

  Another bout of silence. This time nobody seemed to want to break it.

  Sam gripped his dreamcatcher and raised his hand.

  “Might as well make it official, then. You ready to deliver the package?” he asked Fragile. She gave a sad smile and nodded.

  “I’ll talk to her. Maybe she’ll listen. But with the shape the world’s in, it’ll only be delaying the inevitable. Still, if it buys us time to try and build something better. A new lease on life, at least for a little bit. Well, I can think of one woman who made the most of a chance like that. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the world. But we gotta keep it going as long as we can, right? Patch the holes, change the parts, all that.”

  Sam couldn’t stop talking. And nobody else wanted to stop him, either. Deadman, Heartman, Lockne, and Fragile remained silent, hanging onto every word.

  “Back when we met at the cave, the only thing I cared about was making it to the next sunrise. Sure as hell didn’t care about America or ‘the future.’ I was living a lie, hung up on past regrets. I was broken. But somewhere along the way, I started changing. Started meeting people who made me think that maybe it wasn’t all bad. People who put their faith in tomorrow and in me. That kept the lights on and waited for hope to arrive. So I gotta deliver, for their sake.”

  “Even if it means you never come back?” Deadman asked as if he wouldn’t be able to bear it. All the others in the room had the same fear.

  “Fucked if I do, fucked if I don’t, right?” Sam shrugged.

  There was no choice. As long as the hypothesis they shared stood true, there was no other option.

  Sam disconnected his pod and passed Lou to Deadman. He couldn’t take the kid to the Beach.

  Fragile stood in front of Sam. Next to him, Deadman held Lou’s pod in his arms, with a strange look on his face. Heartman and Lockne stood on either side of Sam. He looked at each of their faces in turn and then adjusted his grip on his dreamcatcher. Fragile gently placed her hand on it.

  Sam followed her lead and closed his eyes.

  “Okay, concentrate,” she told him. Fragile wrapped her arm around Sam. He could feel her body heat. There was no aphenphosmphobic reaction. Sam accepted her. “Help me look for Amelie. Reach for her, Sam. Feel her.”

  Fragile tightened her grip and put her forehead to Sam’s. Sam sighed. The pulse of another living being quietly came through. Amelie’s warmth, her smell, her voice; Sam focused on all his memories of her. Even if he only ever had contact with her on the Beach, it didn’t matter. Because those were the memories that were special to him.

  “I know you love her. You love her!”

  Normally those words would have flustered Sam, but now he could accept them.

  —Then you disappeared never to be seen again.

  SAM STRAND

  Sam was lying on a sandy beach.

  The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the color red. It was a shade that he had seen somewhere before, a color that lay in the depths of his memory. The color of blood that he first saw in his mother’s womb.

  Both the sky and the sea were red. Was this Amelie’s Beach? He couldn’t believe this was the same Beach she had brought him to so many times before. The planet floating in the sky made him feel even more uneasy. It looked a lot like Earth, but the landmasses were in a different shape. At the very least, it wasn’t the same Earth that Bridget had taught him about when he was a boy. The land looked like it was in the shape of a curled-up fetus.

  Sam brushed the sand off himself and stood up. He looked this way and that, but there was no one else there with him. Maybe the jump had failed. Maybe now that the Beaches were in so much chaos, he had jumped to a different Beach from Amelie’s.

  “You’re too late. What took you so long?” The sound of Amelie’s voice erased Sam’s worry. When he looked in its direction, he saw Amelie standing there.

  “Amelie?” he called out as she stood there with her back to him, looking out over the ocean.

  “You still don’t know who I am, do you?” she asked.

  The face of the woman looking over her shoulder at him was Amelie’s. But the voice that belonged to it was Bridget’s. “I’ve been waiting for you right here. You were supposed to stop me. Stop all of this.”

  “Bridget?” Sam gasped.

  The woman smiled. “Yes. It’s me, Sam,” she replied.

  Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Did that mean this wasn’t Amelie’s Beach?

  “My daughter, Samantha America Strand, doesn’t exist. At least, not in your world.”

  Bridget’s riddles only made Sam even more confused. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’ve had to wear a mask for so long. Amelie and Bridget are both a part of me,” Bridget admonished Sam with Amelie’s face. Was she trying to confuse him even more?

  “Do you understand, Sam? ‘Amelie’ and ‘Bridget’—those are just names. What I am is an Extinction Entity.”

  Bridget began to explain.

  * * *

  “This painting is a Da Vinci.”

  A man spoke. Bridget was looking at a painting of a woman holding a naked baby in her arms as it tried to wriggle its way out of them.

  “It’s called the Madonna of the Yarnwinder. The yarnwinder is the thing the baby is holding. The baby is drawn to the yarnwinder while its mother looks on worried. While her left arm is holding her baby, her right arm looks like it’s about to pull the baby away, doesn’t it?”

  “With that horizontal stick, the yarnwinder looks a little like a cross.”

  As Bridget pointed out her observation, her father placed a large hand on her head. She may have pouted and resisted because she didn’t want her father to mess up her hair, but in reality she loved receiving his praise. She looked up at the painting hanging next to her father, who smelled of cigars, that had been painted almost five hundred years ago.

  “That’s right. It’s a cross. The baby is Jesus. The mother is the Virgin Mary. She was afraid that Jesus would be crucified on a cross in the future to sacrifice himself to save mankind.”

  “But how did the Virgin Mary know that was going to happen, Papa? Why didn’t she stop it?” Bridget asked.

  “Because we’re only human,” her father replied.

  Bridget’s father’s face looked slightly cold. He seemed to smell of sweat. Bridget liked the smell of her father’s cigars, they smelled like dried leaves, but she didn’t like this smell.

  “A holy sacrifice must be made so that humanity can keep on living.”

  Bridget didn’t understand what those words meant at the time (I was only five years old). It took many years afterwards for her to finally comprehend them.

  * * *

  Bridget dreamt of the cross time and time again. For some reason, she always felt like she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it, so she remained silent, taking her secret with her to the grave.

  —So now I can finally tell you.

  * * *

  The shoreline stretched on for eternity. Bridget walked along it alone, looking out over the sea on her right side. Even if she carried on walking until her dying breath, she’d probably never reach the end. When Bridget realized that, it made her happy. It meant that this world would never end.

  The calm ocean surface reflected the light of the sun. It was so gentle and beautiful. Bridget was a smart girl. She knew that all life on Earth came from the sea. The sand on the beach was white and felt good as it poured through her fingers. It was fun to mold the sand and make sandcastles and imaginary towns, too. She even built a breakwater so that her little town didn’t get destroyed.

  Bridget knew she was dreaming, but she always l
ooked forward to these dreams so much.

  But once she realized that the white sand was made from the corpses of coral and fragments of shell, she became afraid to dream. It became a beach of death.

  Bridget didn’t want to have that dream ever again, but she couldn’t pick and choose. Eventually, she came to dream of that beach every night.

  That eternal shoreline transformed into an eternal nightmare.

  It was sometime afterward when she came to see the Beach littered with crosses. She saw them thrust into the sand, floating in the sea, and disappearing and reappearing on the horizon. Sometimes she even saw them in the sky.

  Then, one day, she found a rotten, enormous cross discarded at the water’s edge. It was so big, it looked like it could have crucified a whale or a giant. But all that was nailed to it was a doll of a baby angel that had its wings plucked away. She felt so sorry for it that she rescued it. She washed it with seawater and gently cradled it in her arms. She found it cute, how its eyes opened and closed when its head was tilted. Even after she woke up, the baby still slept within them.

  After a while, other things began to appear on the beach. At first it was the carcasses of small fish and birds. They didn’t appear to be wounded, nor did they rot, but they were cold and lifeless, so Bridget assumed they were dead. Those things had already died long ago in Bridget’s world. They were animals that had gone extinct millennia ago. The corpses of extinct species, from ammonites and trilobites to mammoths and dinosaurs, increased and increased. The strangest part of it was how all the animals that washed ashore had umbilical cords.

  Bridget was frightened by her dreams, but she couldn’t tell anyone.

  All she could do was hope and pray for the destruction of the Beach in her dreams. And it was granted. Although it wasn’t quite destroyed in the way that Bridget hoped for.

  When she fell asleep and awoke on the Beach, both the sky and the sea were stained blood red. For some reason, the old Earth that she had only ever seen in picture books floated above the horizon. The world was full of sadness. This time she didn’t feel scared like she usually did, but like she wanted to cry. From beyond the sea, the source of her sadness approached. It was the “things” that had disappeared the moment that this world, and this universe, had been born.