Death Stranding--Death Stranding

by Hitori Nojima

  —Want to go home?

  The one who was asked and replied with a no was a young Sam.

  Then this kid—

  The altar groaned as it began to sink back into the floor.

  * * *

  “I screwed it up. I’ve ruined everything.”

  Sam was looking down on Cliff. He was squatting down on one knee with his back to him. The blood pouring out of his left shoulder was staining the back of the jacket a dark red. Cliff stood up with a groan.

  “I’m sorry, Lisa…”

  Muttering Lisa’s name in what sounded like delirium, Cliff turned back toward the door, leaving bloody footprints as he stepped forward. With a firm grip on the pod, he closed the door behind him and shot at the security panel twice to break it. Then he turned toward Sam. Cliff’s face was flushed as though he was suffering from a high fever and his eyes were welling up, but he didn’t see Sam. The only other person there was Lisa, under a blood-soaked cushion. Cliff passed straight through Sam and clung to the bed. Sam realized that the only part of him there was his ka. He was the only one aware he was stood there. No one else seemed to notice.

  Sam could hear a noise outside the door.

  “In here!”

  Someone banged on the door violently. The dull thuds echoed around the room. They pounded again and again and again. Eventually, the thuds turned into the sound of metal on metal. Together with the metallic grinding sound of the engine cutter, the door began to groan.

  Cliff seemed unaware as he sat slumped in front of the bed.

  Are you going to give up here? But Sam’s thoughts didn’t translate into words. They never reached Cliff.

  “BB. Don’t worry. It’s okay. I’ll always be with you,” Cliff reassured the BB, trying as hard as he could to make sure that he was hearing his message.

  “This room is off-limits. No one goes in.”

  Sam could hear a voice behind the door clearly trying to get the situation under control. He knew that voice. It belonged to John. The sound of the cutter stopped.

  “But he’s in there, sir. I saw him!” a man protested.

  “You saw wrong. Now, check the other way. Go!”

  John dismissed any resistance from the young soldier and sent him on his way. The commotion withdrew like the tide. Sam heard John breathe a sigh of relief on the other side of the door. Now’s your chance. Run. But Sam’s wish and John’s actions didn’t help Cliff.

  “No. Open it up. He’s inside.”

  The command came from the President of the United States of America, Bridget Strand. John and the guards scattered. Special forces followed Bridget’s commands and broke down the door, surging into the room.

  Bullets flew through Sam as he opened his arms wide in a bid to cover Cliff. They simply ignored that he was even there and flew straight into their target. Cliff’s body was thrown to the ground, where blood began to pool beneath him. Yet he still continued to talk to his BB.

  “When I found out I was gonna be a father… I was so scared. Scared of what it would mean… I had to be there for you and your mom… no matter what. I couldn’t just go off and get myself killed anymore…”

  Images flashed in the back of Sam’s mind. A smiling Lisa rubbing her large belly. Cliff’s back as he walked away. And Lisa tying a piece of rope around her neck with trembling hands.

  “I couldn’t leave you all alone. I couldn’t,” Cliff murmured.

  The soldiers stood still, guns still pointed in Cliff’s direction.

  “Get offof him! Now!” John commanded as he broke into the ring of soldiers that had surrounded Cliff. In his hand was the gun that Cliff had dropped under the soldiers’ fire.

  “I had it all wrong… all wrong.” Cliff was exerting so much effort to take each and every breath. Yet he still talked to his BB. “Being a father… didn’t make me scared. It made me brave. I’m sorry… sorry it took me so long…”

  “Captain, look at you.”

  Cliff noticed John and lifted his head. His bangs were dripping with blood and sticking to his forehead. He pushed them out of his face and cast his gaze downward once more.

  “Don’t make the same mistake. Be yourself… Be free,” Cliff finished.

  As though his last ounce of strength had finally left his body, Cliff’s beloved pod rolled to the floor.

  Before John even had time to reach out for it himself, a special forces member rushed over and scooped it into his arms. This was the end. All Sam could do was stand and watch, dumbfounded.

  John was crouching down in front of Cliff. It was like he was protecting Cliff, despite the fact that he no longer had any value to them now that the BB had been retrieved. That’s when Bridget shouted.

  She was cradling the pod the soldier had passed her when her face turned pale and she stared at Cliff. John gasped and the soldiers became nervous. There was nothing in the pod.

  “Captain—I need you to hand it over,” John pleaded, his voice trembling. The naked BB was cradled in Cliff’s arms. A puddle of amniotic fluid was dripping down from the pod and spreading across the floor.

  “Let it go—please,” John repeated, pointing his gun at Cliff’s head. Cliff looked between John and the gun and grimaced. Or maybe it was a smile. Sam couldn’t tell.

  “Shoot him, John,” Bridget commanded coldly. But Sam could sense some quivering in her voice, too. Sam tried to protect Cliff. He crouched in front of him, opened his arms wide, and covered the end of John’s gun with his hands.

  “Shoot him!” Bridget commanded again.

  John’s arms were shaking. Sam was glaring at John, but all that was reflected back in John’s eyes was the face of a blood-soaked Cliff.

  He couldn’t do anything here. He couldn’t control anything. He was so powerless. It must have been the same as how Amelie felt, only having a soul. He was overwhelmed with frustration at only being able to stand there and watch.

  “I gave you an order! Shoot him!”

  John’s trembling finger squeezed the trigger.

  “They told me your name was Sam Porter…” Sam heard Cliff’s voice behind him. He turned and Cliff nodded. He saw Sam. “But you’re Sam Bridges.”

  All Sam could hear was Cliff’s voice. Everything had stopped. John’s finger was still on the trigger. Neither Bridget nor the special forces operatives moved. The only ones moving in the midst of this frozen scene were Cliff and Sam.

  “My son. My bridge to the future.” Cliff cradled the baby and stood up. He staggered a little, but he seemed to be full of energy now. He was looking Sam straight in the eye. “Without you, I was just like any other cliff. A dead end. No way forward. Nothing but an obstacle—looking on at the world that people like you were trying to build. Dividing people was the only thing I was ever good at.”

  Sam was still crouching by Cliff when Cliff reached out to him.

  “But not you, Sam. You bring people together. You’re their bridge to the future… and mine. Come on, Sam. Stand up.”

  Cliff’s hands were covered in scars and wrinkles. They were the hands of someone who had been through war. They were both strong but delicate. Even though they were stained with blood, they weren’t dirty. Cliff passed the baby he was cradling in his arms to Sam. It was so small that it looked like it would fit inside the palm of his hand. It was soft and warm. Sam could feel its heart beating. Its little heart was beating away strongly. It synchronized with Sam’s own heartbeat.

  “Is this me?” Sam asked.

  Cliff nodded and hugged Sam. Sam could smell cigarettes and blood. It was the smell of a father.

  It was only slight, but Cliff squeezed his arms around Sam a little more tightly.

  The paused time began to play again.

  Sam heard two gunshots. And Cliff’s body twisted twice.

  His grip loosened. When Sam looked, the baby had disappeared. All that was left in his hands was blood spatter. Cliff was staring into the distance. Sam was no longer reflected in his eyes. So much blood was pouring out of th
e right side of his chest. The baby he had been holding was covered in it, too. The heartbeat that had just synched with Sam’s was no more.

  “Oh God, not the BB too.” How could John play innocent like that? Sam looked up.

  John was holding the gun, but Bridget’s overlaid hand had pressed his finger on the trigger.

  Cliff’s body slumped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. The baby’s body rolled to the ground alongside him.

  Bridget ran over to the baby screaming something and scooped it up into her arms. As Sam stared at his own dead body, all he could do was stand there.

  * * *

  Sam watched the lid to the incinerator casket close and the whole thing sink into the floor. It was burning his cuff links. His connection with America was burning away. Now that his right wrist felt lighter, he used it to pick up Lou. A puddle of amniotic fluid was spreading out across the floor.

  The cross-shaped scar on his abdomen burned. That same mark that had formed when Sam Bridges was brought back to life before he was even born, that had been left behind when Amelie had restored Sam’s ka on the Beach, was throbbing violently.

  Sam hadn’t been able to burn Lou, after all. Sam knew that his talk of returning this child to the land of the dead and doing what was best for the child’s wellbeing had all been bullshit. Just a lie he had told himself. He knew that from the start.

  He just wanted to feel this child’s skin. Just like Cliff had held Sam as a baby, how Amelie had held him on the Beach, Sam wanted to hold Lou. Maybe it was a one-sided cruel love. Sam couldn’t promise Lou what that love would bring. But Sam knew that he couldn’t burn Lou without a hug.

  Now his wish had come true—no, he made it come true. But Lou didn’t respond.

  Lou felt warm. But the breaths and heartbeat that Sam felt were shallow and weak.

  “Lou!”

  His persistent calls for Lou were just like those Cliff had made.

  “Lou!”

  Sam rubbed Lou’s back and tried to massage arms and legs that were so thin they looked like they could snap. Sam had no idea if he was doing it right, but Sam kept calling Lou’s name, hugging Lou close and rubbing the small body to stop the ka from separating from Lou’s ha.

  —Want to go home?

  Where had Amelie meant when she asked me if I wanted to go home?

  Where had Cliff tried to take me when I was a baby?

  Where am I going to take you, Lou?

  Where do I want to show you?

  It’s too early to go to the world of the dead. You haven’t even been born yet. Let’s not head to the realm of the past where everything is settled and finished, but toward the future with infinite possibilities. But right now, the only choice that lies in that future is for you to come into this world. So wake up, Lou. I’ll anchor you here.

  A vague umbilical cord of particles formed at Lou’s abdomen. It was a sign of necrosis.

  So, this kid would never be born into this world after all.

  If I’m not with you, Lou, I can’t begin anything either. Even if you don’t want to live with me, I want to live with you.

  Even as Sam’s tears dripped onto Lou’s face, Lou was still trying to return to the world of the dead.

  No, Lou.

  Sam closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at Lou’s umbilical cord. As he stood there holding Lou, unable to do anything but cry, he knew that he was the stupidest man in the world.

  The dreamcatcher that hung by his chest caught on something. Sam looked up. Lou’s eyes were open. In Lou’s right hand was Amelie’s quipu.

  Lou had returned.

  Before Sam had the opportunity to shed any more tears, Lou began to cry out loudly.

  Lou screamed out to the world: “I’m here.”

  Lou was crying, trembling all over, to shake off the border between life and death and tear away the shackles that bound the BB between them.

  “Welcome back, Lou. Louise.”

  As Lou screamed her lungs out, Sam kissed her on the cheek. He felt her tears on his lips. They were the tears of a living, breathing child.

  * * *

  Sam left the incinerator to find that the rain had cleared. A rainbow drew a beautiful arc over the ridge. It wasn’t the upside-down rainbow Sam usually saw.

  The blowing winds brought with them a scent that Sam had never smelled before.

  Sam looked back over his shoulder toward the incinerator and began to walk back the way he had come. But what lay before him now was a new place that he had never been to.

  Let’s go home.

  Sam heard a familiar voice that he knew from long ago, somewhere before.

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