Hitori Nojima - Death Stranding - The Official Novelization, Volume Two

Had Cliff already given up? Was he trying to die together with his baby?

John refused to believe that. Cliff had saved him time and time again. Cliff would be able to save his son.

Save him. Please save him.

“Shoot him, John.”

A pain gripped John like someone was squeezing his heart tightly.

Why? Why his child? Why do I have to shoot the father of this child?

“Shoot him!” Bridget commanded again.

His trembling arms felt like they were acting on their own.

Cliff looked up at John. John couldn’t believe that the pale face reflected back in Cliff’s eyes was his own. His hand that gripped the gun and his finger on the trigger felt like they belonged to somebody else.

“I gave you an order! Shoot him! For America.”

Two gunshots sounded. America had killed Cliff.

Sam had left Port Knot City and continued to head east. His destination was Capital Knot City. He was still making his way back to HQ—back to Deadman, Heartman, Lockne, and a comatose Fragile.

His movements were heavy, like each part of him had been placed in restraints. Even though he wasn’t carrying any cargo, his back hurt and his hips groaned. Every single calorie he had ingested had been converted into energy for walking, and there was nothing else left. He had visibly lost weight and it felt like his body was shrinking in on itself.

He lost count of the number of times he had nightmares about his body wearing away to nothing as he continued to walk.

The one redeeming feature of his lonely march back was that the number of safehouses he could take a rest at along the way had increased. As communications had become operational in this area, the amount and frequency of the cargo delivered by Bridges had grown. The safehouses had been constructed along this route to offer support for these deliveries. Chiral printers were also functioning reliably, so the east was reaping the benefits of being brought back online first. The only problem now was that communications were malfunctioning and no new bases could be established. It was like they had gone back to how things were before they had activated the network at all.

Unable to stomach the irony, Sam continued to drag his aching body toward its destination. When he finally found a safehouse for the first time in days, it was almost destroyed. While there were still stockpiles of food and medicine in the private basement room, the electricity supply was unstable and the communications terminal would not activate. He couldn’t even use the incubator with communications in such a bad state. Sam was worried that he hadn’t allowed Lou to rest enough on their way here. Lou was showing obvious changes. While Lou had been connected to Sam, the BB no longer dozed off as much anymore. Lou had become more curious about the outside world and was conveying much clearer emotions to Sam. It meant Lou was being pulled closer and closer to the world of the living. Lou should have been presenting with symptoms of autotoxemia by now, after spending so long away from the stillmother’s womb, but there were no signs of it as yet. It was different from the last time Deadman had treated Lou. Sam worried about what this meant for Lou’s future.

Sam held the disconnected pod to his chest and lay down. As he watched a dozing Lou, he fell into a deep sleep himself.

—This child’s special.

Was this why he had to go through this? There were faces. Faces and faces. Countless faces were staring at him. They edged closer until they filled his entire view, before disappearing. Faces he had seen before, faces he might see in the future, faces he would never encounter and faces that died long ago; they all appeared before him and vanished. Pinned down like an insect under a microscope, he was unable to move. All he could do was let them examine him.

Which are you? A face he didn’t know swam into view. Am I connecting to you? Or are you connecting to me? Where are you? Are you in the past? Are you still alive? Are you in the land of the living? Or the land of the dead?

Somewhere in the distance, a whale was singing. The sound of a mating call.

— But is it? Couldn’t it be crying out in sadness?

One of the many staring faces, a woman, split from ear to ear, becoming one giant mouth. Small canine teeth crowded the mouth right to the back of its throat. It made a disturbing tearing sound as it gnawed through the invisible wall that protected him. The stench of rotting organs surrounded him. He watched a star explode, followed by a vision of a world full of the microscopic life that was first born to these lands. He slid down its throat, mingled with its gastric juices, before being pushed through its contracting and relaxing intestines. Finally, he was expelled from its anus.

A wave washed over the naked body, the ha , that was soiled with blood and excrement. As he was hit by the wave, he felt the world spin around him and he no longer knew where he was. He tried to stand, but fell back. He had neither hands nor feet. He was just a lump of flesh with eyes, a mouth, ears, and a nose carved out of it. The breaking waves were toying with him as they knocked him around the shoreline. An infinite number of sea creatures were stranded all around him.

A baby cried, but without his soul, Sam couldn’t stand. All he could do was shuffle across the sand with his mouth as he looked for the child.

A gigantic wave carried Sam away, far from the shoreline. A sun more enormous than Sam had ever seen before appeared and broke the sky into two, mercilessly beating down on his back. All the water disappeared in an instant and Sam’s skin began to wrinkle and dry out. Now he could only hear the waves. They no longer reached him. He could smell the scent of sea salt, but he couldn’t get back to it. He dug his chin into the sand, and as pain engulfed his entire body, he struggled his way toward the baby’s cries. His dried and hardened skin began to form spikes. Sam used them to try desperately to propel himself forward in the sand. His skin cracked and blood oozed out. Then the bloodied protuberances began to transform into long, thick limbs. Sam used his four limbs to keep on advancing. As he cursed his imperfect ha , he kept on moving forward. Soon, the sun began to sink toward the horizon and a frighteningly cold night set in. Both he and the sea froze over and all sound disappeared.

The sky was clear and countless stars glowed without a twinkle. This place was directly linked to the rest of the cosmos. It felt like if he looked up, he’d fall, so Sam closed his eyes tight. When he tried to draw his own body in tight to endure the cold, his arms and legs grew. Sam could finally stand. Guided by the baby’s cries, he began to walk.

As he walked, his body grew. His thighs became more muscular, his hips became higher, and his spine stretched. Now he could look out far in front of him. Now he could move his arms at will and could grab objects with the palms of his hands.

Now he would be able to embrace the child.

As he grew more confident, the baby’s cries seemed to grow louder.

When he called out Lou’s name, he found a newborn Lou crying at his feet. Sam kneeled and picked Lou up with both hands.

He held Lou to his chest. They were finally together. Lou’s small hands grabbed the dreamcatcher around Sam’s neck.