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

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 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.”