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

And the Odradek was pointing right at it. That was where the man was.

But Sam had no idea how to get there. Bullets were flying all around him and there was no end to the bombing in sight. Flames scorched the sky and the shrieks of soldiers were constant. This was just like the time before. Sam was on a battlefield where the dead killed their fellow dead. Where the means of the massacre was on an even grander scale than the original battleground.

When Sam gazed up at the silhouettes of the bombers and checked the weight of his rifle, reality hit him.

Sam flitted from shadow to shadow, between broken barricades, disorganized sandbags, toppled-over tanks, and ruined buildings that dotted the cobbled streets, paying careful attention so as not to get caught up in the battle. Even though he could hear the final wails of agony from soldiers on all sides, he hardly actually saw any of them.

The thought of nuclear weapons suddenly crossed his mind. How just one bomb could kill countless people en masse and wreak destruction over an absurdly large area. Maybe this battlefield was far away from other people. Maybe it was a battlefield that didn’t involve humans, it was just one they died on. Where people killed one another at a distance, rather than staring their opponents in the face as they fought toe-to-toe with fist or gun. Where they died without the opportunity to understand their own deaths. It was a battlefield where all that remained was the never-ending absurdity of it all, stagnating like sediment.

The battlefield was an endless, absurd cycle.

The only way to put a stop to that cycle would be to make the dead aware of the fact that they were dead. Just as people in the world of the living incinerated the bodies of the recently departed, to deprive their soul of a place to wander back to and give them their period at the end of their sentence.

If this war and this battlefield really had existed in the past, then humans had been mass-producing BTs for a long time. Maybe voidouts and the Death Stranding were disasters of mankind’s own making.

Sam’s footing slipped as the thought distracted him. He placed a hand on the wall of the building and steadied himself. When he looked down at his feet, he found that puddles had formed in the empty spaces left by missing cobbles. Sam tutted at his own clumsiness and carried on forward. That’s when he realized that what had pooled at his feet wasn’t water, but blood. Sam wondered how many people’s blood it took to form a puddle this deep. He was submerged up to his ankles.

Sam tried to pull his foot back out, but someone’s hand was clamped around his ankle. It was trying to drag him back into the puddle.

Sam slapped at the hand that was now pawing at the barrel of his rifle, and used all of his might to yank his foot free.

—BB.

A voice calling out for the BB resounded within his head.

The puddle of blood began to swell and something appeared. Its helmet was slick with blood, its hands stained red, and blood was gushing from the end of its rifle. A skeletal soldier had shown itself. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sam sprayed bullets at it with his rifle. As it shattered to dust it was engulfed in flames and disappeared.

—BB.

Instead of wails of agony, Sam heard the voice of the man.

Then he felt a sharp pain shoot through his right leg. He had been shot. When he turned around, three skeletal soldiers were lying in wait. All three of them were pointing their rifles at him. The next one to fire was Sam. He may not have hit any of them, but at least they flinched, and while they did, he was able to make his escape into the shadow of a truck. There was a burning pain in Sam’s leg where he had been shot, and it felt like it had swelled to several times its normal size.

The moment that Sam peeked out to see if the coast was clear, he was met with gunfire. It was the same soldiers as the time before. The Odradek’s sensor backed up his theory as it flashed from white to orange. He could tell from Lou’s uneasy jerks, as well. It might not have been the time or place, but Sam felt relieved. This kid might not remember him anymore, but they were still able to connect like always.

—BB.

The top of the truck began to burn alongside the sound of the explosions. Hand grenades were being thrown inside. Dragging his wounded leg behind him, Sam mustered all his strength to escape. Trucks exploded one after another. He could feel hot winds and impact tremors on his tail. Lou was terrified and crying out. Choked by the black smoke, Sam searched for a place they could hide. The buildings lining the road were all piles of rubble, and didn’t look like they would be able to conceal them at all.

Driven forward by the bullets, Sam finally found a building with a red-brick facade. The glass was shattered and only the frame remained, but the original entrance still stood. Sam entered its dim interior. Part of the wall had collapsed, shelves had fallen down and several pieces of furniture were toppled over. There was no sign of anybody. A coffee cup and a cracked plate sat on the table. The open newspaper featured a black-and-white picture of a town ablaze and a headline in large German letters.

Sam sensed a presence outside the window and hid in the shadow of the table. It was one of the skeletal soldiers. Luckily, the soldier didn’t seem to have realized that Sam was in there. As Sam decided to just let the soldier pass, an explosion shook the building.

Fine rubble fell from the ceiling, making a clattering sound as it collided with the cup on the table below.

The radio in the bay window suddenly switched on.

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high—

It was an English song. An old song that Sam had a feeling he had heard somewhere before.

There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Oh, somewhere over the rainbow—

As if it heard the song, the skeletal soldier turned back and looked in Sam’s direction. It didn’t have any eyeballs, but those empty sockets saw Sam. From where Sam was hidden under the table it should have been impossible for their eyes to meet, but still, they saw each other. Sam immediately shot at it.

Then he turned on his heel and ran out of the exit at the back, finding himself in a narrow alleyway just wide enough for one person.

He could see the church spire in the sky, which was punctuated by tall buildings on both sides of him. The Odradek was still pointing in that direction. There was no way Sam could get lost now, so he began to run. It sounded like the aerial bombing campaign was still in full swing as several bombers darted by, streaming bombs out of their bellies, and vanished. Explosions sounded all across the town as it crumbled into rubble and went up in flames. This confusion was a good opportunity for Sam. It could have hindered the movements of the skeletal soldiers somewhat. The church spire was almost upon him. It was just a little farther until a gap in the path. A soldier flew out from the buildings, and when Sam turned around he could see one standing behind him, too.

He was cornered. He dropped low and tackled their legs as he dodged their fire. Even though they were only made of bones, each one of them felt like they weighed just as much as an adult human. Sam snatched up a handgun from one of the fallen soldiers and shot it in the chest. Several ribs shattered into dust and a small flame blew out from where the heart should have been. As Sam looked on, the flames spread, engulfing the rest of the skeleton.

Next, he shot at the soldier approaching from the rear as it charged forward, firing without pause. Every bullet went wide as the gap between them shrank. Sam’s opponent seemed to have run out of ammunition as he tossed away his rifle and brandished an army knife. Sam aimed at his undefended chest but missed. That was his last bullet. All he could do was dodge the flailing knife and lunge at the soldier’s chest. Their bodies entangled, but the moment they hit the floor, the soldier’s helmet slipped off with a clunk onto the cobbles below. More than half the soldier’s skull had been blown off. It was strange enough that these skeletal soldiers were able to move in the first place, but for them to be so animated in such a broken state felt even more ominous to Sam. The very bone that should have held their brain in place was missing, yet they fought as if still alive. As he held the soldier down, Sam saw his chance.