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

Skeletal arms pounded Sam’s back. It felt like he was being hit with steel. In fact, the pain was so bad that it knocked the wind out of him. His grip slackened for a moment, and before he knew it, their positions were reversed. The soldier was straddling Sam with one hand around his neck and the other balled into a fist, attempting to rain punches down on him. Sam dodged the fist as he rammed the ammunition clip clutched tightly in his hand into the soldier’s chest. Another rib broke.

The soldier stopped moving. Sam thrust the clip at it once more with all the strength he could muster. The bones crumbled and disintegrated into fine particles. The particles gave off the red light like embers, eventually setting fire to the soldier’s chest.

It let out an inhuman scream of agony as the flames engulfed it and it disappeared.

Sam brushed away the fallen sparks and stood back up, before leaving the alleyway and continuing toward the church.

The church bells were ringing to an insane rhythm.

Unlike the exterior of the church, its interior was in a sorry state. The arched roof was riddled with holes and the heaven depicted there broken. The stained glass had melted muddily and the pews that had once seated the churchgoers were charred black from all the fires. The air was filled with the stench of decay, which quickly enveloped Sam. On the altar right in front of him lay an offering of a small whale on its back. That was where the smell was coming from.

The Odradek showed that the man was here. It had formed into a stiff cross shape and stood unmoving. Lou wasn’t crying, but still seemed to be trembling with fear.

Something fell on the altar. It bounced off the whale’s exposed belly and rolled to Sam’s feet.

It was a doll. But its eyelids were opening and closing furiously as if it was having a fit.

—BB.

Sam turned in the direction of the voice to find the man standing there.

“Give me back my BB,” he said.

As soon as the man opened his mouth, the sound of a gunshot rang out. The bullet grazed Sam’s shoulder before lodging itself in the altar directly behind him. The bullet had still caught him with enough force to throw his balance, and he crashed backward with it. Blood trickled out from the tears in his uniform.

Sam clutched the pod containing Lou with both arms, as if to hide it. The blood from his shoulder wound trickled down his arm, dirtying its exterior. The man looked down at the unsightly form of Sam, clumsily sat on his ass against the altar. The man’s expression seemed to flicker for a moment. Sam thought he could see a flash of sadness, but it soon disappeared.

“Give me back my BB,” repeated the man, almost as if muttering deliriously. He slowly lifted his arm and pointed the gun toward Sam. But for some reason, Sam didn’t feel the same bloodlust that he had felt right after the man first appeared.

“Let it go…”

The man’s tone was vague. It was like he was remembering something. Sam glared at the barrel of the gun and shook his head. He couldn’t leave the BB. He had no reason to hand it over. Lou didn’t belong to this man.

The man was slowly tightening his finger’s grip on the trigger. Sam thrust out a single hand and tried to cover the barrel. Even if he had to lose this hand, he would never leave Lou behind.

The man’s face once again contorted into a sad expression. His focus was no longer on the pod, but on Sam’s hand. The man was trying to remember something. That much Sam was sure of.

Who the hell was this man? He didn’t belong to this battlefield. He wasn’t like the other soldiers, who simply continued to slaughter one another as apparitions of this warzone.

The man had something in his head, but it seemed like he couldn’t express it.

There was a crash of thunder, and the stately wooden doors to the chapel blew open before shattering into pieces and bursting into flames. When he saw it, the man screamed something. It was an animalistic roar full of anger and fear. He was howling at the entrance.

Perhaps he was enraged that the pristine spire had been broken, or scared this holy ground was about to be defiled. The only thing Sam could be sure of was that the man was confused. Sam mustered the last of his strength, got back up, and sprang forward. But the man was quicker as he turned and blocked him.

Arm crashed into arm and shoulder rubbed against shoulder. At that moment, a shard of metal jutted out from near the man’s collarbone.

It resembled Sam’s Q-pid and was attached to a chain around the man’s neck. The force of the collision toppled the man over backward.

The shard around the man’s neck burned red. Sam’s own Q-pid emanated heat, almost like it was responding.

Somehow, the fallen man seemed to have lost the will to fight, but as Sam looked into his eyes, they weren’t those of a man who had given up completely and was ready to surrender. If Sam finished him off now, then he would be able to return to his own world. But his confidence was shaken. This man wasn’t dead like a BT.

Defeating him wouldn’t send him back anywhere. This man was after a different kind of funeral.

“BB…”

He wanted Lou. But there was no way Sam would hand Lou over. If this child was neither born nor dead, then there was no reason to hand Lou over. Sam only wished he could have done something so that Lou could have been properly born into the world of the living.

The man reached out. He was riddled with injuries, yet still staggered to his feet and began to step toward Sam. Sam readied his gun with his left hand and defended the pod with his right. But that was all he could do. He couldn’t move forward, nor could he move back.

The man frowned and squinted at Sam as if blinded by light.

“BB. BB… This is all my fault.” The man tried to touch the pod. “I should… I should never have put you in that prison, BB…”

The man was crying. Black tears rolled down his face. The man mustered strength into his arms and pulled the pod toward him. He was so surprisingly strong that Sam toppled forward. The two became entangled and writhed on the church floor. Sam grabbed the man’s neck as he tried to tear himself away, but something coiled around his hand.

Time seemed to flow extremely slowly. The man’s bangs swayed and Sam could see everything in minute detail, from his fine movements and ensuing flying specks of mud to the chain from which the metal shard hung as it broke and flew away from the man’s neck. Sam pushed the man away and attempted to stand. The man was face up and made another grab for the BB.

Sam’s eyes met those of the man. It was like he was being sucked into them. He felt that he would drown in those eyes, which were deeper than any sea. He felt like he was being dragged down eternally, slowly crushed to death by the water pressure of this ocean, never to return to the surface again. Sam closed his eyes as fear took hold.

MOUNTAIN KNOT CITY

He was drowning.

He had been swallowed up by the sea, the source of all life, and now Sam was drowning.

This universe came from a bang. This planet from another bang. When life eventually emerged, what nurtured it was the sea that had cooled down this molten rock. Eventually, life crawled out of the sea and onto the land, where it became a slave to gravity on the frontier known as the earth’s surface and formed new chains of existence.

Then the scorned mother ocean became a vengeful goddess and drowned all the life on that earth. The Beach was her pathway to exact her revenge.