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

Behind him, Deadman could hear Die-Hardman speaking to Sam.

“What’s it been, Sam, ten years? Look at us—a bunch of deathless freaks, meeting like this…”

Die-Hardman waited for an answer, but it never came. Only the rhythmic electronic noises emitted by the ventilator and EKG pierced the silence.

“Yeah, well, good to see you, too. President’s waiting.” He moved closer to Sam, his voice a low growl. “It’s your mother. Bridget. She’s a bit out of it, but I know she’ll recognize you.”

Deadman adjusted the bed, raising it so that the president was sitting up. Her eyelids fluttered open slightly.

As the president grimaced, Deadman whispered into her ear.

“Madam President, we’ve brought Sam.”

The president smiled weakly. Deadman beckoned Sam over, who finally approached the bed. The president let out a pained sound. She lifted her frail arms and attempted to remove her breathing mask. Deadman tried to convince her not to, but a nod from Die-Hardman stopped him in his tracks.

Deadman gently removed her mask.

Her voice was little more than a croak, as if she was using all her willpower to squeeze it out from the depths of her throat. Her face had grown even paler in these few moments since waking.

“We’ll leave you two alone,” Deadman whispered into the president’s ear. He left her bedside to make room for Sam.

“Sam. I knew you’d come back,” Deadman heard from behind him as he and Die-Hardman exited the Oval Office.

No one was left in the room but a son who had just returned from the world of the dead and an aged mother who was about to depart for it.

CAPITAL KNOT CITY // PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE

“Are you doing alright?” the president asked. There was less life in her eyes these days. She had a gentle smile on her face, but her gaze was unstable and roaming. She tried lifting her arm, searching for Sam. Sam backed away from the bed slightly, unnerved by the thin and fragile-looking limb.

The president closed her eyes. All Sam could hear was the beeping of machines and the president’s ragged breaths.

A sudden movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. An antique quill sat in the pen holder atop the president’s work desk. Sam felt like he had seen it somewhere before. The feather of the quill was swaying rhythmically and its movements seemed to match the timing of the president’s breathing exactly. She breathed in and then out. The feather moved up and down to that exact rhythm. Sam was transfixed by it.

“Yeah, I know you hate me,” admitted Bridget.

The quill suddenly became still.

“Amelie—”

“Amelie?” Sam asked.

“You remember Amelie went west. Took her three years to cross. She’s trying to rebuild the country.”

Sam couldn’t bring himself to look at Bridget. He focused on the quill instead.

“Still going on about that, huh?” Sam muttered.

“You’re the one I wanted to send, Sam. Time’s running out.”

The president was having trouble inhaling her next breath.

“Sam, help Amelie.”

Sam was urging the quill to start moving again.

“She needs you,” Bridget pleaded.

Sam shook his head. But the president couldn’t see.

“You can make America whole.”

Finally, it clicked. Bridget had told him about the quill before. It was the quill used by the Founding Fathers when they signed the Declaration of Independence. The gravely ill president had inherited it from her forebears.

“Sam, if we don’t all come together again, humanity will not survive.”

“We don’t need a country. Not anymore,” Sam countered.

“We do. Alone, we have no future.”

A broken, whistle-like sound came out of the president’s throat. Her eyes were tightly closed as she tried to endure the pain. Sam averted his eyes. He didn’t want to see her like that. He wanted to grab the quill and snap the antique in half.

“No, America’s finished. Bridget, you’re the president of jack shit,” Sam snapped.

The president’s eyes gently opened and she looked right at him.

“Sam! Listen to me. Lis… Ah…”

Sam felt a burning pain in his left wrist and jerked backward in surprise. But Bridget was clinging to him. Despite her condition, he couldn’t get her off. The pain of her touch seared his wrist.

“Sam!”

Her voice reverberated around the office and she wouldn’t let go. Sam’s aphenphosmphobia was turning his left arm a dangerous shade of crimson. He twisted his body, crashing this way and that to try and wrestle his hand free. Bridget was falling out of the bed and the cords and tubes attached to the medical devices all disconnected with a pop.

The stand that held the drip crashed forward onto the desk, hitting the quill. The ominous pen that still seemed bound to Bridget was surely broken…

But it wasn’t harmed at all. The pen that had immortalized the pledges of the founding of this nation had survived, would continue to survive—to commit the future dreams of the nation to paper, too.

Bridget had fallen on top of Sam. She was crushing him. Not just with her touch, but the weight of the nation behind her.

Sam couldn’t support her any longer and fell backward. Bridget was clinging to him with the strength of someone in the prime of their life. Bridget’s face was illuminated by the light streaming into the room. She crawled toward him, black ink pooling beneath her from the tubes ripped from her flesh. She reached for his wrist, her fingers brushing his skin.

“So you are willing to help me.”

“No, I—”

Sam tried to rip the cuff away from his wrist to shake Bridget off, but she smiled at him. It was a look of understanding. The cuff was a symbol of Bridges and proof that he had sworn to rebuild America. But he didn’t want it. He shook his head. Bridget’s smile was fixed as her gaze sunk to the floor.

A photograph had fallen onto it. It was the same photograph that Sam had almost lost in the cave. There, between an awkwardly smiling Sam and a woman whose face had been worn away by the timefall, stood a younger Bridget. The dying woman recognized it, and put her hand on Sam’s chest. She tried to speak but her eyes fluttered closed one last time and she collapsed to the floor. Sam could have sworn that he’d heard Bridget thank him.

He was still unable to let go of the past. At least, that was how Bridget seemed to have interpreted the photo. Her mind had been made up. This was the president’s Oval Office. The sacrifice who determined the path of the country was the master in here.

— I’ll be waiting for you on the Beach.

Sam heard a voice. He searched for its source, but the panicked screech of the monitors echoing around the room drowned out every other noise. He didn’t hear the voice again, only the machines and the incoming commotion from the door.

The device on Deadman’s right wrist suddenly began to vibrate violently. A biometric warning flashed up on the monitors. When he looked up, the door was already open, and the director was already running through. Deadman rushed in behind him. The large window was covered in black and the dome that had once straddled the bed to protect it was lying on the floor like an empty shell. The work desk was thrown into disarray. On top of the desk, the pen still stood upright, perfectly poised. There was no noise except the harsh warning beeps of the machines.