Death Stranding: The Official Novelization, Volume One

Despite his calm voice, the eyes behind his spectacles had lost some of their composure.

The hologram of Deadman lowered its head. The surgical scars across his forehead were soaked in sweat.

Igor flashed Deadman a look. He knew there was no time to waste. He only had a few hours. And there were very few Corpse Disposal Team members. If Igor was even slightly delayed, it was very likely that he could kiss goodbye to everyone in the city.

Igor gestured toward some equipment on the wall and asked if he would need it. Deadman nodded silently. This wasn’t going to be a straightforward disposal. As Igor put on his uniform and picked up his equipment, Deadman spoke again.

So, there was still someone worth a damn on this continent? Someone who could actually do something good for this dead-end world?

With that, Deadman’s hologram disappeared.

The noise and vibrations of the truck’s motor resonated through Igor’s body. On his left, the driver kept one hand on the wheel while wiping at the sweat on the back of his neck with the other. Igor instructed him to stop the truck before the front gate. He had worked with this driver many times before. Igor’s job was transporting corpses from isolation wards to the incinerators. Every day was like walking a tightrope. If he put a single foot wrong, he wouldn’t just be risking his own life, but the lives of everyone in the city. Normally, he at least had the gift of time, but not for this job. There wasn’t a second to spare. If he was just the slightest bit late, the corpse would go necro and cause a voidout, wiping out the whole city.

The truck slowed down as they approached a figure. Igor could barely make out the man’s features through the glare of the distribution center lights behind him. He seemed to be a match for the man in the profile, though.

The truck rolled to a halt and the hydraulics hissed as metal groaned against metal, lowering the cabin closer to the ground. Igor exchanged looks with the man outside. Faint frown lines were etched between the man’s eyebrows. Igor thought that it was because he had seen the Bridges mark on the outside of the truck. So, this is the savior who is going to get us out of this mess.

Igor opened the door and climbed down from the cabin. He strode forward and held out his hand.

“Igor. Bridges Corpse Disposal.”

Their supposed savior averted his eyes from Igor’s hand. Igor realized that the man wouldn’t take his hand, but he kept it held out regardless. “Sam Porter Bridges, I presume.”

The man’s face twisted in a wry grimace, which Igor took as a yes.

Igor remembered the notes on Sam’s profile: a freelance porter who suffered from DOOMS, he had been a member of Bridges up until around ten years ago. Ever since his time in Bridges he had displayed symptoms of aphenphosmphobia and couldn’t stand physical contact with others.

“What happened?” Sam may have refused to shake Igor’s hand, but at least he met his gaze directly.

“Look, gotta get a move on. I’ll explain as we go. Come on,” Igor said, turning back toward the truck’s trailer. Sam’s footsteps followed behind him. “Come and take a look.”

Igor climbed up onto the trailer and gestured toward a piece of cargo fixed to the center. It was around the same length as an average human male, a big, lead-colored chrysalis.

“He’s got a date with the incinerator,” Igor explained.

Sam climbed up onto the trailer, and inspected the dead man in the body bag. “How long since he flatlined?” Sam asked, fixated on the body. It was clear Sam understood the peculiarity and urgency of the situation.

“We don’t know the exact TOD, but I’d say it’s been upwards of forty hours.”

Their eyes met. “He wasn’t quarantined?”

Sam’s voice was a mixture of anger and confusion.

“He wasn’t sick. This was a suicide.” The word alone brought back the details from Deadman’s briefing and Igor was brought face-to-face with the weight of their mission.

“Oh… Jesus,” Sam muttered, staring at the body.

“We’re just lucky we found him at all. We got him on ice ASAP, but who knows when he’ll go necro.”

As he explained the situation to Sam, Igor couldn’t help but feel like he was covering for the dead man. Dying undetected and undiscovered and eventually going necro meant turning into the ultimate weapon of destruction. Unless you were a baby who was blissfully unaware of the concept of death, there wasn’t a soul on the planet who didn’t know that. Suicide no longer meant killing only yourself, it involved other people now, too. To put it bluntly, suicide was an act of terrorism.

“Where are you taking him?” Sam’s voice sounded somewhat reproachful.

Brushing it off, Igor booted up the device on his wrist. The device projected a map in front of them. “Closest incinerator is to the north.”

Icons representing Sam and Igor’s current location along with the location of the corpse incinerator were displayed on the map. Sam screwed up his face.

“This route’s crawling with BTs. Sure you can’t use another?”

“I wish I could, but there’s no time.” They had no choice; the corpse had been discovered far too late.

“Then just burn the poor bastard right here,” said Sam.

“And put all that chiralium into the air so close to town? Can’t do it.”

Igor looked back toward the town. Sam was right, though. Burning the body right here instead of attempting to make their way through a route infested with “them,” the BT monsters left behind from former corpses, was the safest option.

But the chiralium released when a corpse was burned lingered for a long time, and exposure caused all kinds of issues: depression, apocalyptic nightmares, even suicidal thoughts. And this was the entrance to the city. It would have to be abandoned, severing the links with the few cities left and those outside.

“Hey. We can do this. We just need someone like you, with DOOMS.”

Sam didn’t answer. He simply removed his glove and felt the body bag with his bare hand.

The skin from Sam’s palm to his wrist turned red like an allergic reaction. DOOMS sufferers were afflicted with the ability to sense death. The rest of the skin hidden under Sam’s uniform was probably covered in goosebumps and also turning a dark red. Sam removed his hand and inched his head closer to the body bag. He was sniffing at the “death” emanating from the body. A deep line crinkled between his brows.

“Well, he’s already in the first stages of necrosis. If we don’t hurry, this place is a crater.”

There was no other choice but to aim for the incinerator.

“So how ’bout it? Can we count on you?” Igor asked.

Sam leaned back away from the body and nodded. Igor offered his hand once more. “Then Bridges hereby enters into a contract with Sam Porter.”

Sam glanced once at Igor’s hand before turning back to the corpse. So, he could touch a corpse, but he couldn’t bear to shake the hand of a living person? Igor shook his head, resigned.

“It’s Sam. Just Sam.” Sam began retightening the straps holding the body in place in the trailer. Igor kneeled down beside him and followed suit. “And I can’t spot BTs. Just sense ’em,” Sam muttered as he adjusted the belt around the body’s ankles. Igor understood. The notes had warned as much, but it was still a big help. Normal people like Igor couldn’t even sense BTs. If he didn’t have specialized equipment that could sense the world of the dead, he wouldn’t have a clue where “they” were. Igor tapped on the equipment attached to his chest. “That’s why we came prepared.”

“A Bridge Baby, huh?” Sam observed.

“With its help and you, we’ll be able to stay one step ahead of ’em.”

Igor’s words were more to convince himself than anyone else that it would be alright, but he tried to hide his misgivings by taking the end of the cord attached to his abdomen and connecting it to the jack on the pod.

In an instant, the world turned upside-down. A mass of heat ran all the way up from Igor’s tailbone through the top of his skull. The world began to twist and distort, a consequence of the tears that were forcing their way out of his eyes. Sam’s face now appeared deformed like an abstract painting.

No one could accurately explain the origin or theory behind this equipment. It was a system that appeared at around the same time the world got this way. It took the form of a Bridge Baby, a newborn suspended in a transparent chamber filled with amber fluid, who could connect the world of the living and the dead, but it had been artificially developed.

The Bridge Baby twitched a little in the pod connected to Igor’s chest. Bubbles formed and popped within the artificial amniotic fluid.

“Makes me feel like shit every time.” Igor wiped away the tear running down his cheek, sniffed, and looked at Sam.

“Well, you are plugging into the other side.”

To Igor, Sam’s words sounded muffled, like he was speaking through a thin veil. He still hadn’t managed to master the tuning of all his senses. His field of vision was unstable. He closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids. Somewhere in the depths of his ears, he thought he could hear the laughter of the Bridge Baby. His eyes snapped open in response, only to find the stiff look on Sam’s face, his gaze locked on the pod. Igor could still hear the laughter of the Bridge Baby.

“Roll out!” Igor shouted to the driver. There was no time to spare. Whatever the case, this corpse had to be disposed of thoroughly and correctly. They had to deliver the body to the world of the dead and make sure that it could never come back.

The motor revved and the truck began to move out. As they drove through the gate, the sun disappeared in the sky. Thick black cloud was the only thing that awaited Sam, Igor, the truck, and the corpse.

Igor booted up the device on his wrist to check where they were. If they continued like this then they should make it in time. It was a big “if.”

“The world was different when I was a kid,” Igor piped up, holding onto the handrail in the trailer. If he didn’t say something to take his mind off their mission, it would overwhelm him.

“America was a country. Anybody could go anywhere they damn well pleased. No need for couriers like yourself.”

Sam was staring off into the distance. Igor couldn’t tell if he was listening or not, but that didn’t matter. Igor needed to speak, to say anything to hold back the overwhelming fear of what they were attempting to do.

“We had highways, airplanes, hell, you could even visit other countries! Hard to imagine it now. As you can see, the Death Stranding poked us fulla holes. Fucked us beyond all recognition. And if you were lucky enough to survive, the timefall came and washed you away…”

Highways, planes, other countries, America. They only existed as words now. Concepts for things lost in the Death Stranding. It was surely only a matter of time before the words did too. Things were the first to go, followed by language. The name of colors, animals, food, vehicles… The names of feelings shared between human beings. They would all disappear eventually. And even if the words did survive, they would no longer have any connection to reality. They would be sacred and devoid of meaning. America was breaking down into an abstraction, a set of ideas without basis in reality. It was becoming more or less like God.

Eventually, the generation who were born after America disappeared, like Sam, would become the majority. Then America really would be like God: only the word would remain. Along with the issue of devotion. Like a religious cult driven by their burning belief and fervor, the country would most likely become responsible for tragedy after tragedy.

That’s why people like Igor, who actually knew America, had to take it back. Before it became like God. Before the timefall washed it all away. Before monsters destroyed this world.

“Then those freaks from the Beach showed up. Not that I have to tell you.”

A slip of the tongue. Igor glanced at Sam, but Sam’s expression gave nothing away. The lack of reaction spurred Igor on.

“The worlds of the living and the dead all mixed together… And that’s when folks started holing up in the cities. And couriers like yourself got put up on a pedestal.”

Igor had been about to say how that included himself and the other corpse disposal teams, but his words died in his mouth. Before them stretched a rainbow. Not a normal rainbow, curving up from the ground toward the sky. Instead, its arch was upside-down, bursting from the clouds down toward the ground and back up again. An evil bridge that carried monsters over from the other side.

Igor pointed at the inverted rainbow. Sam surveyed the sky, most likely already aware of it, and then turned his gaze back down to the body bag in the trailer.

A black, tarlike substance was leaking out of the dull, lead-colored body bag. Especially out of the abdomen area. The cries of the BB rang inside Igor’s ears. His view of the world around him distorted once more. Countless specks were flowing out of the black mass and floating up into the air. When he looked a little closer, he could see them each spiral upwards, twisting into a single, thick rope. It was the first time that Igor had ever witnessed it.

The ha was beginning to go necro and the ka that was seeping out of it was trying to drag the Beach here.

The Beach was a place between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It supposedly wasn’t a part of the physical world, but a special “place” that existed in a different dimension. Normal people like Igor couldn’t sense it, unlike those with DOOMS. When they tried to explain what they were able to see, they often described the world of the dead as an ocean and the boundary that connected that world with this one as a beach. The sea, mother of all life, became synonymous with the place the dead returned to. And when the dead crawled out of that ocean and across the Beach to become stranded in this world, it became known as the Death Stranding.

Sam held his hand out over the body and felt the abdomen where the twisting black thread rose from the navel. His palm turned an angry red instantly.

“How much farther to the incinerator!?” Sam shouted. Tears were streaming from his eyes. The body bag was almost entirely covered in the black mass now. The sky was darkening in response.

“This guy’s about to pop!”

“Shit. We’re gonna have to cut through the BTs!” Igor tapped on the rear window and signaled to the driver. The truck accelerated and changed course to the left. Igor tightened his grip on the rail and crouched down low to avoid getting thrown from the trailer. This close, he got a good look at the body. The necrosis was spreading, farther gone than he’d ever seen. Igor didn’t know how many bodies he had moved before. Most of them were safe; they had been able to estimate the time of death. All Igor and his team had to do was collect terminal patients from the isolation ward once they had reached the end stages of whatever was afflicting them. Even when they received corpses that had died suddenly in accidents, there was still plenty of time to spare before necrosis set in. This was the first time that Igor had needed to transport a corpse that was ready to blow.

Igor wondered what it was like inside the bag. The body had probably already decomposed into an unimaginable number of minute particles. The body bag was probably the only thing left to give the remains any semblance of shape. It was a casket of soft woven synthetic fibers. Once unbound, the mass would cease to look like a body at all.

The truck leapt up into the air. Igor and Sam gripped onto the handrails with all their strength. A wind powerful enough to stir up the ground beneath them blew from behind, throwing the two men around like ragdolls in the trailer. As Igor squeezed his eyes shut to brace for the storm of dust about to bear down on him, tepid drops of water began to fall on his cheek.

His skin tightened. An itch quickly became a pain, spreading across his entire face. He’d felt this before—the sting of rapid aging. Where the water touched his skin, it left a trail of wrinkles and gray hair in its wake. Sensing the timefall, the hood on Igor’s uniform automatically deployed, covering his head, Sam’s doing the same opposite him.

The timefall didn’t care, driving down harder and harder.

When they looked up, the entire sky was filled with black clouds, dark as the tarlike substance pouring out of the body bag. The light of the sun was completely blocked out and a pall of darkness covered the landscape. The same way the timefall snatched away time from whatever it touched, the chiral clouds it fell from stole all sense of night or day. No matter how many times Igor had experienced it, it was something he had never gotten used to. The world felt suddenly wrong, and there was no way to orient himself.

The headlights of the truck pierced this blanket of darkness and illuminated the torrential sheets of timefall. As Igor focused on gripping the rail, his nostrils were hit by the smell of the sea, though they were nowhere near any ocean. The salty air flooded his senses and sent tears streaming down his face as he breathed in the unmistakable stench of the world of the dead.

The motor whined and the headlights blinked off. In this world of only rain and darkness, the truck had lost all power and stalled. The driver was shouting and was struggling to get the motor going again. “Don’t worry. This is just a temporary blackout,” Igor shouted through the rear window, trying to keep his voice steady but it came out full of panic. Timefall interfered with electromagnetic waves and frequently brought down electrical systems. But they usually restarted after a while.

“Calm down.” Igor was no longer just repeating that for the driver’s sake, but his own sake too.

As if his prayers had been answered, the driver’s seat lit up as the headlights blinked back on. Igor looked at Sam with a faint sense of relief when he noticed that Sam’s focus was toward his left shoulder. The tip of the Odradek sensor mounted on his shoulder had opened up like a splayed hand. Waves of chills, nausea and dizziness washed over Igor, combining with the smell of the ocean.

The dead were inching nearer but Igor had no idea which direction they would come from. The nervous Odradek was flickering open and closed as if trying to grip onto the very sky itself. It was the only equipment they had that would coordinate with the Bridge Baby to show the position of the dead. If the BB sensed the dead, the Odradek would show where. But how could it not find them in an aura of death this thick?

“Sam, can you see anything?”

“No, nothing!” Sam shouted back, temper flaring. There was no doubt that Sam could also sense the presence of the dead all around them, his DOOMS ability just as highly tuned as the Odradek’s mechanical sensor. He peered out of the trailer through the dense cloud surrounding them. Igor rapped on the pod. C’mon, help me out. Where are the monsters?

Something like a whine came from the baby and the Odradek began to swing around wildly, like a broken windmill.

“This BB must be busted or something,” Igor said.

All of a sudden, the motor roared back to life. The tires screeched across the ground beneath them and the truck began to shoot forward once again. The driver thrust his foot down hard to escape the aura of death that was engulfing them. Igor gripped the handrail even tighter so that he didn’t get thrown off. The numbing stench that had been offending his nostrils felt like it passed through his nose and out the top of his head. The rotating Odradek came to an abrupt stop. The robotic claw folded into a cross and pointed directly in front of them. That only meant one thing.

That’s where they were. The truck was headed straight for them.

Igor tried to yell at the driver to change direction, but it was too late. The truck was shuddering hard as it raced across the rugged terrain and the air was filled with the screams of the driver and the screech of the brakes. Igor could see a large black handprint stuck firmly to the windshield over the driver’s shoulder, but its owner was nowhere to be seen.

Igor’s body lost all sense of weight. He thrust his hands out, groping for anything to hold onto. There was nothing to grab. He was screaming something, but couldn’t seem to form any words. Igor was thrown from the trailer and smashed into the ground.

Igor awoke to the sound of groans. He picked himself up off the muddy ground and looked around. The groans were very close. The truck had tipped over on its side. Beneath it, Igor found the source of the pain. The driver was pinned, his whole lower body hidden under a pile of metal. He was frantically twisting his body and waving his arms as if trying to fight off a wild animal. Drenched in timefall, his face had already transformed into that of an old man. It was contoured with deep lines and his hair was a snowy white, but the groans that pleaded for someone to save him still betrayed the man’s youth.

Knowing that he had to save him, Igor started toward the truck when he noticed a movement from the corner of his eye. It was Sam. He was walking in the direction of the body bag which had been tossed out of the trailer with them. He was half-dragging his right leg behind him. The blackened body bag began to glow gold where it used to cover someone’s face. It looked like a casket with a warped golden mask stuck to the front. Countless minute particles were welling forth from the stomach area, stretching out into a single thread that rose up and beyond into the sky.

This was the final stage of necrosis. The step before humans transformed into monsters instead of passing on peacefully.

It was a scenario that he had only ever heard people tell stories about. A process that he had been lectured on when he was first assigned to the Corpse Disposal Team. And now, it was playing out in front of him.

When humans die, their ka escapes their ha. This was a concept that had been investigated by the ancient Egyptians and explored the two elements that made up life. When the body, or ha, necrotizes and lingers in this world, the soul, or ka, becomes lost in search of it. It remains in the area where it died, looking for it for the rest of eternity. Bodies had to be burned immediately to let the soul know that there was no longer a body to go back to. If the body wasn’t burned, the soul would become a Beached Thing and continue to search for the living.

The last thing they needed was another body going necro. Igor slid his arms under both of the driver’s armpits and braced his feet against the ground to try and pull him out. But the driver wouldn’t budge. All Igor could do was try and ease the screaming driver’s fear and pain.

“Shut up! Don’t even breathe!” Igor turned back toward the sound of Sam’s voice and clasped both hands around his mouth, realizing his mistake. The driver followed suit.

The cross-shaped Odradek pointed above them and began spinning rapidly, illuminated with the orange warning light that meant BTs were right there.

Just as Igor and Sam couldn’t see the BTs, the BTs couldn’t see Sam or Igor. They sought out the living by homing in on breathing and other sounds. For those without a high level of DOOMS, the only sign they were near were the oil-slick handprints left behind as they hunted.

A handprint appeared on the door of the overturned truck right at Igor’s side, before another then another, making their way farther and farther down the vehicle. A BT was groping for them in the dark.

Igor held his breath, praying he wouldn’t make a single sound. That was the only way they were going to get out of this mess.

His prayers were answered. The sickening black handprints traveled away from the pair. Igor turned to thank Sam for raising the alarm, but he was about to speak too soon. The body bag began convulsing. It shook violently, twisting and contorting the bag, but soon it started to lessen. The shuddering grew gentler until it stopped altogether.

The straps binding the body bag snapped apart loudly one after the other. A sticky, tarlike substance pooled on the ground underneath the body as small particles of glittering dust floated up from the golden death mask that had formed on the outside of the bag.

Sam looked up. “Shit. It’s necrotized.”

The handprints returned as if they had heard Sam’s murmur. Or, maybe they were here for the newly necrotized body—their new friend. All Igor could do was watch the trail of handprints as he kept his hand firmly clasped over his mouth.

Sam fell backward into the mud, scrambling to get away from the handprints, his hand also clasped tightly over his own mouth. They seemed to be confused. Were they after Sam? Or the body? Please be heading in the direction of the body. Igor was praying again, but no luck. The handprints began to move toward Sam. Those whose deaths had been interrupted—the necrotized dead whose ka never made it to the other side—relentlessly pursued the living.

Sam held his breath, dragging his leg as crawled backward. He could now see how much blood he was losing from it, even in the darkness. Despite this, Sam threw Igor a look that urged him to escape. The handprints stopped. It was almost like they were carefully considering something. Igor couldn’t let this opportunity that Sam had given him go to waste. He strained his arms to try and prize the driver free once more.

But the driver was already past his breaking point. He began to wail in agony, couldn’t stand the pain any longer. That roused the monster. The handprints changed direction toward Igor and the driver, no longer lost but focused. They were coming at full speed. That wasn’t all. Igor could feel the presence of the dead from the truck behind him. They were surrounded.

Igor let go of the screaming driver and stood up. Silently, he begged the driver to be quiet. The driver’s screams were leading the dead right to them.

If you were unlucky enough to get caught by the handprints of the dead, they would try to embrace you. The living and the dead together. Matter and antimatter. When two things that were never supposed to meet were brought together, it created an immense explosion.

“Help me! HELP ME!”

The driver kept screaming. Those screams were proof that he was alive. Those screams were giving the dead something to aim for as they swarmed closer. Igor took out his handgun and pointed it at the driver. The dead didn’t want the dead. If the dead embraced each other, nothing would happen.

Igor readied his trigger finger. It felt so heavy that it didn’t feel like his own appendage anymore. Before Igor could gather his resolve to pull the trigger, the dead grabbed the driver. Unable to move out of the way, the driver’s body was yanked out from under the truck by an invisible hand and dragged into the air.

“Sorry.”

Igor’s bullet pierced the driver’s head and he died instantly. The dead lost interest in the driver immediately. Igor knew what he had to do next.

He shot a look at Sam that said he would be putting his faith in him to finish the job. But behind Sam, a figure appeared on top of the overturned truck. Following Igor’s line of sight, Sam turned around. It was too dark to make out the figure’s face, they were wearing a hood and cloak. Against their chest, a BB tank glowed red. The figure raised a hand into the air and pointed at something.

Igor could smell blood mingling with the stench of stagnant water. The insufferable odor of rotting fish. The smells crashed over him in a single repulsive wave. His head was splitting and feverish chills ran up his body. He was going to puke.

Right at that moment, a howl pierced the thick cloud cover.

It was neither a cry, nor a scream, nor a growl, but rather a dreadful noise that could shatter the resolve of any man.

The Odradek transformed into a cross shape and pointed toward a space in the sky.

The baby on Igor’s chest jolted around, pressing against the glass, then pushing away to hide.

It was here.

Igor’s feet slipped. The ground beneath him was no longer solid and had begun to stream away. The new, liquid ground coiled itself around Igor’s legs. Numerous pitch-black arms erupted from the water and tried to drag him down by the legs. They groaned with an insufferable hunger. He searched frantically, the ground around him had transformed into a sea of tar. There was no sign of the original terrain anywhere. Like a sea in slow motion, the tar around him swelled unnaturally and collapsed in on itself. The truck was gradually sinking between the waves and the silhouette that had stood atop it had disappeared once more.

The arms pulling at Igor’s legs fought harder to tug him into the churning tar. He chose not to look down at his feet, but rather up above his head. This was the end. The silhouette of a giant human figure towered over him. The head was obscured by cloud and the hands were gripping multiple ropes that were connected to the ground. The shadow yanked on the ropes, ripping up the ground to expose the innards of the Earth.

If he was eaten by that monster, it would cause a voidout. That’s what his manual had told him. Worst-case scenario.

The dead who had necrotized retained a lingering attachment to this world—not just to their own ha, but to all living things—and became stranded here, unable to move on to the world of the dead. And, if the dead, who were made up of a chiral substance like antimatter, came into contact with the living, it caused a voidout. Who the hell could have experienced that and lived to tell the tale in a manual? Igor thought it strange that such thoughts would cross his mind at a time like this.

“Run!” he screamed.

He gathered the last of his resolve. He was so sorry that he had gotten Sam involved in this. Igor ripped the pod off his chest and threw it in Sam’s direction. Then he pointed the gun up at his chin. Just before he could pull the trigger, he was swept off his feet. The enormous shade lifted him into the air, his world turned upside-down for him and the bullet misfired in the wrong direction. He couldn’t keep hold of the gun.

“Run!”

It was no longer a command, but a plea. He needed Sam to escape. If only he could buy him enough time to get away. Igor stretched for the gun, but it was no use. He took the knife from his waist and plunged it into the left side of his chest. But he hit the connection unit for his pod. Once more. He tore open his uniform with the tip of the knife, gouged into the flesh until he scraped up against a rib. And again. His pectoral muscles resisted as they tried to protect his heart from the blade. Again.

The invisible hand swung Igor around as it tried to prevent his suicide.

Igor could see Sam still standing there. He was holding the BB to his chest.

Run. Just take it and run.

Igor heaved a last burst of strength and thrust the knife into his heart. He didn’t feel any pain. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all. It was beginning to fade.

His body and consciousness separated. Death wasn’t like simply flipping a switch, it was a process that passed through phases. There was no such thing as a quick death. Igor’s ka knew that. Which meant that right now, at this very second, Igor’s body was not yet dead.

And with that, the giant consumed Igor’s body.

The dead and the living met.

Then came the voidout.

Igor and the giant both disappeared. The figures transformed into energy with immense speed, before swallowing, annihilating, and disintegrating everything around them. Central Knot City disappeared and Sam Bridges and the BB were consumed by the force of the voidout.