Higgs could feel himself growing impatient. The situation was overwhelmingly in his favor, yet their fight was not progressing as planned. I need more power. He sent his will to Amelie asleep in the spider’s web, but she didn’t wake up. What does this mean?
Sam’s injury-riddled body suddenly seemed to look much more imposing than before.
Things between Higgs and Fragile Express went great at first. But Higgs soon had to face their limits. No matter how great Fragile’s abilities were, they couldn’t turn this world into one that he dreamed of for everyone. Even if they were able to make deliveries and keep people connected, people still couldn’t go out into the outside world.
This world where the timefall fell, where BTs attacked, and layers of chiral cloud separated them from the rest of the universe would never change. It couldn’t change.
Now that Bridges’ plan to rebuild America had been put into motion there were more terrorist attacks than ever before. And with more terrorist attacks came more bodies and more BTs. Voidouts were happening everywhere. If they had just kept quiet and stayed put then this would never have happened. The Earth was crawling with different motives and purposes, each battling it out to reign supreme, but it felt to Higgs like he was the one choking on them all. These were the limits of humanity.
But then he met someone who surpassed those limits.
Her name was Samantha America Strand and Higgs knew from the moment he first spoke to her that she was the only one who could make his ideal world a reality. She told him that she would lend him the power to restore the world to its former glory.
The symbol of her power was a human-shaped BT sensor called a Bridge Baby. It wasn’t a real baby. Instead, according to Amelie, it was a child who had been born on the Beach and who could connect the realms of the living and the dead. She explained that if Higgs used one, he could always stay connected to her. She told him that BBs were the new children born into a new age.
I’m no ordinary porter.
I’m the one who’ll create a new world.
Higgs didn’t need to borrow Fragile’s abilities anymore. Now, he was able to dream again.
BBs were dolls who took the form of babies. But they weren’t just any old dolls. They were neither living, nor dead. They were something in between human and doll, much like the mummies of Egypt with only their shriveled, dried-up hearts still in place in their chests.
Higgs believed the BBs were a symbol of humanity.
The Death Stranding was the sixth mass extinction event to strike life on this planet. Higgs saw it all in his visions. The visions that he was sure he was being shown because of his connection with the BB. In other words, the visions that were being shown to him by Amelie.
The voidouts that had suddenly occurred the world over one day, and the subsequent transformation of the dead into BTs that caused ever more, were all phenomena to speed human extinction along. It was already set in motion.
There was no meaning whatsoever in trying to rebuild America. No reason to sacrifice the lives of those already living for the chance of a tomorrow that would never come.
Higgs asked Amelie the true meaning of the Death Stranding. But she never answered him. Whether she knew it or not, she never told him anything. But Higgs somehow understood it all. So did Amelie. Extinction was a foregone conclusion.
Yet Amelie was still trying to rebuild America. Perhaps that was the final struggle. The final hesitation. Higgs couldn’t understand what was going through Amelie’s mind, but if she was hesitating, then he’d make the decision for her. He’d bring extinction to everyone on this planet. That’s why he needed to get stronger. Detonating a nuclear bomb had been an expression of that urge. He wiped the whole of Middle Knot City off the map. Fragile had been the one to smuggle the bomb into the city. She didn’t have the slightest idea that she was the one who delivered its destruction.
The city had blown up because of its connection to the outside. Connections brought ruin. It had been well documented for centuries. When people began to move between continents they brought new diseases with them, sometimes so bad that they wiped out over half the native population. The human race would die. Now even the delivery systems were being used to hasten the extinction. That must have been why Higgs had joined forces with Fragile. Why they had expanded the delivery network. Everything had been preordained from the start.
It was around that time when Higgs first heard about Sam Porter. He had DOOMS and the exceedingly rare ability to repatriate from the dead. When Higgs found out that he was Amelie’s adoptive brother, the jealousy drove him insane. Sam had found meaning in survival by connecting people to people without connecting to them himself. Higgs felt like he was looking at a past version of Peter, and that only further fanned the flames of his envy.
After researching Sam, he realized something. Amelie was constrained by Sam’s existence. She seemed to believe that if anyone could rebuild America, it was him. If Amelie was ever going to be able to demonstrate the true extent of her power as an Extinction Entity, Higgs needed to sever her bond with Sam.
After finding out that Sam was near Central Knot City, it was him who had formulated the plan to leave a dead body within it and cause a voidout. When he found out that the body had been discovered he summoned a BT to consume the men on the Corpse Disposal Team. Central Knot City was wiped out just as planned. Not only was it the self-proclaimed capital of America, it was also home to Bridges HQ and Bridges II. Higgs had wiped them all out. The plan to rebuild America had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
But Sam repatriated.
So even a voidout doesn’t kill a repatriate? What a stubborn creature.
When Higgs found out that not only had Sam repatriated from the dead, but that he had now departed as the sole member of Bridges II, it only enraged him further. He decided to speed up the inevitable conclusion to this saga even more.
Your DOOMS abilities are worthless. I have SODOM. And with this power, I’ll turn the Earth into my power’s namesake and watch it burn in fire and brimstone.
AMELIE’S BEACH
“I am the bridge who brings the extinction!” Higgs screamed, letting go of Sam’s ID strand and making Sam tumble back into a swamp of tar. Higgs took advantage of Sam’s fall and charged. Connecting the Extinction Entity to this world and ushering in the extinction was his purpose. The tar grabbed at Sam’s legs, making it more difficult to move as Higgs lunged at Sam’s hips and took him down. Sam was half-submerged in tar as Higgs grabbed his hair and punched him in the face. It no longer looked human, covered so thickly in blood and tar. He knew the truth of the Death Stranding. The meaning behind the Sixth Extinction that neither Sam nor even Amelie understood. Its horror. Higgs punched Sam again as he tried to shake Higgs’s arm away. He gripped Sam’s skull tight, wanting to crush it into dust, and plunged him deeper into the tar. It didn’t matter that he was a repatriate. If he suffocated him here, Sam wouldn’t be able to come back. It was time for Sam to die. “You can watch this world go up in flames from the realm of the dead. There’s no way back for you this time. You’ll just have to be satisfied with the show!” Higgs ranted wildly, strengthening his grip on Sam.