If he started to think about it, he would die. He would break, he would simply crumble under it all. Everything... everything, it just...

...it was too much. Finding a beacon of hope had never felt as hard as it was now.

He wanted to ran away. To hide, to pretend none of this had happened, to pretend like everything could still be as it was, like maybe this was all really just a very bad dream. It was almost strange how he had such a selfishly childish side left in him, and how miserable it was to see it all brought back now in this way.

He wanted to shut down. To find a shelter, a haven, anything that took him away from it all, even if it was useless, even if it was a lie, even if there was no escaping it.

He wanted to have something that stopped him from thinking, anything, because how could anyone shoulder all of this all alone?

But he couldn't run away. There was nowhere left where he could hide, alone, where all of this wouldn't follow him.

He couldn't pretend, because his lies would crumble to dust in its very early foundations, every single wishful image he could try to summon drowned by the ones of reality, of glass caskets and measured vital signs, of dead bodies forced to remain alive and living bodies that had not even been born yet.

He couldn't shut down and find a mental shelter, because he'd need something else to focus on and he had nothing, nothing relevent enough or good enough or important enough as Lisa, as their baby. Beyond them, all he had left was war: strife and fear and death. And even that brought him back to Lisa; to the thought of her that made him go through every single one of those Hell fields and survive; to the thought of her in her glass deathbed that wouldn't let her die but wouldn't let her be alive again. This now was just another form of war, just another form of strife and fear and death, only now Lisa was not his haven anymore, she couldn't hold him anymore and tell him it would be alright, now it was his turn to hold her and be her haven and he failed, he failed, he failed time and time and time again.

All he could do was nothing.

So he couldn't have something, anything.

Nothing. He wanted to be nothing, because nothing doesn't feel pain, doesn't feel guilt, doesn't crumble under the weight of being an useless fucking piece of shit that can do nothing to change anything.

He'd done nothing.

Pain makes it hard to think. Makes it hard to see what is effectively in one's control, what can actually be done to help someone else. Makes it hard to accept ruthless truths, because what could he effectively do that he had not done? That he had not tried, every single thing in his power to do?

Cliff could only feel guilt. Fear. Failure. Powerlessness. And he could not feel anything else.

It was easier to just be nothing. To want to forget everything, to forget the utter uselessness. It felt like the only way to keep breathing.

It doesn't last, though. Not when the nothing is filled with guilt and self-loathing. Not when you feel exhausted unto death because you are alone, it doesn't last because you know you are not alone.

The breath of air forced into his lungs both relieved him and smothered him. That convolution of feelings that would overwhelm him each time, that made him want to run away harder and that gave him absolute resolve to stay, even if tears pushed to his eyes and tremors clasped his hands.

How could he ever wish to be nothing when he had to be everything for their baby? God help them both, it was true; he, out of everyone, a crumbled ruin of a man lost in his grief and fear, had to be whole and strong for an unborn baby who deserved to have everything in the world. Who would that beautiful, perfect human being have left, if Cliff just proved his uselessness further by hiding, by running away, by wanting to feel nothing?

How could he be nothing? It was his turn to be a haven, a shelter, to be something important for someone else, to be everything.

It was terrifying. A fear greater than any battlefield he had survived through, where he had to keep looking for that beacon to guide him back home.

Finding a beacon of hope had never been as easy as it was now.

.

the end

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.

Author's Note: This could perhaps happen before that memory when Cliff is beating himself down, or around that time frame/mental state, even though obviously it was never easy for him to deal with his family's situation all throughout; he simply started to focus as much and as well as he could on his son and his well being.

Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer at the end, but I obviously don't own Death Stranding. We all have our little regrets in life