Hello, my friends! Here's my first Godzilla related story, ever. I'll make up a discussion thread that you can post in. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: G-Day.
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Seventy years ago, the eyes of the world were torn open. People died, lives were broken. A city was wiped off the face of the planet. We had thought it was over. We had thought that the horror had ended with the second atom bomb. We thought we were safe. We were so wrong. The bombs were nothing compared to him.
The first to see him were the unfortunate crewmen of fishing ships off of the coast of Odo island. The reports said that the ships had been lost in a storm, crushed by gigantic waves. The half-drowned men who washed up on Odo said otherwise. They spoke of an unearthly, terrible sound. Of a gargantuan dark shape, beneath the water. It brought the storm, they said. It brought the waves. The islanders heard these tales, and it brought fear into the hearts of their elders. An ancient legend, that seemed to be coming true. Less than a week later, the island was caught in an immense storm. Waves crashed over the island, washing away kilometers of forest and several villages. Rain pounded away at the islanders' roofs, and the wind deafened them. But something else was there, that night, hidden by the storm. Some caught glimpse of it, illuminated by the lightning. They heard it. A sound beyond the thunder, beyond the waves and wind and rain. Something beyond nature itself. They said that when they looked outside their homes, something looked back.
Come morning, most of the island was left in shambles. Sections were flooded, wiped clean by wind or wave. But that did not worry the survivors half as much as what they saw that night. Reports of the islands condition, as well as that of the inhabitants reached the mainland fast. Aid teams were sent in, photos were taken, news was made, and everyone moved on. Few listened to the words of the islanders, to their warnings.
In a few days, for the people of the city of Tokyo, the world came to an end.
The photos, the films, told a story we couldn't believe. There was nothing left standing in the city. Only rubble, dust and ashes. Thousands of refugees flooded the surrounding area, looking for shelter, for food, for medical aid. Many were less fortunate. There were many graves dug that year. More than a few were empty. People went missing, without even a corpse to prove that they had ever existed. I remember a recording made that year. It was of several speakers, each taking their turn at the podium. The first was some authority figure, addressing plans for rebuilding, for restoring what was lost. He had a kind voice. He said that the government would do all they could to help the refugees. I remember him quoting Robert Oppenheimer, the American. Oppenheimer had spoken about how the world would be changed by the advent of the bomb. He said that what had happened would change the world beyond even that. He passed the podium to the older man beside him. Kyohei Yamane. The famous biologist. The man who made the first study of the monster.
The photos were released to the public in newspapers and journals all across the world. Some thought they were fake. They would not be blamed for thinking that. There were no close-ups. Not of him. All that was captured were little glimpses. Jagged spikes, piercing the surface of a tidal wave. A rough surface, like cooled lava. A lucky shot, capturing the light reflected by an eye the size of a human being. But two shots stood out. One, of a massive pillar, stretching into the heavens, behind a set of electrical towers. The towers are forty meters tall. The pillar dwarfs them. There's a cloud of dust around the pillar. The bottom juts out, and is partially sunken in the ground, which has collapsed beneath it. Then, as you look at it, you see that the pillar has scales. Claws. It's a leg. A single leg, dwarfing the towers, and the pitiful artillery cannons that are stationed in front of them.
But it is the last photo I remember best. This is the photo Yamane featured in his study. It is an image of the city of Tokyo, during that fateful night. Most of the city is aflame, burned by the fires of fallen military vehicles. There's an enormous cloud of smoke and dust rising from the distance. Where the cloud stems from, every building has collapsed. Yamane speaks about this image in his speech. I know where that speech took place. A memorial was built there. A section of street, sunken in, the dirt, the concrete, all compressed beyond belief. The sunken section was measured to be nearly forty meters in length. It is this depression Yamane stares at when he mentions that night.
In the photo, there is something behind the cloud of dust. A shadow, rising above the city. It reminds me of those old depictions of dinosaurs, in a way. But this was no dinosaur, no animal we could comprehend. This was the creature whose foot left that depression. A beast larger than a skyscraper.
We called him Gojira, after Odo island's legend of a sea god. But the Americans gave it a new name, which seemed fitting for the new god of our world;
Godzilla.
Last edited by LazerWhale on Sun Oct 18, 2015 6:57 am, edited 4 times in total.
We lost sight of him that day. When the smoke and flames and dust had cleared, he was gone. Even leaving, he left tidal waves in his wake. We all wanted to know just what had been unleashed upon us. A living weapon. Some abomination, an unwanted child of arrogant science. The wrath of God. All explanations made by frightened people who were trying to rationalize something far beyond them. Again, it was Dr. Yamane who they would call upon for an answer. And so he appeared before a consulate, accompanied by his colleague, and future son-in-law, Dr. Daisuke Serizawa. You should know his name well enough.
The assembly began. Yamane asked Serizawa to present his findings. What Serizawa said was recorded for all to hear.
“My close friend, Dr. Kyohei Yamane, has asked me to speak upon the nature of the creature that destroyed Tokyo. The creature the people of Odo island knew as ‘Gojira’. I was surprised when Kyohei came to me for help on the matter. I am not a biologist, as he is. Nor am I known for being approachable.”
With these words, Serizawa produced a small stack of papers from his coat.
“I have, here, the research done by Dr. Yamane. He brought this to me just over two weeks ago. He brought my attention to the latest page, the analysis of the traces of Gojira’s presence left in Tokyo. This is what Kyohei showed me. ‘Higher than average levels of radiation were left in the areas Gojira was present in’. Two things shocked me about this finding. One is that this form of radiation is typical of the fallout of a nuclear bomb. Gojira must therefore have had contact with such a weapon fairly recently.”
At this point, the background chatter on the recording went silent, as the meaning of the words sunk in. The creature had lived through nuclear fallout. It was beyond belief.
“I called an associate of mine. We had hoped to do research on the aftereffects of the atomic bombs developed during the War. He had been present during the atomic tests earlier this year. I had told him what Yamane had discovered. Over the phone, he told me that we had to meet in person. He arrived within the week, bearing a parcel. He only spoke four words to me that day, before he left the country again.
‘We should have known.’
I learned that he took his own life later that evening.”
Serizawa produced, from the stack before him, a single paper.
“This is a letter of confidentiality, signed by my associate. It says that allowing anyone to receive the information collected on the date, March 1st, 1954, is an act of treason. I was confused. We had the information on the Castle Bravo test. We know that it was unexpectedly powerful. We mourned the loss of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru. What more was there? What did my friend see that made him kill himself?”
Serizawa pulled several photographs from his pocket, and placed them on a projector that Yamane had procured for him. Tears had formed in his good eye.
“This image. This is it. This is what was hidden from us!”
There, projected on the screen behind him is a long range shot of the mushroom cloud. It’s been magnified. There, silhouetted against the explosion’s light, is that same form. No one needed any more detail to recognize it.
“I told you that Yamane’s findings shocked me for two reasons. One was the traces of radiation from the test’s fallout. The second was that the readings were too faint to indicate radiation poisoning. Gojira wasn’t dying. He was thriving. Gojira was not created by science. He was not born of the bomb. We did not make him. All we did was call him to us.”
Serizawa reached over and shut the projector off. He was silent for a moment, a dejected look on his face. He slowly reached up and touched the eye-patch he became so famous for wearing.
“I have spent the past nine years trying to escape the horrors of war. I’ve tried to end the horrors. We all saw what the bombs did to our country, and yet… We still think that we can use such things and then forget about them, as if they’ll just echo away. But something has answered the echo. You, all of you, asked us to tell you what Gojira is. I can answer that question. He is our judge. He is our executioner, and now we must live with the noose around our necks.”
At last, the doctor fell silent. He turned away, his head hung. That’s where the recording ended. Serizawa shook the world as much as Godzilla did, I think.
Thirty years would pass, before we saw Godzilla again. Thirty long years of chaos, disorder, and rebuilding. Thirty years of pretending we were ready.
Thirty long years of silence.
Last edited by LazerWhale on Sun Nov 08, 2015 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chapter 3: The Black December
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I'm sorry that I'm drawing this out so long, but it's important that you know just how we got here. Maybe, if we had remembered the past, things would be different today. Maybe I wouldn't have a story to tell. But right now I do, and I intend to finish it.
In the years following His first emergence, the world entered a state of upheaval. All at once, people seemed to realize that no one had control over the situation. There were riots, government-level strikes, exoduses. People scrambling for safety, for stability, leaving everything behind if they had to. Those who could afford to fled the coastlines, making their ways to "safe" cities several kilometers inland, leaving behind years of history that before had meant so much. Many of those who couldn't flee tried to adapt, to build shelters and stockpiles, fortresses for the unfortunate. Others just prayed, for salvation, or for an end to their misery.
Industries that relied on the sea, fishing, offshore oil drilling, took a massive blow. Many employees either quit, or demanded massive pay raises and compensation. The cost for any product that depended on offshore resources, and there were many, inflated staggeringly. The social dependence on oil alone meant that the world was faced with economic disaster. That is to say nothing about the widespread panic and sense of defeat that gripped the people of every nation. For many, there was no point in trying to live life. Why try to think for the future, when every day may be your very last? Every campaign, every struggle, every conflict lost meaning, for what are the trials of Man where a God is concerned? The leaders of the world's nations decided that something had to be done to restore hope to humanity, or their downfall.
On March 7th, 1955, representatives of each available country met to establish a single united force. This was the founding of the U.N.A.G.I., the United Nations Anti-Godzilla Initiative. News venues across the globe scattered a hopeful message to its people; wherever He surfaced, whenever He showed himself, U.N.A.G.I. would be there. And they would be ready. Maybe the promise was an empty one. At the time, no one could say for sure. But I know this, it gave every man, woman, and child hope, reassurance in knowing that someone was looking out for them. In the following months, their resources were assembled. Fleets of ships, the naval forces of dozens of countries patrolled the coastlines, arming themselves with the most advanced technologies that were available. Coastal cities received installments of long-range motion, seismic, and radiation detectors, early warning systems that, with luck, would announce His arrival before it was too late. It was easily the greatest combined effort in human history.
Yet, those foreboding signs that marked His arrival never came. The world held its collective breath, but nothing came of it. Time passed by, and the world began to settle. Perhaps they believed that His attack was a one-off thing, that His arrival was no more than a deviation. In an instant, twenty years had come and gone, and the sensors remained silent but for the movements of lone whales. The patrolling fleets became listless, unmotivated without any outcome to their efforts. Some remained convinced that He would return, of course. Some expected it.
On the third of August, 1975, Dr. Serizawa arrived in Tokyo city, along with Dr. Yamane, Serizawa's wife Emiko, and their young son Ichiro. The city had undergone significant reconstructive efforts since 1954; the city would not be able to function as well as it once had, but some elements were salvageable. As a city emerged from the sunken, flooded wasteland, it stood as a beacon, a sign that humanity could overcome the fear and panic that He had brought.
That August marked one of the last times Daisuke Serizawa would make a public appearance.
"I understand that, in recent years, many have decided that the danger is passed, that He won't ever return. That we're safe. To me, no thought is more foolish. We all saw what He can do, what will happen if he surfaces again. And yet we've dropped our guard, said that one of the greatest tragedies of human history was a fluke!"
Serizawa stands in front of the camera. He looks angry, perhaps disappointed. Behind him, Emiko clutches Ichiro to her chest, comforting the infant. Yamane rests his hand on her shoulder. They all look so worn out, so tired.
"I was here when he emerged. I didn't witness the attack, but I certainly saw the aftermath. Emiko, Kyohei, they saw everything. I have always regretted not being able to do anything then, but we have a chance now, to prevent another day like that. And if the governments - if the people - of this world would risk destruction because they're tired of the effort, then let them!"
He steps towards the camera. Emiko looks down, hiding her gaze. Yamane just looks on. He knows that the doctor speaks the truth.
"Go ahead and call off the search, disband, fall upon your old ways. Fight your wars, your conflicts. He will return. He will return to remind us all how small we really are. And when the cities, when the battlefields, when your homes are dust and ashes, then you will know our place in this world."
He's shaking. His shoulders have dropped. He's not even fifty, but he seems so old.
"Humans are weak creatures. We're afraid of what's bigger than us, but we're even more afraid of admitting that anything is. But we have to. For now, until some miracle frees us, we need to admit that we are at his mercy unless we act. Unless we prove that we can adapt, admit to our arrogance, then He will destroy us."
He turns from the camera, his head hangs. He glances back, stops mid step.
"For years I've thought that we were doomed to be the cause of our own destruction. Don't let me be right."
Serizawa walks back, past the others. He doesn't speak to them, doesn't seem to see them. He walks to the railing at the edge of the bay, and stares out.
The footage ended there. A few weeks later, the news reported that Emiko left him, taking Ichiro with her. Apparently, he didn't even try to stop her. He didn't do anything at all. Dr. Yamane still provided his professional support, where he could, for the following years, but Serizawa may as well have not existed. I can't help but compare him to Godzilla, in a way. Both had faded from daily life, after all. But only one would remain forgotten for long. The First Emergence had been dismissed with time, but all remember the Black December.
A year or so back, I met with a man who claimed to be from U.N.A.G.I.’s Osaka Station. He agreed to lend me files related to the event.
"Attention Osaka station, this is Offshore Detection Point OD-14, come in Osaka Station, over."
"This is Osaka Station, we read you OD-14, what is the situation? Over."
"We just picked up something on the long-range systems, over."
"Can you identify the reading? Could be a pod of whales, over."
"I don't think so, readings are high on the sonar and seismic systems, this is something big, over."
"OD-14, please identify the reading, over."
"..."
"OD-14, please identify the reading!"
"Shit. It's Him. God damn it, it's Him."
"Are you sure, over?"
"Checked the radiation and water displacement, it only can be Him."
"OD-14, what is His trajectory? Over."
"He's coming inland. He'll be there in a few hours. God, this is actually happening."
"...Understood, OD-14. We'll begin evacuation immediately. Thank you. Is that all? Over."
"... Yeah. That’s it. Over and out."
This was the last transmission ever sent by OD-14. Shortly after, the Detection Point was destroyed by the tidal wave that preceded Godzilla’s approach.
Debriefing of Junji Himegawa, Commander of Osaka Station’s A.T.A.V. (All Terrain Assault Vehicle) unit “Jūden-ki” by U.N.A.G.I.
" Please state your name and rank."
" Commander Junji Himegawa, from U.N.A.G.I.'s Osaka Station."
" Do you recall the events of December 15, 1984?"
" Yes."
" Can you please tell us about the events of that night?"
" Yeah, I can do that."
" My men and I had been sent in about a half-hour after He made landfall, along with several other squads. My first thought had been that we were too late."
" What do you mean?"
" The area was a mess. The whole thing was flooded, and a good deal of what wasn't washed away had collapsed. All the smaller buildings were just...gone. We were using these new vehicles, the A.T.A.V.s, amphibious things that had been designed for that situation, so we weren't slowed down much. Still, it wasn't fun. There were a lot of things floating around in the water. Bad things... We worked our way through the streets, following the seismic readings. The skyscrapers, too."
" Skycrapers?"
" Their foundations were strong enough to keep most of them standing. Still, whole chunks of the structures would be missing, wherever He brushed against them, and sometimes He didn't even go around them, just ploughed through them like they weren't even there. It was nightmarish, really. The dust and smoke had filled the air, building up above the city. With the skyscrapers just standing among the destruction, it was like another world. And then we got close enough to hear Him. I can't think of any other creature that makes a noise like that. It's this sort of low rumble, you feel it more than you hear it, it shakes the earth. And then you get close enough that you realize that you've just been hearing the sound of breathing."
" Please try to stay on track, sir."
" One of the men, this kid who had been transferred from Russia, he begins to panic. He starts trying to climb out of his vehicle, trying to get away, and we hated him then, because he was doing what we all wanted to do. So his friends, they strap him down, tell him to be quiet. He pisses himself, but he agrees. We all were quiet, then. I'm not entirely sure if we found Him, or if He found us, but I do remember this blast of dust shoot out of the street ahead of us, a skyscraper falling down just over a kilometer away. The building comes down, and suddenly, there He is. I have a question for you; You ever seen him? For real, I mean."
" No. Not for real."
" Then you don't know what it's like. I saw a skeleton of a blue whale, as a kid. Thought it was the biggest thing ever. These days, I think otherwise. Nothing on this planet should be that size. He was just standing there, at first. I think He noticed our lights, or maybe the sound of our engines, and He was looking right at us. His head was so high up that I had to crane my head to see it, even at that distance. I know that some people say that He's a dinosaur, or a lizard or something, but I don't know what the hell He is. I don't think we even have a name for it."
“Sir-”
" We try to radio in, confirm His location, but there’s an interference, a distortion. We decide, then, that we wouldn't get another chance. If we were going to die, then we'd do it on our terms. The A.T.A.V.s were equipped with special shells, some armour-piercing, explosive mix that releases thermite and phosphorus for added effectiveness. They were designed to be able take down warships. The units in the rear, the ones with the best shot, they fired off at His eyes. Softest tissue, I guess. The shells explode, and we all give a little cheer, because he actually recoils a bit. Then he looked down at us again, and we see that there's not a scratch on him. We all let loose, aiming wherever we can. We light up several city blocks with the light from the explosions."
" And He just stands there, no indication that He feels any of it. He roars. It shatters the windows on the buildings, shakes everything. I'm bleeding from my nose, my mouth, pure pain and sound blasting through my body. Our gunner drops from his seat. Any of us who are still conscious try to retreat, reversing as fast as the vehicles could go. He takes a step forward, His foot sinking into the ground. The shock wave destroys the vehicles in the front, actually making them burst, if that makes any sense. They don't explode, just...tear apart. We keep going. I had been friends with some of the people we left, but we just kept..."
" Sir, please keep your composure."
" Right. Right... We hid from Him for maybe a few minutes, before He seemed to lose interest. By then, our number had been reduced to about ten units. That's, maybe fifty men who were still active, probably less considering all we'd been through. We didn't see a point in trying to split up, He'd pick us off, one by one, but once we’d gone far enough, He seemed to forget about us, started moving northwest. We were tired, scared. We wanted to end it. So we decide to follow. We moved along the waterfront, tried to stay a few kilometers from him at all times. Eventually, though, he found what he was looking for.”
“ And what was it?”
“ Osaka Station. But you already know that, don’t you?”
“ Please continue, sir. Why was He interested in the Station?”
“ Turns out, we’d had a storage of nuclear weaponry at the Station the whole time. I didn’t know about it, the men didn’t know about it, even the _______ Russian didn’t know about it and I’m guessing that he and it came on the same ship. Godzilla knew, though. He smelled it, or however He finds radiation, and He followed it. We found Him there, hunched over the Station. It had collapsed upon itself. He leans down to the rubble, let’s out this growl. That, damn noise, still hear it in my dreams. He presses a … hand, paw…. whatever it is down on top of the main facility, and everything just gives way. There’s an explosion, but He doesn’t seem to care. He just rips up the entire storage area, lifts it right out of the ground. And He just bites into it, crushes the whole damn thing with his jaws. It explodes, but He doesn’t care. It can’t hurt Him”
“He was attempting to consume the weapons?”
“ You make it sound like there’s a chance that He could fail. He ate them, simple as that. Crushed them into scrap and swallowed them whole. He went through an entire city, destroyed the whole area, so He could have a meal. All because we decided to store radioactive materials on the base.”
“What happened then, sir?”
“ You know what happened then. We turned tail and ran.”
“We want to know everything.”
“ Fine.”
“ We weren’t sure of what we were going to do, then. We just sat there, watched Him. God, I can’t even describe what it was like to watch Him. No fighting, no hostility, just watching. It was almost surreal, us tiny little things and this living mountain, just quiet like the world wasn’t turning. And all of a sudden, He just turns his head to the sky. A storm was building, and I guess He smelled it on the wind. I remember how the sky was full of dust and smoke, and the clouds mixed up there. Lightning began to flash and, I don’t know, it just seemed to offend Him. He roared up at the lightning, drowning out the thunder. He roared at it like it was some enemy that had offered a challenge. He hated it. We didn’t stick around for the rest.”
“...Thank you, sir. One final question: Do you believe that the Black December incident could have been avoided?”
“ Seriously? You honestly have to ask that?”
“...Yes, sir.”
“ I’ll tell you what I think, then. I believe that the flooding of the Osaka waterfront was completely unavoidable. I believe the destruction of more than eighty percent of the city’s infrastructure was completely avoidable. The loss of OD-14, Osaka Station, and all the people stationed at those facilities was completely avoidable.”
“Sir-”
“I’m not finished. The loss of any unevacuated civilian lives during the attack was completely avoidable. The loss of seventy good soldiers, people I had served with, people I knew, people I was friends with, was completely avoidable. Does that answer your question?”
Chapter 4: The Coming Storm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'When referring to Gojira, there is a tendency to proclaim him some form of more familiar creature. We call him a dinosaur, a lizard even, when in truth he is neither of these things. These are not cases of simple ignorance, mind you, but rather they are our attempts to place Gojira into a familiar category, and thus in our minds rationalize him. We are, for the most, part incapable of comprehending exactly what he is. Though I strive to be a man of science, the moniker of 'God' that has been applied to him consistently seems the most apt...'
An excerpt from 'Gojira: Understanding Monsters', by Dr. Ishiro Serizawa
I first learned the name 'Godzilla' when I was only three years old. I learned it before I learned the name of my grandparents. He has been a part of our existence for so long, I realize. Over seventy years. And yet we know next to nothing about Him, and what we do know is merely the product of decades of speculation. The only thing that is certain is His age. Our God is over 200 million years old. Older than our entire species. Entirely new continents have formed within his lifetime. We know this because of everything that woke up following his second appearance. The rise of an previously unknown ecosystem of life.
The first appearance of these strange anomalies of nature was in the Polynesian islands, only a few weeks after the Black December. Fishing populations on the islands began reporting incidents of 'deformed' sealife being found in their catches. Local governments soon turned to UNAGI, which sent research teams to the populations that had been sending in the reports. These researchers made no delay in sending in reports of their own. The implications of what they found unveiled a dark truth about our world. The following is a brief summary what an UNAGI research team found while investigating a beach on the island of Tongatapu, 12th of January, 1985.
Arriving on the island via helicopter, the small research team, led by New Zealander biologist Alwin Fortuin, were escorted to the costal town that had sent in the original report from the region, where they met with the local officials. From there, they were taken to the beach, and presented with the specimens that had caused such a stir. The menagerie they were presented with was an almost eldritch collection of organisms that were both familiar and wholly alien at the same time.
'Specimen 03: A creature vaguely similar to a leptostracan crustacean, though larger than any on record, to my knowledge. While all species classified as Leptostraca can be measured in millimetres, this specimen is three centimetres in length, and strangely weighty for its size.
Specimens 05a-f: Several organisms that I cannot compare to anything but oversized trilobites. The largest, 05c, is 153 cm long, and weighs an approximate 40 kg. These specimens have abnormally resilient physiologies; despite lying in the sun for over a week since the initial report was made, barely any decay has been noted and with 05c in particular, nothing less durable than steel tools have been successful in breaching its carapace.
Specimen 06: Unknown species of cephalopod. Specimen is 256 cm long, and was likely light grey in colouration (specimen appears to be in a state of desiccation). The large tentacles of the specimen contained in their heads, of all things, liquid nitrogen, seemingly capable of being released via several barbs on the tentacles tip, presumably giving a freezing touch, so to speak. The bizarre biology required to maintain this makes this specimen a priority for examination.'
I copied these notes out of UNAGI's archives. To anyone alive today, the nature of these animals is obvious, but when the research team stood on the beach wThey were written by Fortuin during his time on the beach. Obviously, none of it was made public then and there, but one specimen in particular would prompt UNAGI to consider the situation with a far greater degree of severity.
'Specimen 08: Unknown arthropod exoskeleton. The specimen bears some resemblance to eurypterid sea scorpions, but bearing far more developed limbs and mouthparts than the order is known for. The specimen measures 361 cm long, and despite being a hollow shell, weighs a significant value. The exoskeleton shows signs of having been discarded in a molting process, though to imagine a creature large enough to necessitate the disposal of a covering of this size is a chilling thought.
*IMPORTANT NOTIFICATION FOR UNAGI PERSONNEL - SPECIMEN 08 HAS SHOWN NOTABLY HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION. FURTHER TESTING SHOWS THAT ALL SPECIMENS ARE AT LEAST MODERATELY RADIOACTIVE. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE QUARANTINE OF AFFECTED BEACH UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE*'
At first, the link to Him was not obvious; ideas were proposed that the organisms were irradiated by manmade nuclear materials, or through contact with Godzilla some time before they were caught and brought to that beach. But the dissections of the specimens, done in full protective gear in the quarantined area, showed no signs of radiation poisoning. Indeed, the tissue of the organisms seemed to be healthiest where radiation count was at its highest, and when tissue samples were introduced to a sealed chamber containing spent fuel rods, even the dead tissue drained a portion of the radiation. These creatures hadn't been contaminated by Godzilla; they were like Godzilla.
We call them 'ultrafauna'; organisms of unprecedented size, durability, and longevity. And like Him, they feed on radiation. And so, after He appeared, it seems that they slowly reanimated from whatever dormancy they were left in, eager to feed on the scraps He left in His wake. Like Him, they come from an ecosystem unlike any that exists today. A brutal world, where might made right, and to survive it they developed into unyielding juggernauts of nature. The Age of Monsters.
But where did Godzilla fit into that world? We had no idea. He was so far above even the other ultrafauna that He appeared to be an anomaly for His own time as well as ours. Perhaps what some thought was correct, and He really was a God, existing only to control the world with fear and the threat of annihilation. Or, perhaps, we were wrong about everything. After all, we never understood Him. I suspect we never will.
This all brings me to my own story. A few years before I'm writing this, I asked a good friend of mine a question.
I asked him, "Do you ever wonder how the world will end?"
He told me, as we looked out at what once was a city, from the top of a husk of a skyscraper,
"I never have to."
I couldn't help but agree with him.
