Bruticus
February 3rd, 2006, 08:17 PM
This is just a very short story (3 pages) I wrote while I've been bored the previous two nights. It takes place in the GMK continuum, but adds one of my own ideas.
---
The field was that of black soil, the vegetation that once grew there now stripped away. The morning sky was overcast, a light haze filling the air. The smell of smoke was carried on the cold winds, filling the boy’s nostrils with an unpleasant stench. The haze was beginning to irritate his gentle dark eyes, which started to tear up. The breeze chilled him, for he was dressed only in a light black sweater and navy blue shorts.
Tetsuo spat on the ground in disgust, playing with the car keys in his hands. "What the hell is this place? And why did you want me to drive out here?"
"Fifty years ago," Kazama replied, glaring at his son with icy blue eyes, "this place was called Tokyo." He snatched the keys from Tetsuo’s hand and shoved them in the pocket of his black leather jacket. "We’re going to be here a while, so you won’t be needing those."
"But what’s the point?" Tetsuo snarled, raising his hands in exasperation. "Are we looking for something important?"
"No," his father conceded.
"Are we meeting someone here?"
"No."
"Camping?"
"Don’t be ridiculous, Tetsuo - we haven’t gone camping for seventeen years."
Tetsuo frowned. "Then I don’t understand what we’re doing here."
Kazama didn’t reply. Instead, he bent down, digging into the soil with one hand. As Tetsuo watched, his father pulled a large, rusty bar of steel out of the soil, wiping away the dust with his other hand. For a moment he stared at it, contemplating, rotating it in his hand. Then he looked at Tetsuo, and nodded slightly.
"This looks like it could be from the old Tokyo Tower," he remarked, squinting at it intently. Tetsuo’s eyes suddenly lit up with understanding. Tokyo Tower... He remembered hearing about it at some point or another, but to see a piece of it was something else altogether.
"I guess I should feel lucky," he muttered to himself. Few people he knew had ever seen a piece of Tokyo Tower except in museums, where they also displayed old photographs of the skyscraper.
"Now granted," his father said cautiously, "it might not be from the Tower - in fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. However, at one point Tokyo Tower probably stood right about here. I’m just estimating, though; for all I know, this could have been a swimming pool."
Tetsuo ran a hand through his thick, black mane of hair. "What really happened to this city, anyway? In History class they teach us that a war devastated the entire city, but..."
"It’s a lie."
"That’s what I thought. But what could actually cause mass destruction on such a grand scale? This wasn’t some battleground fifty years ago. So what was it?"
Kazama sighed, and put his chin to his chest, closing his eyes. "Tetsuo, have you learned about the Nuclear Acts of 2007?"
"Yes, of course."
"Those acts were introduced for a number of reasons, but there’s one reason that they don’t teach anymore because the government now insists on secrecy. Tell me... has anyone ever mentioned the name ‘Godzilla’ to you before?"
Tetsuo froze. Something about that name sent a shiver down his spine, though he didn’t know what exactly Godzilla was. He had heard the name mentioned several times before, but nobody ever elaborated on it when questioned. They would throw up their arms and announce that they had nothing more to say about it. What was Godzilla that nobody could tell him about it?
"Godzilla," he sighed.
"Yes," Kazama said. "No one talks about Godzilla now, who he was or what he did. But fifty years ago, the very name would have inspired fear in all who heard it."
Tetsuo stared at his father, curiosity in his eyes. "Who was Godzilla?"
"They called Godzilla ‘the King of the Monsters.’ He was something that we created through our carelessness - something too large, too out of control for us to ever hope to contain. It was he who wiped out this once great city. He wiped the men and women of this city off the face of the earth with his sheer power."
"But what was Godzilla?"
"He was something like a great, black dinosaur - one reawakened, in fact, by nuclear testing in 1954. When he came to Tokyo in 1954, your ancestors fled in terror before his massive feet, his crushing tail, his very fury. He could set things on fire with ‘atomic breath.’ No one had the knowledge or firepower to stop him - no one except one man, who died as his weapon against Godzilla was used.
"But that weapon didn’t stop the King of the Monsters. He came back - big time."
Tetsuo scratched his chin. "Wait, so that weapon didn’t kill him?"
"Oh, it did. But Godzilla is beyond our understanding. I don’t know the full details of how he came back, but he did."
"Couldn’t they have used the weapon on him again?"
"No. When the man who created it died, his work disappeared and nobody could ever recreate it for future generations. If his work was still around, people might have been able to kill Godzilla again, but they would just as soon use it to kill each other. It would have been very dangerous for the blueprints to fall into the wrong hands.
"Anyway. But fifty years later, Godzilla was back. This time, he was even more evil, even more vengeful against mankind. His eyes were pure white and soulless, like those of a demon. No one believed Godzilla existed by this time, though, so you can imagine the terror the people felt. But he was not the only monster to come. Ancient legend foretold of three Guardians of Yamato who would rise again to defend their land - Mothra of the Sky, Baragon of the Earth, and King Ghidorah, the Thousand-Year-Old Dragon of the Sea."
Tetsuo scratched his neck. "Nobody has ever mentioned them before."
"It is sadly ironic, too, considering that those three were trying to protect Japan from Godzilla. Of course, they failed. For all of their power, they could not hold back the fury of the dragon’s storm. One by one, they were wiped off the face of the planet. The people of Japan thought the situation was hopeless."
"So what happened?"
"The only thing capable of killing Godzilla was himself. And so that’s what happened - ignorant of wounds dealt to him by King Ghidorah and the military, Godzilla tried to use his atomic fire on two people perched on a rock. But the beam ripped right through the wound. He tried, again and again, to kill the two humans. But eventually, he blew himself up. His heart sank to the bottom of the sea."
"So is he dead for good this time?" Tetsuo asked. "Or did he come back even after that?"
" Three years after Godzilla’s second rampage was when they finally introduced the World Nuclear Acts," Kazama continued, ignoring his son, "forbidding the use of atomic weapons anywhere on Earth. But fifty years ago, people finally learned that atomic energy isn’t what attracts Godzilla."
"So what did they learn?"
"They learned that Godzilla was not attracted to anything. Rather, he was repulsed, because humans still existed. He was the true master of this world, not us, and he intended to set the record straight. But they only learned this after, not before, his third coming.
"No doubt, how Godzilla kept returning even after death is a mystery. People said that it was because he could ‘regenerate.’ But nothing can regenerate after it’s dead. Therefore, I truly believe that Godzilla was immortal - and that he was greater than all things on this planet."
Tetsuo grinned mirthlessly. "Too bad nobody realized it beforehand."
"Some people did," his father replied. "But not enough to save the world from its greatest calamity. When Godzilla came a third time, he was something out of a nightmare. Blood dripped from those same soulless white eyes that he had fifty years previous. His skin released deadly waves of poison, causing those who would have initially survived his rampage to die agonizing deaths. And, as his beam had increased fivefold in power in 2004, so did it increase another fivefold in 2054. Nothing could stand in Godzilla’s way. He was not only immortal, but beyond immortal.
"The world’s military forces all united in an attempt to destroy the King of the Monsters. But not even the hundreds of thousands of tanks, planes, or super weapons that they deployed could wound him. They tried to use earlier methods that successfully killed Godzilla, but none of them succeeded. Attempts to recreate the Oxygen Destroyer, of which no blueprints survived, failed. The efforts they made to cause Godzilla to kill himself failed even more miserably. Too many people died in vain. And with nothing left to defend the world, Godzilla was free to not only destroy Japan, but destroy other parts of the world as well."
Tetsuo began to fidget with a pen in his pocket. "So that’s why Tokyo doesn’t exist anymore? Godzilla turned out to be so powerful that the city couldn’t survive his wrath?"
"Exactly. And of course it wasn’t just Tokyo that fell. Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto - you’ve seen what they are now, and it was all Godzilla’s fault. He wiped out entire countries, too - places called China and Russia were driven off the map by the fallout from Godzilla’s rampage. America barely managed to survive, but neighbouring countries were left in ruins.
"And then - nobody understands why - Godzilla just gave up and went back into the ocean."
For a while, there was silence. Neither Tetsuo nor his father spoke, but simply stared out over the gnarled grounds upon which Tokyo once stood. The haze and the smell of smoke began to clear as a light rain fell.
"So that’s why you wanted to come here," Tetsuo said at last. "You wanted to talk about this."
Kazama nodded. "Yes. That’s why. Of course, you’ve surmised that nobody can talk about Godzilla in public anymore - they’re trying to wipe out all memory of him and the horrible things he did. But as long as humans exist, Godzilla will make himself known to them. When Armageddon comes, he will be there."
As Tetsuo and Kazama turned to leave, a loud, elephantine noise echoed throughout the sky.
---
The field was that of black soil, the vegetation that once grew there now stripped away. The morning sky was overcast, a light haze filling the air. The smell of smoke was carried on the cold winds, filling the boy’s nostrils with an unpleasant stench. The haze was beginning to irritate his gentle dark eyes, which started to tear up. The breeze chilled him, for he was dressed only in a light black sweater and navy blue shorts.
Tetsuo spat on the ground in disgust, playing with the car keys in his hands. "What the hell is this place? And why did you want me to drive out here?"
"Fifty years ago," Kazama replied, glaring at his son with icy blue eyes, "this place was called Tokyo." He snatched the keys from Tetsuo’s hand and shoved them in the pocket of his black leather jacket. "We’re going to be here a while, so you won’t be needing those."
"But what’s the point?" Tetsuo snarled, raising his hands in exasperation. "Are we looking for something important?"
"No," his father conceded.
"Are we meeting someone here?"
"No."
"Camping?"
"Don’t be ridiculous, Tetsuo - we haven’t gone camping for seventeen years."
Tetsuo frowned. "Then I don’t understand what we’re doing here."
Kazama didn’t reply. Instead, he bent down, digging into the soil with one hand. As Tetsuo watched, his father pulled a large, rusty bar of steel out of the soil, wiping away the dust with his other hand. For a moment he stared at it, contemplating, rotating it in his hand. Then he looked at Tetsuo, and nodded slightly.
"This looks like it could be from the old Tokyo Tower," he remarked, squinting at it intently. Tetsuo’s eyes suddenly lit up with understanding. Tokyo Tower... He remembered hearing about it at some point or another, but to see a piece of it was something else altogether.
"I guess I should feel lucky," he muttered to himself. Few people he knew had ever seen a piece of Tokyo Tower except in museums, where they also displayed old photographs of the skyscraper.
"Now granted," his father said cautiously, "it might not be from the Tower - in fact, I’m pretty sure it isn’t. However, at one point Tokyo Tower probably stood right about here. I’m just estimating, though; for all I know, this could have been a swimming pool."
Tetsuo ran a hand through his thick, black mane of hair. "What really happened to this city, anyway? In History class they teach us that a war devastated the entire city, but..."
"It’s a lie."
"That’s what I thought. But what could actually cause mass destruction on such a grand scale? This wasn’t some battleground fifty years ago. So what was it?"
Kazama sighed, and put his chin to his chest, closing his eyes. "Tetsuo, have you learned about the Nuclear Acts of 2007?"
"Yes, of course."
"Those acts were introduced for a number of reasons, but there’s one reason that they don’t teach anymore because the government now insists on secrecy. Tell me... has anyone ever mentioned the name ‘Godzilla’ to you before?"
Tetsuo froze. Something about that name sent a shiver down his spine, though he didn’t know what exactly Godzilla was. He had heard the name mentioned several times before, but nobody ever elaborated on it when questioned. They would throw up their arms and announce that they had nothing more to say about it. What was Godzilla that nobody could tell him about it?
"Godzilla," he sighed.
"Yes," Kazama said. "No one talks about Godzilla now, who he was or what he did. But fifty years ago, the very name would have inspired fear in all who heard it."
Tetsuo stared at his father, curiosity in his eyes. "Who was Godzilla?"
"They called Godzilla ‘the King of the Monsters.’ He was something that we created through our carelessness - something too large, too out of control for us to ever hope to contain. It was he who wiped out this once great city. He wiped the men and women of this city off the face of the earth with his sheer power."
"But what was Godzilla?"
"He was something like a great, black dinosaur - one reawakened, in fact, by nuclear testing in 1954. When he came to Tokyo in 1954, your ancestors fled in terror before his massive feet, his crushing tail, his very fury. He could set things on fire with ‘atomic breath.’ No one had the knowledge or firepower to stop him - no one except one man, who died as his weapon against Godzilla was used.
"But that weapon didn’t stop the King of the Monsters. He came back - big time."
Tetsuo scratched his chin. "Wait, so that weapon didn’t kill him?"
"Oh, it did. But Godzilla is beyond our understanding. I don’t know the full details of how he came back, but he did."
"Couldn’t they have used the weapon on him again?"
"No. When the man who created it died, his work disappeared and nobody could ever recreate it for future generations. If his work was still around, people might have been able to kill Godzilla again, but they would just as soon use it to kill each other. It would have been very dangerous for the blueprints to fall into the wrong hands.
"Anyway. But fifty years later, Godzilla was back. This time, he was even more evil, even more vengeful against mankind. His eyes were pure white and soulless, like those of a demon. No one believed Godzilla existed by this time, though, so you can imagine the terror the people felt. But he was not the only monster to come. Ancient legend foretold of three Guardians of Yamato who would rise again to defend their land - Mothra of the Sky, Baragon of the Earth, and King Ghidorah, the Thousand-Year-Old Dragon of the Sea."
Tetsuo scratched his neck. "Nobody has ever mentioned them before."
"It is sadly ironic, too, considering that those three were trying to protect Japan from Godzilla. Of course, they failed. For all of their power, they could not hold back the fury of the dragon’s storm. One by one, they were wiped off the face of the planet. The people of Japan thought the situation was hopeless."
"So what happened?"
"The only thing capable of killing Godzilla was himself. And so that’s what happened - ignorant of wounds dealt to him by King Ghidorah and the military, Godzilla tried to use his atomic fire on two people perched on a rock. But the beam ripped right through the wound. He tried, again and again, to kill the two humans. But eventually, he blew himself up. His heart sank to the bottom of the sea."
"So is he dead for good this time?" Tetsuo asked. "Or did he come back even after that?"
" Three years after Godzilla’s second rampage was when they finally introduced the World Nuclear Acts," Kazama continued, ignoring his son, "forbidding the use of atomic weapons anywhere on Earth. But fifty years ago, people finally learned that atomic energy isn’t what attracts Godzilla."
"So what did they learn?"
"They learned that Godzilla was not attracted to anything. Rather, he was repulsed, because humans still existed. He was the true master of this world, not us, and he intended to set the record straight. But they only learned this after, not before, his third coming.
"No doubt, how Godzilla kept returning even after death is a mystery. People said that it was because he could ‘regenerate.’ But nothing can regenerate after it’s dead. Therefore, I truly believe that Godzilla was immortal - and that he was greater than all things on this planet."
Tetsuo grinned mirthlessly. "Too bad nobody realized it beforehand."
"Some people did," his father replied. "But not enough to save the world from its greatest calamity. When Godzilla came a third time, he was something out of a nightmare. Blood dripped from those same soulless white eyes that he had fifty years previous. His skin released deadly waves of poison, causing those who would have initially survived his rampage to die agonizing deaths. And, as his beam had increased fivefold in power in 2004, so did it increase another fivefold in 2054. Nothing could stand in Godzilla’s way. He was not only immortal, but beyond immortal.
"The world’s military forces all united in an attempt to destroy the King of the Monsters. But not even the hundreds of thousands of tanks, planes, or super weapons that they deployed could wound him. They tried to use earlier methods that successfully killed Godzilla, but none of them succeeded. Attempts to recreate the Oxygen Destroyer, of which no blueprints survived, failed. The efforts they made to cause Godzilla to kill himself failed even more miserably. Too many people died in vain. And with nothing left to defend the world, Godzilla was free to not only destroy Japan, but destroy other parts of the world as well."
Tetsuo began to fidget with a pen in his pocket. "So that’s why Tokyo doesn’t exist anymore? Godzilla turned out to be so powerful that the city couldn’t survive his wrath?"
"Exactly. And of course it wasn’t just Tokyo that fell. Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto - you’ve seen what they are now, and it was all Godzilla’s fault. He wiped out entire countries, too - places called China and Russia were driven off the map by the fallout from Godzilla’s rampage. America barely managed to survive, but neighbouring countries were left in ruins.
"And then - nobody understands why - Godzilla just gave up and went back into the ocean."
For a while, there was silence. Neither Tetsuo nor his father spoke, but simply stared out over the gnarled grounds upon which Tokyo once stood. The haze and the smell of smoke began to clear as a light rain fell.
"So that’s why you wanted to come here," Tetsuo said at last. "You wanted to talk about this."
Kazama nodded. "Yes. That’s why. Of course, you’ve surmised that nobody can talk about Godzilla in public anymore - they’re trying to wipe out all memory of him and the horrible things he did. But as long as humans exist, Godzilla will make himself known to them. When Armageddon comes, he will be there."
As Tetsuo and Kazama turned to leave, a loud, elephantine noise echoed throughout the sky.