My name is Steven Martin, and if you are reading this it is likely you know of the tragic incident that occurred in the small unnamed Japanese fishing village on the island of Odo more than a year ago. You will likely have heard that it was the result of a tragic exposure to radiation caused by a fishing vessel – the Eiko-Maru – that had itself been caught in an unexpectedly wide blast of an American nuclear test taking place in the Bikini Atoll. The news reported the events as such, citing it as a terrible loss of life that has sparked much anti-nuclear sentiment across the globe and Japan in particular. The truth, however, is far more sinister and infinitely more nightmarish. I write it down now so that I may insure a record of it survives – my nature will allow me to do no less.
I had come to Japan only as a stopover for my intended flight to Cairo in Egypt. I was then occupied as a foreign correspondent for United World News, a position I had held for two years prior and that I have since abdicated following that terrible day. My intention was to stop for a day or two and visit my old friend, Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, a sadly unrecognized genius in the fields of biology and chemistry. He had told me of a fantastic breakthrough in science he had made some weeks before, encouraging me to stop by if time allowed. On the exact nature of his marvelous discovery he never said, and now I fear whatever it was is lost entirely, for Dr. Serizawa was reported dead only a few days after the incident in question. The reason for this I fear I shall never know, though that they were related was made irrevocably clear.
Mere hours after my plane had landed, I was contacted by a Mr. Tomo Iwanaga, a representative of the Japanese security forces, who was looking for reporters to investigate an event that had taken place that morning. Wasting no time on such a fortuitous development, I made all haste back to the airport, where a plane was to take the reporters to the ill-fated island of Odo. We arrived not two hours later and made quickly for the unnamed village that would so soon be faced with tragedy.
Three days previous, the Eiko-Maru – which often made port at the island – had gone missing. Two ships had been sent out to investigate, but only one had returned. The Lucky-Maru, carrying survivors not of the Eiko-Maru, but of the other search vessel, the Bingo-Maru, had arrived back the previous morning in a terrible state. The men aboard were sick with some unknown affliction, and the survivor from the Bingo-Maru was quickly losing the last of what life remained him. The loss of the three vessels and the affliction of the one surviving crew in such a sudden and terrible fashion that a team of scientists had been called to investigate, and the reporters were then called to document their discoveries.
I will be brief here, for the scientific findings will likely never be made public, and my own report will reveal far more when I tell of the events of the following night. What I will say is that the crew were suffering from radiation poisoning that would have surely claimed their lives in short order had they not been cut short the sooner, and that a single, terrible indentation of such abominable size and shape that the scientific team at once deemed it as being a result of one of the lost ships wrecking themselves on the shore in a terrible manner, before quickly being washed away to sea. If it had only been so simple as that, I would sleep far sounder at night, for I could perhaps have said that what I witnessed had been nothing more than a terrible dream.
I phoned my editor and the United World News, one George Lawrence, and received permission to stay long enough to cover the story and perhaps still have time to visit my friend Serizawa. The scientists spoke much of ancient things of the bygone world, of an ancient trilobite found in the horrible indentation which had been thought extinct for many millions of years. I heard some whisper of times lost to history, dating back hundreds of millions of years to strange eons entirely unknown to modern society. Their talk was hushed and as secret as they could make it, and though my recordings were thankfully lost in the aftermath of the event to come, I know for certain I heard one whisper of things found in what I would later learn to be the tome of secret evils known as the Necronomicon. Of the nature of this age I learned in frantic studies following my return to America, though perhaps thankfully I never learned more than what was said of by professor Nathaniel Peaslee, whose story had made some local news several decades previous. The nature of his things are published and can be studied by any who wish, though they retain only the slightest relation to my own experience and hold none of the abject horror therein.
That night, the village held a ritual to appease the local god of the seas in an effort to prevent further casualties amongst their fisherman. They spoke of the ancient god Goj'ira, whose legend was even older than the island's habitation. The great sea monster was known to have risen up from the oceans in the earliest days to rule – perhaps even before the first of the Yayoi came over from China and to the age of the forgotten Nilai Kanai – and was said to rule over a great city that sank beneath the waves. The legends spoke of how Japan was once home to many great beasts – my later research indicates that many would inspire such mythological creatures as the Eight-Headed Orochi and Kaishin Muba. Of the possible true nature of these myths I refuse to speculate, lest I experience worse nightmares.
Of the following day I have little to say, for it was much the same as the previous. A strange foreboding grew in me as the hours wore on, though even now I cannot say why. Perhaps I sensed what was to come? Others too grew restless, particularly those same scientists who had spoken of long-lost ages, and we turned in that night with much murmuring of leaving the next day if no great breakthrough could be found.
I have always prided myself in my steely constitution – otherwise I would never have become the reporter that I had – and so I will not refrain from what I will now tell. Grey clouds came out of the south as the sun set, so that by the time the moon would have risen a terrible storm had swept over the island. I and those from the mainland took shelter in the village chief's home, which was the most well-built structure in the village. This we hoped would keep us safe until morning when the plane would return, which had taken the paleontologist Dr. Kyohei Yamane back to Tokyo with the trilobite specimen.
I was awoken not long after midnight by a terrible crash that I mistook for an earthquake. The others were awakened as well, and all of us looked with trepidation out of the window-cracks into the terrible storm. I have never experienced a storm so violent it wrenched the many objects not fastened down away in the howling wind, and I saw with fright that the ships at the harbor were smashed to splinters on the nearby cliff-side. My eyes were drawn higher as they perceived a light on the top of that peak, and I realized with a start that another ritual like the night before was taking place on top of it. I could here in the wind a chanting that chilled me to the bone and the crackling of a fire that burned far more violently than should have been possible under the pounding rain and lashing wind. To this day I know not why the villagers were there; perhaps they had sought to appease their god with some wretched sacrifice in the storm, or had fled there under the superstitious hopes of some mystical protection. Whatever the reason, there presence may well have saved our lives.
Only madness could have driven one of the scientists to throw open the door to the cabin and march out into the storm for a look at what was happening, but the madness must have been infectious, for soon we were all out under the canopy to observe as best we could the distant ritual. The wind bit at my skin and the rain pounded down like hail, but I refused to clinch under the assault of nature. I knew something was coming and refused to cower for safety until I saw it with my own eyes.
Would that I never did, for a great bolt of lightning split the sky and revealed in the darkness a mountain that had not been there the day before. I watched with horror as the mountain rose up from the depths and stood before the distant cliff, and all the while the distant chanting grew louder. The thing I saw must have been thirty stories high at least, its head reaching into the sky to touch the low-hanging storm clouds. It stood like a man but had a form like the greatest dinosaurs of long ago, though even the largest fossils found could never approach this leviathan. It was nearly invisible in the gloom, its own flesh black or a gray like coal, with great spikes of bone rising from its back. I realized then in horror that the great indentation in the beach was nothing less than a colossal footprint, the result of this monster coming ashore not long before.
I saw the spikes glow with a white light that lit up the cliff, and felt the very air spark with a terrible power. A maw that could swallow whales whole came open, and I watched in horror as flame burst from its mouth and consumed the top of cliff and the ritual congregation. The chanting was at once turned to screams of the dying, and a roar like nothing I have ever heard and hope never to hear again boomed over the thunder and the raging of the flames.
One of our number ran, and that startled the others into running with him, shouting in terror and madness at the sight they had witnessed. I was the last to turn and run, looking at the ancient god that turned even now towards our tiny yells. I saw it staring back at me, eyes older than the world, and it was only then that I turned and ran. I heard the thundering of footsteps behind me, feeling the creature approaching faster than I could ever hope to flee, but even still I ran until my lungs ached. I followed the others as they crested a hill, seeking refuge on the far side of the island. I was nearly at the peak when a light flashed behind me to illuminate the hillside, and I was pushed forward by an invisible force that threw me from the cliff. I was thrown bodily through the air and came down with such force that I lost consciousness.
I awoke to find it daytime, my body damp and chilled with the night's rain. I was resting in thick bushes that had caught me and kept me from great injury, though my body was covered in cuts and my bones ached. I remembered at once what had transpired, and felt an itching question in my mind that refused to abate. Steeling myself, I turned and walked back up the cliff to see what had become of the village. What I found can only barely be described, for it was a ruin beyond all recovery. The homes were gone, replaced by piles of blackened wood, and everything else had been swept away by the rain and wind, leaving the landscape black and desolate. The clifftop was no less destroyed, the trees and grass replaced with bare rock covered in blasted ash. I felt for my recorder to put word to my thoughts only to find it missing and realized that all our equipment had been destroyed. There would be no verifiable record of what had been, though as I said, I am somewhat thankful for the loss.
The plane came not long after, the others having stayed in a group and attracted the attention of it as it had returned, being taken home to recover from the ordeal. They had flown over twice more before I had awoken and moved to where they could spot me, and I have never been so glad to take to the air and leave a place behind.
By the time I returned, a group of military men were waiting at the airport and stopped me as I exited the plane. They told me that I was to speak nothing of what I had seen to anyone, and checked me to ensure that I had nothing on me that might allow me to prove my words if I did so. Satisfied that I had lost everything and that I was not injured enough to warrant hospitalization, they put me on a plane to Cairo after giving me a new recorder to replace the one I had lost and a hundred US dollars to speed me on my way.
Of the flight I remember little, and I arrived in Egypt a short while later in a daze. I found myself a hotel from which I contacted United World News, informing them – as per the cover story I agreed upon – that a terrible storm had struck and I had all footage and recordings. To my surprise, George informed me that I had been asked after, and further surprised me by putting me on the line to Dr. Serizawa.
Serizawa informed me quietly that he knew what had transpired, and promised me that what I had seen would be no further threat. When I questioned how he knew this, he informed me then that the Japanese military had come to him and requested his cooperation in dealing with the matter and that the marvelous invention he had intended to show me would now be put to use. His voice held only despair as he told me this, and no matter how I questioned he would not reveal what the truth of what it was, stating only that it would be "Better left unknown, for I will take its secret with me to the grave." We talked a short time more before some commotion came from his end and he was forced to end the call, telling me again how there would be no more threat from the thing I had seen. I have wondered ever since about what truth I might have known had I managed to visit my friend, but those final desperate words he spoke about it left me with a queer feeling that, perhaps, it was better I never know.
I can only imagine that whatever Dr. Serizawa intended to do against that monster succeeded, for no more news came after about it. I try often to convince myself that whatever it was destroyed the beast entirely, for the thought that it remains is one more terrible than I dare entertain. That unnamed village is now nothing more than a smoldering memorial to the unknown, an unknown which at this very moment may still prevail and could at any time lash out with its terrible destruction anywhere else in the world. I keep myself away from the seas now, and every storm fills me with a dread that I might hear that terrible roar no known creature could ever make. For their may still be undying things in the blackest depths of this world, and our doom would be absolute if they chose to rise from those depths to gaze upon our mortal world once more.