Life As Godzilla - Beginning of the End
The last survivor slumbered innocently encased within the walls of a durable eggshell, oblivious to the destruction of his species when the terrible meteorite made landfall. The sky was congested with immense plumes of ash, ash that drove away the sun and relentlessly assaulted the lungs of all living creatures as their eyes beheld their final sights; Death.
The dinosaurs could not tolerate the drastic drop in temperature, as their bodies demanded the warmth of the sun to keep them functioning properly. They could not adjust to thick, hot ash accumulating in their tracheas and asphyxiating them, they relied on pure, untainted air to breathe, and that good oxygen had been cast out.
All the while, as each and every mighty reptile vanished from the face of the planet, never to be seen again, one theropod remained.
And it wasn't until many millions of years after the mass extinction of his kind that he first chipped his way outside the egg that had sheltered him for such a ridiculously long time, only to be born into a world where there were no dinosaurs.
There would be no mother to cater to his voracious appetite, no parents to defend him from predators longing to sink their teeth into his tender newborn flesh.
There would be no socializing or companionship, as there was no creature to befriend the lonesome dinosaur. Lonely as he was, the beast managed a simple life on a small island located in the Marshall Island Chain, Lagos Island, where he, by some means unbeknownst to man, survived and eventually thrived. Though there were no females to impregnate to continue the Godzillasaur lineage, the beast was somewhat content residing on a tiny island out in the middle of nowhere, resigned to his fate of a long and loveless life munching leaves and snacking on the occasional whale or two.
The Godzillasaur had, you could say, one companion to keep him company on the otherwise socially impaired island. A minute lizard that would converse with him from time to time in lizard-speak, a language as old as time. Oh, the little conversations they had weren't nearly enough to satisfy Godzillasaur's craving for interpersonal relationship, but the small talk always managed to give him a rush of dopamine when they chatted. Now, the wee reptile was perched on the Godzillasaur's head, resting right above his eyebrows and enjoying the view of his habitat from 40 feet above it, gabbing blithely about what the world must be like outside the island. The Godzillasaur had often wondered about this too, but those contemplations fled his mind shortly after it had conceived them. Eventually the Godzillasaur let the lizard off his head and into a tree where his pint-sized cousin dwelt licking up fat flies and gnats into his miniature mouth. The lizard called goodbye and the Godzillasaur went off to mind his own business.
Now, the dinosaur felt that stirring of hunger in his gut that prompted him to depart the jungleland and head for the beach in hopes of capturing a decent meal. The plush sand sunk beneath Godzillasaur's enormous reptilian feet as he slowly lumbered to the waters, big head swinging left and right as he scanned the blue ocean for movement.
A flicker of motion caught his eye.
He had sharp eyes, Godzillasaur did.
His eagle gaze overlooked nothing, and now he could see the distinct outline of a fish suspended below the surface of the water, moving so barely, it was as if it were begging to be eaten. The Godzillasaur wasted no time plunging his large head into the water and snatching up the fish in his serrated fangs, cold, juicy flesh exploding with flavor inside his mouth. In a single gulp he consumed the fish, then ambled off to the jungle to satiate his herbivorous appetite with the lush vegetation. Here in the jungle, it was alive with the soaring voices of songbirds chorusing up in the canopy where they nested, while small, furry, mammalian critters scurried this way and that when the Godzillasaur's booming footfalls shook the earth to its core.
He was about to strip off a branch thick with green leaves from a tree when a noise he'd never heard before met his ears. It was like thunder, but very short, like nothing he'd heard in his life.
Then the strangers arrived, tiny, stumpy, bipedal beings armed with those frightening loud bangs and colorful flags of war. Very soon, a full-fledged battle was ensuing between one set of the two-legs and another set, a bloody mess thick with screams of agony and those vexating loud bangs that pierced the tranquil silence of the island.
The Godzillasaur grew so irritated with the gunfire and the little two-legs scattering here there and everywhere, trespassing on his territory, that he finally decided to put an end to the madness. With a ground-trembling roar and a fangly snarl, he stormed into the skirmish and swept the two-legs off their feets with a flick of his tree-trunk tail. They unleashed their weapons on him, but the bullets could not penetrate Godzillasaur's stony, armored epidermis. Enraged by their presence, and furthermore by their audacity to attack him, Godzillasaur crushed many of those terrible two-legs beneath his scaly talons, growling and screeching at them to "Get out! Go away!" Indeed, they retreated, but in the distance, afloat the ocean, was a warship that spared no missiles on him. Godzillasaur shrieked in agony as a shower of scarlet drenched his ruined flesh, the scarlet that was his own blood. Missile after missile the silver ship pumped into him, all the while the opposing league whooping and cheering as they gained victory over the mean team of two-legs. Eventually, however, the ship itself retreated, leaving behind it its casualties resting lifeless upon the shore. Bleeding and badly wounded, the Godzillasaur limped back into the jungle where it collapsed onto the forest floor, energy spent and slowly fading away as the creature's life-giving bodily fluids oozed from its many lacerations. Seeing the won fight as a victory for the other two-legs still on the island, the garrison celebrated, but its commander did not.
Gratitude for the Godzillasaur's aid in their overcoming the adversary two-legs, and pity because of the price the innocent animal had paid due to its help, moved the commander. He instructed his garrison to salute the dinosaur and pay homage to its sacrifice, as he was certain the Godzillasaur's injuries were fatal. After the garrison's departing Lagos Island, never to return, the Godzillasaur had a stroke of fortune and did, in fact, survive the gaping wounds, but he was irked that the two-legs had done nothing to heal him. Instead, being the obvious cowards they were, self-centered and cruel, they abandoned him in his hour of need, allowed for him to be afflicted with infection as bacteria flourished in his untreated wounds and festered.
It was unjust and callous, and it applied to both armies of two-legs. Traumatized as he was, however, the Godzillasaur was a simple creature and, though he did not forget the incident, didn't bother dwelling on it much, either. He resumed his normal business and conducted his usual daily routines, eating, napping, washing off in the sea, attempting to befriend some unwilling island animal. Nights, just like his days, he spent alone, either in the jungle or on the warm beach looking up at an endless expanse of heavens that stretched beyond the imagination, glistering with millions of tiny stars. It was a gorgeous and breath-taking sight to behold, even for a mindless reptile, and he appreciated the view very much. Still, nothing was quite as beautiful as it could have been with no one else to share it with.
With a sleepy sigh, the Godzillasaur closed his eyes and permitted his tired mind to wander off where our minds often do when slumber sets in, to a world complex with dreams, fears, and nightmares.
Gently, under a sky full of diamonds, the tender arms of sleep carried him away to a fantasyland that solely existed in his mind.
The Godzillasaur received a rude awakening when his eyes snapped open that morning.
Rather, a cruel awakening.
A whistling sound, far beyond his field of vision, up in the sky.
Something was coming down. Right now.
The whistling grew louder as something large and shiny descended from the heavens, something that promised doom and death. Blood chilled with consternation, the Godzillasaur roared in alarm and struggled to move quickly out of the path of the falling object, but tripped over a stone instead, landing flat on his face.
The final seconds before the bomb struck were the longest moments of his life. When it made contact with the ground, all he could remember was the light, how painfully bright it was, and the heat, oh the heat…
Like the sun had fallen out of its place in the sky and upon this island.
Horrible.
Then, nothing.
Eyes open, but unseeing.
Ears hearing, but not listening.
Alive, but unfeeling.
He felt wet, and soon realized he was swimming in the ocean.
Swimming.
Where had the island gone? Where was it?
The Godzillasaur was terribly confused, more so than he'd ever been.
There was no island.
And the ocean was wrong, too.
Wasn't it supposed to be blue?
Now it was coated in an inch thick layer of silver ash.
How had he not drowned floating there in the water?
Then, he remembered.
The bomb.
The scream of the bomb as it descended upon his homeland. Now his homeland was gone, completely vanished from the face of the Earth. Just like his ancestors had millions of years ago.
He vaguely remembered his little lizard friend. He must be dead now. It tugged at the Godzillasaur's heartstrings to know he'd lost his only buddy.
The Godzillasaur's body ached miserably. He did not know pain of that sort. His muscles, how they burned with pain. Then he spotted another island out in the distance, and made an effort to swim to it.
When he made it to the island, he found he could barely walk as he staggered onto shore. Exhausted, he fell onto the sandy beach, which was also coated in a blanket of the ashy material. What was it? Whatever it was, it smelled terrible and made the Godzillasaur's head hurt. He had a pungent flavor on his tongue, metallic and angry that did not agree with his respiratory system. The Godzillasaur sneezed, then dropped his head to the beach and went to sleep.
Weeks passed, then months.
The Godzillasaur continued to grow and change in subtle ways, and he was oblivious to the changes until one day, he saw his reflection in the water. He did not recognize the face he saw gazing back at him, and it frightened the poor creature.
The face he saw was mean and snarly, teeth like nails jutting from his maxilla, his head short and round and no longer long and T-rex like. Small, angry eyes peered at him, and he realized something was horribly, horribly wrong.
His tail was snaky and made it difficult to walk on legs that were now too thick to make movement even remotely easy. There were large, diamond-shaped dorsal fins adorning his back, fins that were not there before. All of these realizations just now came crashing down on him.
Mortified, the Godzillasaur jumped back from the water, tripping over himself as he fled from the horror that was his own image. Just as quickly as the fear came, it dissipated and was replaced by an unspeakable, unbridled rage that shook the Godzillasaur's whole being.
What had done this to him? What had happened, what was wrong?
The two-legs. There could be no other explanation.
The Godzillasaur was not a friendly, innocuous dino anymore. Rather, he was quite the opposite, afflicted by violent emotions of anger, hatred, and still that chasm of loneliness that settled heavy in his chest.
The mutagenic powers of the hydrogen bomb had penetrated much deeper than the Godzillasaur's exterior. Indeed, it had even twisted his thoughts and tangled his feelings, creating in its wake an appalling, super-destructive monster. The ground was far beneath him now, 300 feet of heighth separating him from the rest of the world, and his body still hurt like every nerve was ignited.
The thirst for violence that assaulted his brain, made him hungry to hurt others and inflict that same pain on the two-legs that had done this to him, was strong. It began to dictate his thoughts, govern his mind, ruled him like a master controlling a slave. As morbid ideas and hostile fantasies bombarded the victimized mutant dinosaur, he hiccupped, and when he hiccupped, a stream of pure, unadulterated radiation flowed from his mouth in an opaque blue mist. It burned a hole through the sand on the beach, leaving a gaping hole in the shore that began to fill rapidly with water. The Godzillasaur was just as surprised as the birds fleeing from the trees in the jungleland, unaware what he'd just done and what it meant.
It was a weapon.
An atomic weapon, and it vaporized anything it touched. The Godzillasaur soon learned how to master the ability, and was trying out his new power with a cautious awe.
The two-legs.
He would kill them, every one of them, if he had to.
Young and old, all would die at the feet of Godzilla, freshly crowned King of the Monsters.
