“This is the Final Defense Line!” he shouted. “We have a visual on the target near Zone 4; proceeding with detonation to prevent its forward advance into Tokyo Bay!”
“Almost there!” said the other man with binoculars. “Just a little more!”
Only seconds later, the giant dorsal fins plunged straight into the mine blockade.
“Now!” shouted the captain. “Detonate!”
One by one, the mines in Zone 4 of the defense line exploded in quick succession.
“Did we do it?” asked the captain as they waited for the upheaval of spray to fall.
“No…” the other man said in disbelief. “That didn’t even slow it down!”
The dorsal fins cut through the water onward into the bay, as if nothing had even happened. The captain clutched his transmitter and made another desperate report:
“The blockade has been breached! I repeat, the blockade has been breached! The beast is headed straight for Shinagawa! It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen! Send out a preliminary civilian alert immediately!”
Meanwhile, at the Shikishima household, Koichi was at home playing with Akiko since Noriko was away at work and he happened to have the day off.
Akiko was proudly showing off the new beanbag routine she’d recently mastered, and just as the first few notes of the theme song to the recent hit radio drama The Ringing of Bell Hill began playing on the radio, an ear-piercing siren rang out through the neighborhood.
The sound alone brought forth traumatic memories for many of his fellow countrymen, who immediately rushed out into the streets wondering what was going on. Koichi, too, held Akiko close to his chest and listened; this was an air-raid alarm.
Were they really being bombed by another country again? But by whom?
Koichi considered various possibilities—but most of all, he feared that the war wasn’t actually over yet. The radio quickly changed over to an emergency broadcast.
This is an emergency news flash. This is an emergency news flash. A giant sea creature has just made landfall after emerging from Tokyo Bay. A state of crisis has been declared. All citizens are asked to exercise extreme caution and take shelter if you can. The creature is currently advancing toward Ginza. Anyone in the vicinity should follow local police instructions and evacuate immediately. I repeat, a giant sea creature has just—
“A giant sea creature”—that was what the newscaster had said. And Koichi knew this could only mean one thing: Godzilla!
“How did it get here so fast?”
Then he remembered where Noriko was right now, and his legs nearly gave out from under him. Her new desk job was at a department store in Ginza.
“Akiko…” he said. “Can you walk yourself over to Sumiko-san’s house?”
Immediately sensing that the situation was serious, Akiko looked at him and nodded without a word of complaint.
Meanwhile, on Harumi-dori Avenue in Ginza, civilians were flooding into the streets from their buildings, scrambling through the streets in an attempt to escape but unsure where to go. There were truck drivers panicking and crashing their vehicles into streetlight poles in the pandemonium. There were little girls with tears in their eyes, wailing for their mothers after falling and getting separated. There were people screaming in pain as everyone in their buildings tried to rush out all at once, pushing and shoving until they clogged every exit. Shouts of anger were interspersed with shrieks of terror, until suddenly, there came a low rumbling from deep beneath the earth, and for a moment, all of their voices fell silent.
Overhead, several electric train cars from the Tokyo tram network were sent flying through the sky like tin toys. Then came the stomp of an enormous leg like a massive tree, surely at least ten meters in diameter. Those who actually saw the beast cried out louder and more desperately than ever before as they ran for their lives from what could well be described as a walking mountain.
With its every hulking step, the air trembled, and the earth quaked. Slowly but surely, this mountain that should not be walking propelled itself forward down Harumi-dori Avenue toward the world-famous Nihon Gekijo Theater, scrapping automobiles by the dozen with each capricious swipe of its enormous tail. Those who’d only just managed to shove their way out onto the streets were now utterly unsure where to run, but their instincts compelled them to flee in the direction opposite Godzilla.
When the beast set its foot down atop the Sukiya Bridge, the whole structure collapsed beneath its weight, sending late evacuees who were still racing across the bridge flying through the air, then tumbling into either the concrete remnants thereof or the Sotobori moat that ran beneath. With every successive step the creature took, the bridge crumbled even further, crushing the pedestrians underneath and snuffing their lives out in an instant.
At the same time, a train on the Yamanote line had just departed Tokyo Station toward Yurakucho, oblivious to the carnage that was currently unfolding in Ginza. Then suddenly the train’s operators spotted a detached tram car hurtling through the air toward them. Screaming, the driver reflexively slammed on the brakes just as the tram car landed vertically in the middle of the tracks dead ahead. This braking was so abrupt that it sent the standing passengers to nearly lose their balance and fall over.
“What the hell was that about?” said one of them.
“Did we hit something?” said another.
The disgruntled passengers turned their angry gazes toward the driver’s compartment—but just then, there was a low booming sound, and the whole car shook.
“An earthquake?” Noriko wondered aloud.
She turned in her seat on the train to look out the window toward the Nihon Gekijo, where she saw something truly unbelievable: a titanic creature, no doubt more than fifty meters tall, was now stomping its way through the city streets in their direction.
When the other passengers saw what she had, they couldn’t comprehend what they were looking at; they simply stared, mouths agape, as their train car shook with the creature’s every step. All the way down Harumi-dori Avenue, people were fleeing en masse from their buildings. It was only then that Noriko realized what the strange, distant clamor she’d been hearing ever since their train left the station had truly been.
The sound of people screaming in desperation as they ran for their lives.
Suddenly, Noriko remembered what Koichi had told her a few days prior.
“Is that…Godzilla?” she whispered to herself.
Then, as if in answer to her question, the creature leaned forward and let out a deep, resonant roar, the mere reverberations of which were enough to shatter the train’s glass windowpanes. Instinctively, the passengers shrieked and wailed as they finally realized the true gravity of their predicament, then started rushing toward the train compartment’s exit doors. Noriko was helpless to do anything as the flood of people hurried past her, trapping her in her seat.
Godzilla grew closer, and before long, the only thing she could see out the window were its two massive feet. Then all of a sudden, a shrill, metallic crunching noise rang out through the entire train, and the whole compartment turned on its side. As the floor sloped diagonally, all of the passengers who had just regained their footing minutes before tumbled and slipped toward one end of the coach.
Godzilla had lifted the whole train up with its mighty jaws.
Through the window, Noriko could see the city streets growing farther away as the train car was lifted several dozen meters into the sky. The door that connected to the adjacent compartment was now directly beneath her. She could only cling to her seat and watch as the other passengers fell right past her, groaning and crying out in pain as they piled on top of one another in one giant heap of bodies.
She had to avert her eyes from the ghastly scene and focus all her mental energy on thinking of some sort of way out of this dire situation. But considering she was currently suspended in midair, dangling in a train car that was directly connected to the one Godzilla was still clenching between its jaws, escape was impossible.
Just then, there was a loud creaking sound, and the entire bottom half of Noriko’s train car fell away, unable to bear the weight of the other train cars pulling down on it. Once again, she could only watch helplessly in horror as it and the other passengers tumbled down onto the streets below, where they splattered like bugs against the concrete.
Only a moment later, the side panel of the seat to which Noriko had been clinging came loose as well, and she nearly fell to her own death—but luckily managed to grab hold of one of the train’s stanchion poles, which was now almost fully horizontal. This left her hanging directly over the gaping hole left by the compartment’s other half when it fell away, gripping the pole for dear life with both hands. But this was only delaying the inevitable; she knew her arms couldn’t support her body weight for long.
Meanwhile, Godzilla turned hard on its heel and started walking in the opposite direction. Somehow, Noriko managed to maintain her grip through the centripetal force of this rotation, and the subsequent impact of its first ground-quaking step—but just barely. She could feel her palms sweat, and her hands beginning to slip; she knew it was only a matter of time now before she fell onto the buildings below.