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ゴジラ. Oftentimes Emiko found herself scratching those three characters into the margins of her journal, or in her seat on the train. Three characters that represented something so destructive, so tragic: a part of history now, and one she couldn’t forget.
She wasn’t the only one. She saw those characters painted on tunnels, on the sides of buildings, and, of course, in news headlines. Her father had been right. There was never just one ゴジラ. Emiko would see headline after headline: Osaka in flames, ゴジラ levels city, Fukuoka ravaged by monsters. Emiko’s heart ached to think that Dr. Serizawa might have sacrificed himself for nothing. At times she confided in Hideto about it. He tried to offer condolence, but it was clear he felt the same way. Japan had been saved, but it seemed like the death of Serizawa and the first ゴジラ had only managed to delay the wave of destruction that atomic weaponry had unleashed.
Emiko had been volunteering at hospitals, hoping to help those most affected by the attacks. Seeing so much suffering was eating away at her soul, but she knew she had to push through. She had tried to keep Serizawa’s secret back then, in part for the sake of her feelings, and that had only caused more suffering. Her only goal now was to protect as many lives as possible.
Emiko’s father said that perhaps these monsters were a punishment by nature for humanity’s sins: the natural response to an imbalance of power. Emiko wondered if he was right. ゴジラ was baptized in the fires of the hydrogen bomb, as he had once put it. Humanity had created him with their own malice, and now that destructive power was being thrown back not only on the already-devastated Japan, but all over the world: in Europe, Russia, Africa, America… everywhere.
Emiko hoped things were not so grim. Perhaps humanity could find a way to fight back: something other than the Oxygen Destroyer, that wouldn’t simply lead to more destruction if unleashed. But could such a defense exist? Could any weapon powerful enough to stop the onslaught of reawakened beasts be counted on not to then be used as an instrument of war? Emiko didn’t think so. She wondered, in fact, if humanity deserved to survive at all. Perhaps they deserved this retaliation. They had caused it, after all.
Sometimes, though, when Emiko was dancing with Hideto, or helping Shinkichi with his studies, she felt a renewed sense of faith in humanity. These people did not create ゴジラ. Shinkichi had become Emiko’s adopted brother because of the loss of his own family by ゴジラ. He was a kind soul, and perhaps a sign that humanity was not destined to doom itself. People like Shinkichi, Hideto, and the countless innocents Emiko had helped or failed to save in her volunteer work, were worth fighting for. If humanity could be like that more often, perhaps they could find a way to survive the destruction and create something better, be something better.
Until then, Emiko would be writing ゴジラ, in her journals, on the train, on walls. No one could afford to forget. Not yet.