PENN SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTE, ALTOONA

Compared to the college, the building was large, with white concrete outer walls lining the institute, and it was of modern design. A dark blue sign stood out front, at the entrance of the parking lot with the name of the building in white to contrast against the dark color. It was clean, polished, as if it had opened the day before. It was well taken care of, both by professionals and volunteers from the campus.

Inside, Martin stepped out of the elevator, onto the fifth floor, and walked down the corridor. He eyed the name plaques on the dark oak doors, the surface of the metal shining in the lights of the hallway. He paused as he saw the one that read 'Doctor T. Nesbit', before lifting a hand and knocking twice. He waited for a bit before he heard someone speak up on the inside. He gripped the metal handle and pushed down, opening the door, stepping inside before closing it behind him.

A man at the age of 29 sat behind a wooden desk, shuffling some papers around. The man's brown hair went to his shoulders with a short beard to match, and his gray eyes were intelligent behind a pair of glasses.

"You must be the one interviewing me," the man guessed. "Correct?"

"Yes, sir. Martin Brody, reporting for United World News."

"Then please, sit."

Nesbit gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk, which Martin sat in. He took out a pen and notebook, flipping the pages before getting to the desired one that had his questions, and readied himself.

"Okay," Martin cleared his throat. "First things first. How did you get into the subject of your papers?"

"It was when I was still in university. I found a book that was published in sixty-two, entitled 'The Creatures that Humanity Forgot' by Mark Rust, in the library. It was about all sorts of creatures that are considered extinct, like the Dodo and the like. Why, I remember there was a chapter dedicated to creatures that could have existed. Like the tale of a rather large primate that was thought to be a descendant of Gigantopithecus, that lived on an island in the Pacific."

Nesbit paused for a moment to take a sip of his water bottle. "Anyways, there was a chapter that had black and white pictures, and an American who was in Japan during the fifty-four Godzilla attacks. The man's name was Steve Martin, if I remember correctly. Since then, my interest in Godzilla has spiked."

Martin wrote in his notebook as the other talked before going down to his next question. "What caused you to write your first paper?"

"It's the only thing that could have awakened such a beast. The timing was too perfect to think otherwise... as well as the fact that not everyone knows about this information."

"And the second paper?"

"Five years ago, I was looking through some old newspaper clippings on an internet archive. I was using Godzilla as a keyword."

"What did you find?"

"A clipping dating back to eighty-four. It wasn't a remembrance of the attacks."

Martin paused in his writing, and looked at Nesbit with a perplexed expression. "Why would there be clippings, then? I thought any other talks about Godzilla had died down in America after seventy-five– at least, that's what I remember from my research."

"I did as well. It seemed to be true until this particular year."

"What did the clipping say exactly?"

Nesbit fixed his glasses for a moment. "Apparently, four teenagers had thought it would be a good idea to go to the Bikini Atoll. A captain of a ship passing close by had noticed their half-sunken ship offshore, and a wrecked motorboat on the beach. It was reported that there were scorch marks everywhere. They found one of the teenagers hiding in some of the foliage, obviously in shock. She didn't live for long though, not with the acute radiation poisoning she suffered from."

Martin's eyebrows rose in alarm at this information, and didn't know what to say for a moment.

"Radiation poisoning?" He found his voice. "How bad?"

"From what I had gathered, she looked like she had looked straight into Chernobyl's core."

Martin stopped writing altogether, to stare at the older man.

"...Would... would the leftover radiation from the fifties tests..." Martin trailed off before his eyes widened in realization. "Wait, you said there were scorch marks."

"I did." Nesbit nodded.

"You're not insinuating..."

"I am. When the survivor were allowed to see authorities back in the states, she explained why her group was at Bikini Atoll, and that they were attacked by a large creature. It sank their ship in a blinding flash of pink light before it noticed the group. She managed to hide before her friends were... vaporized in another flash. When a team went back to the island... the radiation levels had increased, as if another atomic bomb had been tested there."

"And you believe this creature could be a second Godzilla?"

Nesbit nodded. "It makes the most sense. The first Godzilla leaked radiation and had even weaponized it. This one could be no different."

"So, do you think these two individuals were mutated by the same bomb?"

"That I am not sure of. With it being around the islands... it's hard to tell."

"Do you think it's possible they could come from the same... group? Like a pack?"

"I can't say with confidence as we never had seen social behavior from the first."

"Okay," Martin nodded in understanding. "So, I have another question. Why hasn't this Godzilla been seen before or after this incident?"

Nesbit lifted a hand to stroke his beard in thought, and it's clear to Martin that the other man didn't have a sure answer.

"Well... I'm not sure." Nesbit finally answered. "Perhaps it had fallen into hibernation or... there's still radiation at the Atoll, like a sunken nuclear submarine in the area."

"You think they can feed off of radiation? How did you get this theory?"

"Even when the first Godzilla was still alive, its altered biology was unknown to us. What we do know is that it would need to sustain itself on something to function. I don't believe feeding on animals would have been enough anymore. So, it would make the most sense that its source would be the thing that mutated it. Humanity had turned the first individual into the first of its kind. The effects of the bomb, besides the keloid scarring, are still not understood to this day."

Martin sat in his seat, absorbing the information, clearly not expecting the direction the conversation had gone in. He's intrigued, though. He glanced down at the page and went on to ask the next question.

***

LAKE TAHOE, NEVADA, UNITED STATES

Above the calm lake, stars twinkled as the waves lapped leisurely at the shore. The moonlight reflected off the water's surface, making a pretty scene. The sounds of the wildlife brought the area to life; from the frogs croaking to the grasshopper making their sounds.

At the southern shore, a 17-year-old walked along the beach with a high-powered flashlight in one hand to light the immediate area in front of him. On his other hand was a leash that's attached to the collar of a german shepherd. Around the neck was a red color with tags, and one of them had the name Ben. They were doing their evening walk before bed, and it was always peaceful for them as there were hardly any humans chattering–

Ben's head suddenly snapped around towards the middle of the lake, stopping in his tracks, his hackles raising as he began to growl. His ears were forward, his body tense, his tail standing straight up.

"What's the matter, Ben?" asked the teen. "Something out there?"

The teen swung his flashlight around to point the beam out towards the water. He gripped and twisted the light's end, narrowing the beam. It illuminated something that looked like some spike sticking out of the water.

"I don't remember anyone putting something like that in the lake..." The teen's eyes narrowed before they widened in shock and horror as he watched the spike starting to move. It was rising, revealing more and more of it before something brown broke the surface.

A large, green eye opened and stared at the duo, the pupil dilated from the light.

The teen screamed in terror before he turned and ran, his faithful pet following with his tail between his legs, yelping and whining as he went.