I don’t want to do this.
But “want” is no longer a word that applies to me.
The words I’m currently writing will never be seen. They can’t be. They mustn’t be. They hold the truth of a future that must come to pass, a future known only by a few people currently alive on this planet. That I am one of them is both a blessing and a curse. A curse of knowledge, of understanding. Of silence.
The manuscript I’ve just completed is as far as I dare push this curse. It tells of a theory I already know to be true, or at least partly true. It tells as much of the truth as it can for history to take its predestined course, and the rest, I predict, will die with me.
This isn’t even a book I want to have created anymore. I already know it won’t bring me fame or fortune, nor will it immortalize my name in any way. I know that it will fade into obscurity, that it will eventually be discovered, and that it will be used as a tool of destruction and death.
But it must be so.
To not write it would be to deny destiny, to change events that must happen. This book must exist. And it must tell only the truths that the future has dictated it must.
The struggle I face in this moment cannot adequately be put into words. Through this book I hold the key to the future. I have the ability to warn of destruction to come, of monsters yet to rise, of a country whose greed will lead to its downfall. But I am silenced. Silenced by my own realization that this is the way it must be. I cannot use my words to warn of anything, nor to save the lives I know will be extinguished. This must happen. The next part of the story must be told. It already has been told. The end is in the beginning. And that beginning is now in my hands.
What follows are my notes as I make my way through this manuscript for one final time. When I complete this last pass, the book will be ready for publication. Ready to face the world, and ultimately fail to achieve the goals I’d envisioned for it. A book literally destined die no sooner than it had been born, and to resurrect in the future as a tool of death.
Funny. Given the subject of the book itself, its fate seems ironically familiar. Life imitating art. Art imitating life. Death in the midst of life, retold as art, foreshadowing yet more death.
It’d all be very profound if I still gave a damn.
But it’s best not to continue dwelling on deeper meanings and cosmic significance. “The Birth of Godzilla” awaits. I have work to do. A legacy to leave.
If this is to be my epitaph, it’d damn well better be a good one. Even if no one will remember it.
The Godzilla Novelization Project 