THE BUNYIP
Sam Goneis
Molly Birkins was a stolen child, a child who was ripped from her real family to be placed within a dreaded foster system. When she was taken in by a Caucasian family, she didn’t know what was going to happen with her future. All she wanted was love and joy from her foster parents and her step siblings – but instead she had a family that grew colder and more distant towards her. She knew she was different, but why was this difference a burden to her? “Why can’t I just be normal?” She said to herself all the time.
She would think about their lives instead of hers, until one day she just…couldn’t anymore. As she was a teenager, she became rebellious, and she would leave the house frequently to go to parties, hang outs and walk-abouts. Her parents wouldn’t care, not even her siblings would care – negligence was their response to her actions. One day, she’d had enough and decided to run away for good. In her mind; she knew she had no home here.
The journey was long and exhausting. Her tired body led her to one of the greatest spots anyone has been; Sydney. She then would stay at a hotel where she could be safe from the police if they thought of finding her. Her roommates and neighbours in the hotel were…rather nice! The warmth of communication, the stunning looks of race and colour, the eye-candy of Gender Fluidity and Sexualities – THIS is where she wanted to be. She grew up in Sydney surrounded by secretive Drag shows, performances and in bars that were welcoming for everyone! She would be excited to see a lot of them there, regularly or not, so that she could talk with the community for hours on end. However, as time went on, some of them wouldn’t turn up anymore – and she would wait for them to come back. The television and the radio would scream profanities that scared a lot of the community, herself included. So she thought that if she could stand up against those people, they would leave them alone – and so that’s what she decided she would do. Her friends would then join her, as she called the oppressors out on their bullshit and hoping to scare them away with words entirely – or so she thought.
Being confident in her surroundings, she felt like this was her home, Sydney was her home. However, her time here was short lived and at the witching hour of 4AM, when she was walking home from her favourite bar, a group of bashers confronted her and destroyed her hopes, her dreams…and her body. Her body was all bruised, cut, and carved with a carving knife, her boots everywhere as they grabbed them and threw them to the side, her blood was everywhere and her stuff was destroyed too, everything happened pretty quickly. At the end of her tormenting bash - all she heard near the end was “That’s what you get P*****!” “Who do you think you are F*****?!” “You’re just a worthless N*****!” “Try and stop us A**!” – she felt crushed.
“I hate those fuckers…I want them dead, and I want them killed!” were the final thoughts running through her mind as she was dying in pain, in suffering, in torment, and in agony. Suddenly something was whispering in her ear – and it stuck in her brain: “You’ll have revenge, you’ll bring them pain. I’m sure you’ll give them the worst pain that you can offer to them”. As those whispers ended – balls of light descended up above and into the waters where Molly was rested – bringing her back up to the surface, as she transformed into something stronger than a human being; a Bunyip. Her skin turned scaly and hard as the cuts from her body, except on her stomach, disappeared completely. The cut carved on her stomach turned into a darker colour of skin, her feet and fingers – now webbed by extra skin between them, her arms – completely guarded by sharp spikes that could pierce through the fragile skins of her prey, her neck – protected by the feathery dome around it, her nails became claws that could rip a body in two, her teeth – now as sharp as a carnivorous dingo’s teeth, and her eyes – glowed and could grow fear in those who cross her path.
As she got out from the waterhole, the voice returns “I will come back soon, wait for me. I will return.” The whispers came back with a sense of clarity for Molly. But she didn’t care about that, she wanted her attackers dead, and eventually they would be.
She waited patiently for them. And while she waited she mastered the art of hunting and how to be a Bunyip. One day, a decade later, her wishes became a reality; her once young attackers were now middle-aged and weaker men. She could smell their fear – their fear of exposure, and that’s what she wanted them to feel: exposed.
Instead of going to her resting place, the men went to a nearby cave – unluckily for them, she knew her way around. She waltzed right in and gave them a little wake up call: “My, my, aren’t you old fuckers going to get the bucket kicked right out from under your feet.” And without any hesitation, without any response, not even a peep, her revenge was quick, deadly, bloody and gory. It was a masterpiece. She gave a war cry that shook the state, and the nation – and finally as she got her revenge she became her empowered self; her own self.
As time passed, she became hungry, more focused, more aware of her desire to hunt. She hunted at night in the caves, the waterfalls, the bushes, even her own resting place - if there were humans there – they were her food. She was satisfied with herself for the amount of food she could gulp each night - but then she thought about her friends, what would happen if they saw her like this? Or worse yet, what would happen to them if she saw them? She was scared – she wanted to leave but she loved the comfort of her resting place. Her fear didn’t show but she was bloody scared, until one day, those whispers came back to her aid: “I see that you want to leave this place” – her response is exactly what brought her into The Fog:
“Sure. If it makes you happy, then I’m happy to go along with it. I’m chill anyways, so it’s fine if it’s a bumpy ride to there. In the end, I just want people around me safe is all.”
