My Life Stinks Worse Than a Mythical Creature!
Author – Shreshta Chandra Shekar
Reckon this is all on Jesse, the drongo.
If he hadn’t dared me to swim past the sandbar, I wouldn’t be here. If he hadn’t laughed and called me a coward, I wouldn’t have launched myself into the ocean like some kind of untrained dolphin. And if he hadn’t shouted, “Bet you won’t touch it!” — I defo wouldn’t have poked the glowing, possibly cursed, definitely-not-normal rock at the bottom of the sea.
So yeah. This is 100% Jesse’s fault.
The day had started off completely normal, which, for us, meant pure chaos. The sun was blazing, here, in the land down under, the waves were crisp, and Bondi beach had become our personal playground of bad decisions.
First, we had the who-can-hold-their-breath-the-longest challenge (spoiler: I lost). Then, we tried to surf the biggest waves (also lost—unless you count getting smacked in the face by my own board as winning). Then, we discovered that Nate makes an excellent seaweed scarecrow and spent a good five minutes piling kelp on his head before he finally noticed and chased us down the beach like an angry sea monster.
Good times.
And then Jesse had to ruin it.
“Oi, Riley!” he called, already up to his chest in the surf. “Bet you won’t swim past the sandbar!”
I spat out a mouthful of saltwater. “Bet I will.”
Here’s the thing about Jesse—he’s got this smirk that makes you want to swipe it right off of him, even when you really, really shouldn’t. And I should have known better. The lifeguards were already whistling at some tourists, warning them about the rips. But Jesse had thrown down the challenge.
And there are two things you never do:
- Back down from a dare.
- Lose to Jesse.
So I swam.
And I kept swimming.
And that’s when I saw it.
The Rock That Said “Touch Me” and I Was Dumb Enough to Listen
At first, I thought it was just a shadow—a spiral pattern shimmering on the ocean floor. But the closer I got, the more I realized it wasn’t a trick of the light.
It was a massive, smooth, black stone sitting right in the middle of the seabed. Mythical. Bizzare. Completely out of place.
A rock like that should not have been there.
And yet… it was glowing.
“Riley!” Tilly called. “What are you doing?”
I barely heard her. Because at that moment, Jesse—the human bad idea factory—yelled from behind me:
“Bet you won’t touch it!”
So, naturally, like the absolute genius I am, I touched it.
And that’s when everything went nuts.
The Dreamtime Awakens
The second my fingers brushed the carving, the world exploded into light.
A deep, ancient voice boomed inside my skull:
“IT IS NOT TIME.”
And then—
The ocean vanished.
I was no longer underwater.
Instead, I stood in a blazing desert, beneath a sky that burned red and gold. The land stretched in all directions, dry and cracked like a giant had stomped all over it.
And in front of me, something moved.
A colossal serpent, bigger than a skyscraper, coiled through the landscape, its shimmering body glowing with every colour of the rainbow.
“The Rainbow Serpent”
The mythical creature?? I’d seen paintings of it before. Aboriginal Dreamtime stories talked about it. But THIS was no story. HOW?
This was real, although I hoped not.
Its golden eyes locked onto me, and suddenly, I felt very, very small.
“You have disturbed the balance.”
Oh.
Not ominous at all.
Then —BAM.
I was back in the ocean.
The rock was still glowing.
And the worst part?
Something else had come back with me.
The Beach Day Buzzkill
Jesse was the first to spot it.
“Riley, behind you—”
I spun around just in time to see it rise from the waves.
A Yara-ma-yha-who.
If you don’t know what that is, congratulations. You’ve lived a good, safe life.
It’s one of the bloodsucking, mythical creatures straight out of ancient Aboriginal folklore. Red skin. Goblin-like. Suction-cup fingers. A mouth that could probably fit my entire head inside it.
And it was grinning at me.
Jesse screamed and did what Jesse does best—ran for his life.
The goblin-thing leaped after him, its creepy fingers stretching unnaturally long.
And me? I did the dumbest thing possible.
I grabbed a piece of driftwood, yelled something probably inappropriate, and charged.
Whack.
The stick bounced off its head like I’d just smacked a brick wall.
The Yara-ma-yha-who turned to me, hissing, baring its needle-sharp teeth.
Welp. I was dead.
Then, out of nowhere, a boomerang whizzed through the air, slamming into the goblin’s face.
A man strode out from the trees, catching the boomerang as it spun back to him. He was tall, his skin weathered like sunbaked rock, his black hair streaked with grey. His eyes—sharp and ancient—locked onto mine.
“Not today,” he muttered.
The Eldritch horror screeched and disappeared into the waves.
I turned to my mysterious savior. “Who the heck are you?”
He eyeballed me for a moment, torn between being flat-out flummoxed and looking like he’d swallowed a fly, before finally speaking.
“The real question, kid, is who are you?”
Secrets of the Dreamtime
His name was Marlu, and according to him?
I had just woken up an ancient mythical creature.
“Cool, cool,” I said, internally screaming. “And what does that mean exactly?”
Marlu tossed me his boomerang. “Think fast.”
I absolutely did not think fast.
It smacked me in the chest and dropped into the sand.
Tilly snorted. “So majestic.”
Marlu sighed. “You’ve got a long way to go, kid.”
Over the next hour, he explained:
- The Dreaming is real. Like, really real.
- The Rainbow Serpent is waking up, and that’s bad news.
- Monsters from the Dreamtime are escaping, and someone needs to stop them.
- That someone might be…. me??
“So what do we do?” I asked.
Marlu’s face darkened. “We stop it before it’s too late.”
Beyond the Veil of Ancient Legends
By the time we made it back to shore, my life was officially sunk
(definitely not a pun).
And it only got weirder from there.
- A talking kookaburra named Jirri wouldn’t stop tailing me, tossing out sarcastic one-liners like an Aussie stand-up comedian.
- Mysterious shadowy figures kept lurking in the trees—either ancient spirits or the world’s creepiest game of hide-and-seek.
- Oh, and let’s not forget the Dreams. You know, the ones where the Rainbow Serpent keeps hissing my name like it’s trying to recruit me for some mystical outback adventure. No pressure, right?
Eventually, Marlu gave me a choice.
Stay normal. Forget everything.
Or—
Join him. Protect the Dreaming.
I mean, come on. Like I had a choice?
So that’s how I found myself leaving home, teaming up with an old warrior and a sarcastic bird to stop ancient mythical creatures from destroying Australia.
No big deal, right?
Yeah. Welcome to my life.
To Be Continued…?
Want to hear what happens next? Do I master the boomerang? Do we face a water monster in the Outback? Does Jesse ever stop being an idiot?
Stay tuned. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned?
The Dreamtime is waking up.
And so am I.
I marvel at how writers conjure realms of fiction, crafting narratives that, while imaginary, bear the indelible mark of their creators’ truths. Through their words, they leave a piece of their soul, creating a profound connection with readers. Literature is not a mere evasion from reality; it’s where emotions and intellect find their purest articulation.
Writing has always intrigued me—it is both an art and a refuge, a space where creativity and introspection intertwine. As I explore this passion, I find myself playing on my hobbies, embracing the joy of storytelling and expression.
In an era dominated by the cacophony of daily life, it is imperative to illuminate the subtler dimensions of existence. Writing, in all its myriad forms, distills the essence of human thought, emotion, and ingenuity, preserving fleeting moments in the permanence of ink and prose.
