Murderous Madness
Note from author: This story was made during my senior year of high school as an English assignment. My teacher had us pair up into groups of four people to create a spooky story for Halloween, containing different types of sentences to practice grammar. Whoever had the best spooky story with all the required grammar rules won a piece of candy as a Halloween treat. My team decided to do a series of journal entries based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland with a psychological horror twist. I was in charge of writing the first entry and editing the story. After presenting our story, we were happy with how receptive our audience was to our story, and we won the competition. Please enjoy Murderous Madness.
Entry 1: 😸🐇
Weird dreams have been plaguing me for quite some time. I can’t quite remember when these dreams started; I know for certain that these dreams all tie back to one thing: the White Rabbit (comp sentence w/ “;”). The pocket watch in his paws, a clock beloved by that Rabbit, went ticked loudly as he bounced around, rushing to who knows where (apposition). Disappearing quickly behind all those doors and curtains, I always have to chase the White Rabbit in my dreams, searching for answers that must lie with him (present participle). He is the key to discovering why I have these strange visions. Whenever I get close, though, he disappears and I awaken from my slumber (adv phase). It’s confusing to say the least, and I have yet to discover the reason behind these strange occurrences.
In my last dream, I was chasing the White Rabbit as I usually do. Right as I was about to catch him, he disappeared, yet I was still in my dreams. I was alone in a forest, standing by an enormous tree, when I heard a funny sound coming from above me. Resting on the branch was a smiling cat, grin growing wider, wider, and wider the longer it stared at me. Suddenly it pounced at me! Before it made contact with my face, I woke up from that nightmare. I had no recollection of the dream, that is, until earlier today.
I was walking home from my work after many hours of cases and investigations when I spotted a white blur dart across my vision. It was the White Rabbit! Urgently, I ran after it, trying to track him down (adv). Maybe my dreams were real after all, and he knows the reason as to why I have to follow him (comp sentence w/ FANBOYS). He simply must know! After chasing him for quite some time, I had lost sight of him. My surroundings were very familiar to me, like a sick deja vu if you will. Alone in the alleyway near my house, I could barely see anything in the darkness, yet I could pick up posters of forests and the advertisement of the new park and the weird trees. The smell of sickening sweet cedar lingered everywhere. I continued to walk through the alleyway, still searching for the White Rabbit, when I came upon a dastardly sight. There in front of me, was the remains of what appears to be a cat stiffly lying covered in dried blood, eyes open. That poor thing was mangled like it was killed in a cat fight days ago and was left to rot, yet there was something peculiar with the face. It looked as if the cat was smiling. The wounds around its mouth created a wide grin with the bloody canines glistening under the moonlight. That wicked grin reminded me of my dream, the one with the Cheshire cat and all. Upon realizing the correlation with the remains and my nightmare, an ill sense of dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. I had to leave the scene, to go home, yet I wonder what happened to leave the cat in that gruesome state.
He is here, the White Rabbit, in both my dreams and in my reality. I wonder where he goes, why he shows up randomly, why I can never find him. But I know one thing is for certain, he knows something and I must know what it is. Something is going on with the White Rabbit and I, and I wish to discover the reason. It just gets curiouser and curiouser.
Entry 2: 🐛🌹
For many days I have had many weird dreams about the White Rabbit, yet this recent dream was different. I was chasing the White Rabbit through some sort of dark woods, but I noticed that as I ran, I started shrinking. By the time I lost him again, I had shrunken down to the size of ants. The stalks of grass towered over my body as I traversed through the foliage. The whole time I was walking, I began to feel anxious, like a pair of eyes were following my every step. My mind started to fog up from all the stress before a sweet artificial smell caught my attention. Looking up, I spotted a stream of smoke leading to an unknown location and followed it. When I reached the end of the smoke, a blue caterpillar, reclining on the mushroom in the clearing, was puffing from the most intricate hookah I have ever seen. When I stepped away from the grass curtains and into the clearing, the caterpillar's head snapped towards my direction. His piercing eyes stared directly at mine, like he was looking straight into my soul and judging me from what he could see. Silence surrounded the both of us before a quiet chuckle was heard. The caterpillar shook before suddenly cackling like a mad man. He kept direct eye contact with me the entire time. He must have found something particularly amusing about me; that irked me for no apparent reason. My irritation flickered like a flame on a candle. It wasn’t long before I registered that lots of smoke was spewing from his mouth and began covering the floor. The odd smoke then gathered into a ball in the palm of the caterpillar’s hand before darting toward my direction and cocooning me in a cloud of smog. No matter how much I tried, I could not get the scent of ash and soot out of my lungs. The smell of fire overwhelmed my senses, wait! There was a fire!
I immediately woke up to the sight of my garden being torched! The flowers were burned from something cruel! I did not know who caused this or why, but I knew in the back of my head, this was connected with those dreams about the White Rabbit. I rushed to the hose to extinguish the fire. Unfortunately, I was too late and my garden was burnt to the ground. The red roses were now white from the soot, as if dusted with confectioners sugar. My lovely poppies and daisies, now reduced to embers, are dead as dust. The ground was covered in ash and burnt bugs, one of the few things left from the catastrophe. My knees gave way as I collapsed to the ground in despair with thoughts racing through my mind. Why did this happen? A thriving and beautiful garden full of life and wonder, now destroyed by a single flame. And where was the Rabbit now? As I ponder upon the tragedy of the garden, I suddenly remember the unique caterpillar I met a few months ago. It was blue and would usually lounge around on the leaves and mushrooms. It must be the same one as that caterpillar in my dreams! He must have smoked in my garden, and with his stupid hookah too! He knew that playing with fire was dangerous, yet he still set it on fire! Did the caterpillar think he could get away with setting my garden on fire to spite me?! Although, he was probably recruited by the White Rabbit to do such an attack on me! The caterpillar got what he deserved in the end, burned to the ground by the same fire he unleashed upon my garden. But that White Rabbit… he must have fled to escape the consequences. But where? Why does he have a vendetta against me? What did I do to deserve such a cruel fate?!
Frustrated from the lack of answers, I walked to get supplies to start cleaning up. The ground was cold and the sky was starting to cloud up, eventually leading to a sprinkle and then a downpour. I wanted to cry in bitterness as my anger rose in frustration and confusion. Was this all a game to the White Rabbit?! Entertainment?! Fun?! It’s sickening if you ask me; it feels like he enjoys tormenting me. He lures me away and when I arrive in his desired location, he disappears and watches from the shadows. I feel like screaming! I must get that blasted Rabbit! If it’s the last thing I do.
Entry 3: 🎩🫖
My wrists are getting itchy. Under my skin like maggots, it tears, squeezes, pulls something harsh (Prep phrase). John, the newspaper boy, is about the only person I’ve seen in three or so weeks and it’s only a passing wave before he’s gone on his bike in the oppressive fog (Appositive).
I don’t know anymore, I don’t know. Incidentally, attempting any productive work, from the molding papers on my desk or even lighting a match after the lights stopped working, leads to convulsions and a ringing headache that I swear makes my ears bleed (Open with adverb).
Omnipotent, the White Rabbit is beginning to stalk me (Open with adjective). He’s in the drains; I’ve seen the fur. The clock on the wall stopped ticking one day and turned into a great eyeball. It’s the Rabbit’s. He watched me all through the night, unblinking with that narrow pupil observing all that I was, am, could be, in that passive uncaring manner. He swears I can’t catch him. Not even when he can peel my flesh from bones and categorize my very tendons from that eye in the wall. I didn’t like that. Ensnared by the lolling, skin shredding feeling, I ripped it off the ground and smashed it into a white and red fluid (open with adj phrase). After that incident, it slowly transformed back into gears of a clock (Adverbial clause).
I hunt the Rabbit’s friends from the backyard to continue my retaliation. Moaned the bodies, “Please, please please!” as I skin them and hang them out back to ward off the White Rabbit (adj phrase opening).
Yesterday, I craved tea. It was odd, and I could not remember anything before that craving. To please the feeling, I scrounged the rest of the kitchen for raw tea, which I swallowed without steeping (infinitive).
This morning, John delivered a paper. It was another murder, at a children’s tea party. My head begins to throb now in sympathy for what I experienced. It was an out of body experience, thrashing and gagging on my own tongue. The carpet was too rough on my thin skin and soon my fingers were tearing at everything. Ribbons of scalp, skin, hair, carpet everywhere. I can almost taste what happened before I read the news.
It was a nice morning when the murderer walked into a little girl’s birthday party. She’d seen the little girl’s dad, you see, she’d seen him talking to a young lady with barely any clothes late at night, exchanging money for something she didn’t understand. The murderer was a child, she has to be, because I know it. She walked in and had her fill of tea before she noticed her tea was red, blood red, and coated a thick layer of copper. She didn’t mean to, you see. She didn’t mean to.
I swear, she didn’t.
She couldn’t have.
She didn’t mean to.
She didn’t mean to…
❤️📰
Solitaire Moments: Last night, a string of grisly occurrences came to a head when the body of a woman was found by the riverside of a flower field. Head and body were severed, the ground and grass and grime of nature stained with the spilled red of blood (parallel structure). The victim? Maryanne Newport: nicknamed the Queen of Hearts for her reign of terror upon the gambling districts’ card games.
The culprit of the past few week’s strange events was discovered as well, famed detective Alice Liddle running rampant through the muddy ground looking for “The hole to the other side.” Though she has been the lead detective on these several cases since they first began, the manic woman could not provide a single comprehensible sentence to the investigators on-scene (adverbial clause).
“It was as though she’s gone mad!” Detective Jab reported when prompted.
We asked more of the people present what they thought had happened to the woman. Stunned by the events, no one could provide us with an answer which was not devoid of flabbergasted cries and rapid descriptive hand movements (adjective phrase).
Declared the frazzled landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous: “The sight of the Queen, it was gruesome! Her entire throat seemed to just be… gone. I found that psycho a few feet away rocking back and forth; all she would say was ‘chase the White Rabbit’ over and over!” (open with a verb)
Detaining the culprit was not easy when she refused to remove her head from a root-gnarled rabbit hole (gerund). From dragging her out of the dirt to depositing a handcuffed Liddle in the back of a crime wagon, the woman seemed steeped in a stupor of white-rabbit-fueled mania (prepositional phrase).
“My arms are streaked with something disgusting!” spat one officer, Dee.
“No they aren’t, mine are! You’re just covered in white fur from her thrashing about,” officer Dum retorts.
It is noted that Detective Liddle was covered in grime and full of a strange white fur – it is unclear where the fur came from or which animal it belongs to, though everyone has a good hunch.
Presently, we await news from the psychiatry ward, where Ms Liddle is currently occupying a room instead of the jailhouse on the grounds of being cuckoo (adverb). If anyone has any information about a “White Rabbit” or the state of Ms Liddle’s mind, please contact the authorities.
Weird dreams have been plaguing me for quite some time. I can’t quite remember when these dreams started; I know for certain that these dreams all tie back to one thing: the White Rabbit (comp sentence w/ “;”). The pocket watch in his paws, a clock beloved by that Rabbit, went ticked loudly as he bounced around, rushing to who knows where (apposition). Disappearing quickly behind all those doors and curtains, I always have to chase the White Rabbit in my dreams, searching for answers that must lie with him (present participle). He is the key to discovering why I have these strange visions. Whenever I get close, though, he disappears and I awaken from my slumber (adv phase). It’s confusing to say the least, and I have yet to discover the reason behind these strange occurrences.
In my last dream, I was chasing the White Rabbit as I usually do. Right as I was about to catch him, he disappeared, yet I was still in my dreams. I was alone in a forest, standing by an enormous tree, when I heard a funny sound coming from above me. Resting on the branch was a smiling cat, grin growing wider, wider, and wider the longer it stared at me. Suddenly it pounced at me! Before it made contact with my face, I woke up from that nightmare. I had no recollection of the dream, that is, until earlier today.
I was walking home from my work after many hours of cases and investigations when I spotted a white blur dart across my vision. It was the White Rabbit! Urgently, I ran after it, trying to track him down (adv). Maybe my dreams were real after all, and he knows the reason as to why I have to follow him (comp sentence w/ FANBOYS). He simply must know! After chasing him for quite some time, I had lost sight of him. My surroundings were very familiar to me, like a sick deja vu if you will. Alone in the alleyway near my house, I could barely see anything in the darkness, yet I could pick up posters of forests and the advertisement of the new park and the weird trees. The smell of sickening sweet cedar lingered everywhere. I continued to walk through the alleyway, still searching for the White Rabbit, when I came upon a dastardly sight. There in front of me, was the remains of what appears to be a cat stiffly lying covered in dried blood, eyes open. That poor thing was mangled like it was killed in a cat fight days ago and was left to rot, yet there was something peculiar with the face. It looked as if the cat was smiling. The wounds around its mouth created a wide grin with the bloody canines glistening under the moonlight. That wicked grin reminded me of my dream, the one with the Cheshire cat and all. Upon realizing the correlation with the remains and my nightmare, an ill sense of dread pooled in the pit of my stomach. I had to leave the scene, to go home, yet I wonder what happened to leave the cat in that gruesome state.
He is here, the White Rabbit, in both my dreams and in my reality. I wonder where he goes, why he shows up randomly, why I can never find him. But I know one thing is for certain, he knows something and I must know what it is. Something is going on with the White Rabbit and I, and I wish to discover the reason. It just gets curiouser and curiouser.
Entry 2: 🐛🌹
For many days I have had many weird dreams about the White Rabbit, yet this recent dream was different. I was chasing the White Rabbit through some sort of dark woods, but I noticed that as I ran, I started shrinking. By the time I lost him again, I had shrunken down to the size of ants. The stalks of grass towered over my body as I traversed through the foliage. The whole time I was walking, I began to feel anxious, like a pair of eyes were following my every step. My mind started to fog up from all the stress before a sweet artificial smell caught my attention. Looking up, I spotted a stream of smoke leading to an unknown location and followed it. When I reached the end of the smoke, a blue caterpillar, reclining on the mushroom in the clearing, was puffing from the most intricate hookah I have ever seen. When I stepped away from the grass curtains and into the clearing, the caterpillar's head snapped towards my direction. His piercing eyes stared directly at mine, like he was looking straight into my soul and judging me from what he could see. Silence surrounded the both of us before a quiet chuckle was heard. The caterpillar shook before suddenly cackling like a mad man. He kept direct eye contact with me the entire time. He must have found something particularly amusing about me; that irked me for no apparent reason. My irritation flickered like a flame on a candle. It wasn’t long before I registered that lots of smoke was spewing from his mouth and began covering the floor. The odd smoke then gathered into a ball in the palm of the caterpillar’s hand before darting toward my direction and cocooning me in a cloud of smog. No matter how much I tried, I could not get the scent of ash and soot out of my lungs. The smell of fire overwhelmed my senses, wait! There was a fire!
I immediately woke up to the sight of my garden being torched! The flowers were burned from something cruel! I did not know who caused this or why, but I knew in the back of my head, this was connected with those dreams about the White Rabbit. I rushed to the hose to extinguish the fire. Unfortunately, I was too late and my garden was burnt to the ground. The red roses were now white from the soot, as if dusted with confectioners sugar. My lovely poppies and daisies, now reduced to embers, are dead as dust. The ground was covered in ash and burnt bugs, one of the few things left from the catastrophe. My knees gave way as I collapsed to the ground in despair with thoughts racing through my mind. Why did this happen? A thriving and beautiful garden full of life and wonder, now destroyed by a single flame. And where was the Rabbit now? As I ponder upon the tragedy of the garden, I suddenly remember the unique caterpillar I met a few months ago. It was blue and would usually lounge around on the leaves and mushrooms. It must be the same one as that caterpillar in my dreams! He must have smoked in my garden, and with his stupid hookah too! He knew that playing with fire was dangerous, yet he still set it on fire! Did the caterpillar think he could get away with setting my garden on fire to spite me?! Although, he was probably recruited by the White Rabbit to do such an attack on me! The caterpillar got what he deserved in the end, burned to the ground by the same fire he unleashed upon my garden. But that White Rabbit… he must have fled to escape the consequences. But where? Why does he have a vendetta against me? What did I do to deserve such a cruel fate?!
Frustrated from the lack of answers, I walked to get supplies to start cleaning up. The ground was cold and the sky was starting to cloud up, eventually leading to a sprinkle and then a downpour. I wanted to cry in bitterness as my anger rose in frustration and confusion. Was this all a game to the White Rabbit?! Entertainment?! Fun?! It’s sickening if you ask me; it feels like he enjoys tormenting me. He lures me away and when I arrive in his desired location, he disappears and watches from the shadows. I feel like screaming! I must get that blasted Rabbit! If it’s the last thing I do.
Entry 3: 🎩🫖
My wrists are getting itchy. Under my skin like maggots, it tears, squeezes, pulls something harsh (Prep phrase). John, the newspaper boy, is about the only person I’ve seen in three or so weeks and it’s only a passing wave before he’s gone on his bike in the oppressive fog (Appositive).
I don’t know anymore, I don’t know. Incidentally, attempting any productive work, from the molding papers on my desk or even lighting a match after the lights stopped working, leads to convulsions and a ringing headache that I swear makes my ears bleed (Open with adverb).
Omnipotent, the White Rabbit is beginning to stalk me (Open with adjective). He’s in the drains; I’ve seen the fur. The clock on the wall stopped ticking one day and turned into a great eyeball. It’s the Rabbit’s. He watched me all through the night, unblinking with that narrow pupil observing all that I was, am, could be, in that passive uncaring manner. He swears I can’t catch him. Not even when he can peel my flesh from bones and categorize my very tendons from that eye in the wall. I didn’t like that. Ensnared by the lolling, skin shredding feeling, I ripped it off the ground and smashed it into a white and red fluid (open with adj phrase). After that incident, it slowly transformed back into gears of a clock (Adverbial clause).
I hunt the Rabbit’s friends from the backyard to continue my retaliation. Moaned the bodies, “Please, please please!” as I skin them and hang them out back to ward off the White Rabbit (adj phrase opening).
Yesterday, I craved tea. It was odd, and I could not remember anything before that craving. To please the feeling, I scrounged the rest of the kitchen for raw tea, which I swallowed without steeping (infinitive).
This morning, John delivered a paper. It was another murder, at a children’s tea party. My head begins to throb now in sympathy for what I experienced. It was an out of body experience, thrashing and gagging on my own tongue. The carpet was too rough on my thin skin and soon my fingers were tearing at everything. Ribbons of scalp, skin, hair, carpet everywhere. I can almost taste what happened before I read the news.
It was a nice morning when the murderer walked into a little girl’s birthday party. She’d seen the little girl’s dad, you see, she’d seen him talking to a young lady with barely any clothes late at night, exchanging money for something she didn’t understand. The murderer was a child, she has to be, because I know it. She walked in and had her fill of tea before she noticed her tea was red, blood red, and coated a thick layer of copper. She didn’t mean to, you see. She didn’t mean to.
I swear, she didn’t.
She couldn’t have.
She didn’t mean to.
She didn’t mean to…
❤️📰
Solitaire Moments: Last night, a string of grisly occurrences came to a head when the body of a woman was found by the riverside of a flower field. Head and body were severed, the ground and grass and grime of nature stained with the spilled red of blood (parallel structure). The victim? Maryanne Newport: nicknamed the Queen of Hearts for her reign of terror upon the gambling districts’ card games.
The culprit of the past few week’s strange events was discovered as well, famed detective Alice Liddle running rampant through the muddy ground looking for “The hole to the other side.” Though she has been the lead detective on these several cases since they first began, the manic woman could not provide a single comprehensible sentence to the investigators on-scene (adverbial clause).
“It was as though she’s gone mad!” Detective Jab reported when prompted.
We asked more of the people present what they thought had happened to the woman. Stunned by the events, no one could provide us with an answer which was not devoid of flabbergasted cries and rapid descriptive hand movements (adjective phrase).
Declared the frazzled landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous: “The sight of the Queen, it was gruesome! Her entire throat seemed to just be… gone. I found that psycho a few feet away rocking back and forth; all she would say was ‘chase the White Rabbit’ over and over!” (open with a verb)
Detaining the culprit was not easy when she refused to remove her head from a root-gnarled rabbit hole (gerund). From dragging her out of the dirt to depositing a handcuffed Liddle in the back of a crime wagon, the woman seemed steeped in a stupor of white-rabbit-fueled mania (prepositional phrase).
“My arms are streaked with something disgusting!” spat one officer, Dee.
“No they aren’t, mine are! You’re just covered in white fur from her thrashing about,” officer Dum retorts.
It is noted that Detective Liddle was covered in grime and full of a strange white fur – it is unclear where the fur came from or which animal it belongs to, though everyone has a good hunch.
Presently, we await news from the psychiatry ward, where Ms Liddle is currently occupying a room instead of the jailhouse on the grounds of being cuckoo (adverb). If anyone has any information about a “White Rabbit” or the state of Ms Liddle’s mind, please contact the authorities.