The Jolly June Challenge

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Hannah Faoileán

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My inspiration for this month's challenge is Donna Tart's opening sentence in her novel The Secret History:
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of the situation.


Good as this is, an author must follow a brilliant opening with a hooky second sentence. Your challenge is to write a Perfect follow-on sentence. Do not use Donna Tart's second sentence. You don't even have to follow her theme. Turn her opening into the beginning of your story.

The rules are simple:

  • Each entry must be ONE sentence only, as defined by the basic rules of English grammar. We will notice if you squeeze unrelated clauses together and pretend it's a sentence, so please don't do it. Your entry will be disqualified and removed.
  • Don’t comment on other people's entries – this makes the thread far less readable. If you’d like to make a comment – or if you have a question – then please do so in the Café Life thread under the “One Perfect Sentence” prefix. I will keep checking the thread to answer any general questions. If you have a question you don't want others to read, please private message me directly.
  • You can make as many entries as you want to, but only your entry with the greatest number of votes will win a place (and Litbits).
  • IMPORTANT: You MUST make your entry anonymous by ticking the “Posting as Anonymous?” box. Entries that don’t do this will be removed.
This competition will close midnight (BST) Sunday 5th July after which voting will open for one week.

Good luck and get writing! :writing-hand:
 
No matter, because Bunny was dead inside long before that little push off the ravine.
 
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We were screwed because Bunny's body was well-preserved and the crime scene still intact
 
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The knife would be exposed by day after tomorrow, the weekend at the latest if the forecast was to be believed.
 
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Spring was coming and the stench of a decaying body would draw potential witnesses.
 
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It was only a matter of time until her murder was discovered and reported to the authorities.
 
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'You should have made him marry me,' said Flora as I covered the corpse with old hay, 'then we could have used his name.'
 
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In vain the children hunted for Easter eggs while we fought to get the last of the dairy milk.
 
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We thought that killing her would draw a line under that whole ordeal but, instead, it opened a can of worms that were not only eating into her flesh, but demanding our own.
 
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The new Bunny we'd bought from the pet store was a poor replacement, and Charlie now knew, without doubt, that his parents were outright liars.
 
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As her body was uncovered from its frosty grave, the multiple knife wounds piercing her flesh showed that it was no accident.
 
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No one was coming to our rescue, no one was looking on this trail, no one was aware how fucking lost we were.
 
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Even with decades behind us, it is the why we collectively chose to murder him that still stabs me in the stomach.
 
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It was the sun shining upon the steel-rimmed glasses, their folded arms splattered in blood, resting at the top of the ravine rather than beside the body at the bottom, that saw me pick up the stone and step towards the sergeant.
 
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Mama said I could take the first bite on the body, kept fresh over winter in a shroud of snow.
 
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His frozen body had looked perfect, and I think we were all hoping he would get up and laugh again as soon as he thawed, but the melting snow was dripping from him, our hope of a miracle drowning in its drops.
 
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It was the faint buzzing, barely noticeable at first, that signalled the hatching - an event that would change us all…in one way or another.
 
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