A distinct crash sounded from across the ballroom. A bottle of wine had been tossed to the ground and its contents were now bleeding red across the marble tiles. Olaf stood up, and the Baudelaire's knew that this was the moment. Violet's breath caught in her throat and Sunny's grip on her hand tightened.

Olaf roughly pushed his chair back from the long table, causing the occupants of it that weren't his accomplices to glare reprovingly. He strode down the steps to the main floor where many people were still dancing to the orchestra, who didn't miss a beat, but furrowed their eyebrows as he staggered across the floor, his face a mask of malevolence and determination- rarely a positive combination on anyone.

Klaus subtly motioned for his sister's to follow him, and they moved casually to the right, as though headed to the coatroom. However, people were beginning to stare as they realized that Olaf's eyes were glued to the children. The Baudelaire's stopped moving; preferring instead to act as though they were unaware of the fact that an irate looking man was headed their way. "Maybe someone will stop him, or at least hinder him," whispered Klaus nonchalantly into his sister's ear.

Violet nodded slowly. "I doubt they'll want to keep someone like that at their party, disturbing the guests. But maybe they don't want to cause a scene... If they just think he's some drunk guest, they may let it go if they think he'll cause a spectacle." Violet picked up Sunny, who she could feel shaking slightly, and went back to trying to look unconcerned.

The stiff material of her formal gown was itching as she tried to keep from fidgeting that might give away their insouciance. It seemed that Sunny, too, was becoming restless; as she occasionally toyed with the sleeves of her own dress and couldn't seem to keep still. "Door?" Sunny whispered to Violet.

"Good idea," she replied. "Klaus, let's move towards the door at the other end of the ballroom so that we can exit quickly if we need to."

"Wait," said Klaus, puting a hand on his sister's arm, "we might not need to." He pointed to a stern-looking waiter who was headed towards Olaf, presumably to reprimand him, or more favorably, to have him removed from the ballroom.

However, they never got the chance to see what the waiter's intentions were, because at that moment, Olaf pulled an ivory-handled pistol from his jacket and held it into the air. Screams were heard from around the ballroom and any people that had been crowding him, backed up to form a terrified cluster far away enough that they felt safe. The waiter paused, his mouth still open, but obvious fear permeating every noble intention he'd ever had. No one else made a sound as Olaf stepped towards the Baudelaire's and this time, no one dared to stop him. A sickening smile twisted its way onto his lips, and the children were close enough now to see the maniacal glint in his eyes, more vibrant than ever before.

Klaus, Sunny, and Violet backed up with every step he took towards them, not knowing what else they could do. They all knew that if Olaf really meant to kill them, which he certainly appeared to be attempting, then there was little they could do to stop him. The children stopped moving as they hit a window sill and did the only thing that they could think to be of any false bravery: they stared straight back into those black pits of eyes that glinted like mica but extended forever into nothingness.

"Hello, orphans," he whispered, spit flying unnoticed from his mouth. He sounded somehow weaker, yet more determined than they had ever seen him. "I've come to settle some unfinished business. In the way I best saw fit."

He raised the pistol, surprisingly quickly and pointed so that it jabbed at Sunny's arm. Violet felt a clammy palm slip into her own, and she squeezed her brother's hand tight, for what she expected to be the last time. Tears gathered in her eyes as she felt her baby sister shake in her arms, and Klaus's hand squeeze tighter and tighter. For what felt like the billionth time, she felt that she had ultimately betrayed her parents' trust in promising to take care of her siblings. What use had their hardships been?

They had endured years of nothing but uncomfortable conditions, helpless trauma, and near-death situations, and this was how it all would end? This? With some insane, criminally inclined man pointing a pistol at their chests? It was a fate that Violet had never considered. Good always triumphed over evil, right? But she realized now the truth in the words that her friend Fiona had spoken what seemed like light-years past: "People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads." There was no good for evil to triumph over, and philosophy seemed obsolete in this moment. They were not noble people, nor were they evil people: they were three very young, very scared children, who were about to die.

'We're about to die,' thought Violet, 'we really are about to die. With so many secrets in our hearts- so many secrets we have yet to learn!'

And Klaus whispered the very words she had been thinking: "This is not our destiny." Violet felt a surge of pride rise up through her chest. Klaus, brave Klaus, loving Klaus, immensely clever Klaus, who would never, ever, let them go to their graves if it was not what was intended for them- and it wasn't

"This is not our destiny," he said louder. At this point, several of the guests had fainted, many were sobbing, several were attempting to exit the building, only to find the one exit blocked by Olaf's henchmen, and the other's were surveying the scene with shock and intense distress. But as Klaus uttered those words, every single head in the room turned towards him. "This is not our destiny, and nor is it yours, Olaf."

Olaf blanched pale and curled his lip in disgust. No doubt he felt as though he were once again holding a harpoon gun in a hotel lobby, when the very same thing had been said to him."Yes," he said quickly, "yes it is."

Klaus shook his head calmly. "No it's not, Olaf. You don't have to do this. You could lower the gun and you wouldn't have to go against your destiny."

"I am going to kill you three children right now," he declared, his voice rising slightly, and knuckles white on the pistol. "Right now, and then you'll all be dead. Dead. DEAD DEAD DEAD! Just the way you should be!"

Violet spoke now, struggling to keep her voice as strong as Klaus's. "Olaf, if you kill us now, how will you get our fortune? It's what your after, isn't it?"

The count uttered something that might be called a laugh and paused for a moment, shaking his head. The children were surprised to see that his eyes were glistening even brighter with the wetness of his own tears. "Don't you get it, you imbecilic orphans?" he cried, his voice hoarse and hysterical. "It's not about the fortune anymore! IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY! IT'S ABOUT ME! ME! I have to kill you. I have to kill you so I can stop wasting away my life on you. I can't stop." He spoke the last few words at a whisper and trailed off into a paroxysm of shuddering gasps that was too pitiful to be called crying.

Klaus stepped forward and looked into Olaf's vulnerable, frightened, very confused eyes. "It's not your destiny," he repeated firmly.

"Destiny," muttered Olaf. "Destiny, destiny, destiny, destiny..." he continued on muttering this word at such an increasingly fast pace that it eventually strung it's self into one phrase. "Destinydestinydestinydestinydestinydestinydesti- AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Olaf roared like a combination of an antagonized lion, and a very sick, very mentally embroiled man. He flung his arm out and the Baudelaire's ducked, causing the pistol to smash the window in back of them with a splitting crack followed by the sound of millions of glass particles separating themselves from the window frame and falling sustainedly to the ground several hundred feet below.

Olaf turned around and surveyed the ballroom with wide, unseeing eyes. "Destinydestinydestiny," he still muttered under his breath. "Destiny, not my destiny, not mine, not mine, notminenotminenotmine..." He started to walk backwards, oblivious to the horrified stares of everyone around, and of the orphans in back of him. "Kill you, I'll kill you, but it's not my destiny, oh not mine, not mine, notminenotminenotmine..." Several of his associates saw what was happening from the door and a few exchanged glances and headed in his direction, but before they could reach him, the wide-eyed orphans had moved from his way in paralyzed confusion and he had reached the sill. "Not my destiny. No, not mine," he uttered calmly as his knees caught the sill and he tipped backward.

He didn't seem to notice, but closed his eyes, the most peaceful looking that the Baudelaire's had ever seen him and tilted back his neck. It was the only momentum his body had needed to continue to let his back slide off the sill and his knees bump heavily on it as he tumbled backward out of the window. There was dead silence as his feet disappeared from view and everyone realized what had happened. Many shrieks and sobs ensued, including a horrified Esmé Squalor, in a dress made entirely from pinecones, running to the window and staring down as her boyfriend tumbled to the streets. "No!" she screamed, "NO! OLAF! OLAF!" before she sank to the ground in a jumble of pine needles and tears until she was escorted away by the police, no doubt called by the passers-by below.

As Olaf's confederates were one by one taken into incarceration, the Baudelaire orphans stood on the sidelines as always, watching their world once again morph itself into something more bizarre and mutated than could possibly be allowable in such dire circumstances.