This is my first fanfiction. So yeah. I wrote it a while ago, when I was obsessed with A Series of Unfortunate Events. The movie. Sorry, book people who think the movie sucks. I don't think it does. The sets are amazing, the actors are hilarious (Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep) and the music's amazing too. The movie is so underrated.
So I read the first book after watching the movie and didn't get hooked enough to read the other 12. So this is just a little drabble set in the beginning of the movie from Klaus's point of view. I don't pretend to know everything about this series, but I think I got the jist enough to write a few scenes about the beginning.
Enjoy! Or don't. I still don't even know how this site works. Do I get emailed if anyone likes my piece? Not that anyone will. I mean maybe.
The Bad Beginning-Klaus's POV
Klaus stared at the black lake. A chill surrounded him and he tugged his thin gray sweater tight. He should've brought a warmer one. The lakeside was freezing. The cold seeped into him, flooding him, making his whole body quake.
Klaus glanced at Violet, his older sister. She didn't seem to mind the cold. Dark brown hair tied tightly in a black ribbon, she expertly skipped smooth, black stones into the misty lake, looking like she didn't have a care in the world.
Klaus turned to his right. Little Sunny was chewing a green, slimy stick, the crunches echoing all over the beach.
Klaus tried to relax. His siblings were fine. He ought to be, too. Sure, it was cold. It was cold lots of days a year. Nothing to worry about. They wouldn't freeze to death. When they came back home, their mother would probably even be making her delicious hot chocolate for them and the bleak, cold day out would be forgotten.
So Klaus reached down next to him and grabbed one of the books he had brought, one about the Caribbean Isles. For a bit he was immersed in the vast descriptions of sunshine, coconuts, flowers, music, and dancing...but Sunny's shriek brought him back to reality.
"Wagado!" she screamed. Klaus started, and dropped his book in the sand. The tropical world was gone, and the cold air was suddenly wrapped around him again.
Klaus looked at Sunny. "Malado! Wagado!" she screamed, as she waved her chubby arms around.
In other circumstances, Klaus would have ignored her and resumed his reading. But this time was different. Sunny was frantic.
Klaus quickly stood up on his skinny legs, and dusted off his trousers.
"What's wrong, Sunny?" Klaus asked as he ran to Sunny. Violet dropped the sleek stone she was holding into the sand and came running also, her black ribbon whipping in the wind. "Sunny? What are you looking at?" she questioned.
Sunny was staring into the immense fog on the beach. What was she seeing that scared her so?
The answer revealed itself a moment later as a figure slowly stepped out the fog. Klaus tensed-then nearly laughed out loud in relief. He knew the huge pudgy face, those frantic eyes, the thick mustache, the bowler hat-it was just Mr. Poe, their banker.
Klaus felt Violet relax next to him, too. "Hello Mr. Poe," she said cheerfully, "How are you today?"
But Mr. Poe looked very bad indeed, worse than usual. His cheeks sagged down, his eyes were red and puffy, and he kept twitching around and not looking directly at the children.
Klaus frowned. Wasn't it odd, that , a respectable banker, would wander off to the beach? He couldn't have done it for leisure. After all, the Baudelaires siblings were the only ones crazy enough to be on the lakeside this freezing day. He'd obviously came looking for them.
Mr. Poe looked at the orphans, and swallowed.
"Children," he said in a hoarse voice, "A very unfortunate event has occurred."
A gust of wind whished past Klaus, and he shivered.
Mr. Poe cleared his throat. "I'm very very sorry to tell you children this, but your parents have perished in a fire that has destroyed your entire home."
Klaus felt himself staring past Mr. Poe, his eyes glued to the black, misty lake behind him. He craned his neck to get a better view. He hadn't noticed how the lake could be that black. Such a rich, deep, velvety black. Klaus didn't understand how anyone could ever swim in there-it seemed as if the moment their head submerged, they would be swallowed up forever into the black hole.
Next to him, Violet seemed to be taking huge gasps of air. Klaus glanced at her, confused. Her chest was heaving up and down, her dark brown eyes were wide, and her lovely black ribbon had slipped out and fallen into the sand.
Mr. Poe's words rang in Klaus's ears, but he didn't seem to hear them. It was like reading late at night a sentence over and over again, but not comprehending a single word.
"Moona!" Sunny screeched. Her shriek pierced the air, and echoed around the lakeside. Her word for mother.
Mr. Poe looked at the children sadly. "Well," he said. "I shall take you…to the remains of your, erm, house…and then we shall…go forward from there." coughed into his handkerchief.
Klaus's stomach suddenly flew down a drain, and he stumbled backward into the sand as the words clicked into place. What Mr. Poe was saying…it couldn't be true. Things like this…didn't just happen. It wasn't true.
Violet was still heaving in great deep breaths. But Klaus didn't breathe at all. He closed his eyes.
Maybe once he ran out of breath…all of this wouldn't be true…a big joke…misunderstanding…a dream…the horrible, dark day had been nothing but a terrible dream, that's right… Klaus would wake up in his warm bed, amidst all of his books…his parents would be downstairs cooking…the smell of pancakes would overwhelm him…and he'd forget all about the horrible dream, too busy running downstairs to grab a few pancakes before Sunny and Violet gobbled them all.
Someone cleared their throat. Klaus opened his eyes, and let go of his breath. The dark day was back.
Klaus shuffled across the sand along with Violet and Sunny, following Mr. Poe. The hopeless sadness was settling in his stomach, and Klaus felt cold, icy, horrible tears starting to form in his eyes. There was no getting away from it. Going back.
They came to 's old, silver car, and all squeezed uncomfortably in the back. The left side of Klaus's face was squashed against the cold window. But that was good. No one saw his tears dripping down the window.
The ride was so unbearably long. Klaus kept dreading what came ahead, as Mr. Poe's dingy car slowly passed through town. They passed the sweet shop where their Dad always bought Sunny her gumballs, the music store where their mother taught, and the Tool Shop where Violet got all of her little screws and bolts for all of her crazy inventions.
Klaus wondered how all those normal, happy stores could still be there, when his parents were…not going to be going there again. How could the sweet shop still be filled with giggling kids? How could sounds be drifting from the music shop? How was everyone else perfectly fine? Maybe it wasn't true, what has said. Maybe it was all a joke, or a big misunderstanding. Maybe Mr. Poe's car would turn the corner and he'd see his parents racing towards him…
But they didn't see their parents racing towards them as they turned the corner. No, they saw something much different.
Violet let out a high pitched gasp, most unlike her. Klaus's eyes widened. Sunny screamed.
A black, burned mansion. Dark smoke clouds billowing out from it into the sky. A dead house, half of it collapsing on itself, with bright orange ant-like firemen pouring out of the dead, dead house.
And it was their house.
Klaus could only stare hopelessly, unable to turn away from the terrible, horrible sight. It seemed so real now, and yet…so unreal. Like a nightmare. A dark, dark nightmare, about a black, swallowing lake, and about a burned, black house. It was a horrid nightmare full of despair and blackness.
Except this nightmare wouldn't go away.
And Mr. Poe led them straight into it.
He led them into the crumbling, dead house. Klaus couldn't understand why his feet were slowly clomping forward into the house. He didn't want to go in there.
They stiffly walked around, amidst the reporters and horrible orange firefighters. Klaus couldn't help stumbling as he saw their mother's beautiful sleek piano, collapsed and broken. And their dining room table, where they would've been eating pancakes, destroyed.
Mr. Poe started to walk with them to the library. Or what was left of it. Klaus felt a horrible slice of sadness, seeing the beautiful redwood shelves burnt and collapsed. And the books! His father's collection! All of the books, some centuries old, burned to ash in an instant. And all he now had left of the collection was the stupid one about tropical islands.
Violet, Sunny, and Mr. Poe shuffled out of the library's doorway, and Klaus turned to follow.
But as he did, a burning light stung his eye. Klaus reeled back, blinded, and spun around, looking for the source.
It was coming from his father's desk. From one of the drawers.
A memory surfaced, one so long ago Klaus thought he'd forgotten. He been what, six? Young, anyway. He'd been bored in the library, having read his pile of books for the day. He'd curiously walked to his father's desk, and slowly, quietly pulled open a drawer. A golden light blinded him.
But before he could even comprehend the thing in there, his father had come out of nowhere and slammed it shut. Klaus had trembled, looking at his tall father's angry eyes and looming figure.
But he hadn't hurt Klaus. He'd just said-
"Klaus, son, promise me not to go looking in my desk again. Someday, I promise, I'll show you what's in there. But not today. Promise me that, Klaus."
Klaus had promised, several times, still frightened, until his father relaxed and smiled and rubbed Klaus's head.
Klaus hadn't ever gone looking in the desk again, though of course, he was always curious. But eventually he forgot all about his desire to peek through his father's desk.
But here was the desk. Burnt and blackened yes, but here it was.
He had to know what was in there now.
Klaus quietly ran up to the desk, and found what was making the source of light.
A spyglass. A golden spyglass. Klaus reached out for it-but the metal, still hot from the fire burned him, and cried out.
"Klaus?" Violet questioned from the doorway.
Klaus swiftly walked back to Violet, Sunny, and Mr. Poe.
But something new was afresh in his mind. A secret, golden spyglass, with three initials carved into it.
V. F. D
The day was dark and horrible, and none of that had changed as they siblings walked out of the collapsing house towards Mr. Poe's dingy car.
But something was different. Inside the swallowing black hole of a lake, inside the dead black house, there had been a ray of golden light.
A secret.
A destiny.
An adventure.
END