I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, so I'm just going to have fun and see where it goes. These vignettes will be in more or less chronological order. Rated for cuss words later in the story.

Disclaimer: ASOUE belongs to Lemony Snicket.


"Well, I don't know about you, but I think we might've hit rock bottom."

Isadora glanced at her brother. He had seated himself on a bale of hay and was leaning against the wall.

"Gee, what makes you say that?" She responded. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"This place." Duncan stared despairingly at the ceiling, where a fungus looked to be in the beginning stages of development. "I had no idea one place could be so depressing. I seriously thought Nero was joking when he said we would be staying here."

"Guess not." Isadora sat down on her own hay bale and followed Duncan's gaze. "Do you think they decorated this way intentionally? You know, to go with the whole 'Memento Mori' thing? Because this place looks like somewhere you'd go to have a heroin overdose."

"At this point, nothing would surprise me." He sighed. "Oh well. I hope everything else here is okay. Did you get a chance to look this place up?"

"No, did you?"

"No, that's why I asked you. I feel like I should have at least been able to google this place."

"I dunno, it's a pretty obscure school. A Google search probably wouldn't bring anything up." Isadora thought for a moment. "Maybe they also do that thing Disney does where they request that Google take down information that makes them look bad."

"I thought that was myth."

"Nope."

"Didn't you hear about that in an urban legend you read?"

"Yeah." Isadora shook her head. "Whatever, it happens. Maybe Prufrock has such a good reputation because of its social media presence."

"Maybe." Duncan's gaze shifted to the floor. A small crab was slowly crawling across the doorway. "Maybe I'll do some research into the school's history. You know, in my spare time."

"Good luck with that." Isadora rolled her eyes. "I get the feeling that we'll find out what this place is really like soon enough. If our interaction with Nero is any indication of how our year is going to go, it's going to suck."

"Well, we don't know that. Looks can be deceiving."

"Looks can be deceiving? There was a drug deal going on in the parking lot."

"…Yeah, that's true."

"And did you see that old Commodore on Nero's desk? It's probably been sitting there since the 70s."

"Yeah, it is pretty dated." Duncan looked at his watch. "Well, on that note, it's 11:15, so we should probably head to the cafeteria so we're not late."

"Okay."