(Serious) Author's Note: Thanks to krikanalo for reviewing!

I've decided to carry on with the Lemony Snicket writing style, by the way :)

Chapter Two

Violet was shocked.

Twenty minutes after her mother had arrived at Briny Beach with such grim news, she was staring into the charred ruins of her home.

Considering that over fourteen years of happy memories had taken place in the ruined lot that stood before the three children, there was barely anything to show for it at all.

Two firemen dressed in full uniforms came out of the wreckage, declaring the property (or, more accurately, what remained of it) to be safe, before walking over to stand with Mr Baudelaire (who looked exhausted but had fared better than his wife) by their shining red fire engine.

Slowly, the Baudelaire children walked into the tragic remains of their home. Amongst the charred mass, barely anything had survived, and Violet was able to find what was left of her workbench, where she had regularly spent afternoons trying to devise new inventions.

Klaus found the charcoal remains of the bookshelves of the Baudelaire library. Like many other people, he believed that there is no sight worse than a ruined book, and it saddened him to see the remains of the leather bindings of one of his favourite encyclopaedias on the sooty floor at his feet. He looked around what was once the library, remembering all the shelves of books that he had hoped to read. Now he would never read them all.

Sunny, who was safe in the arms of her mother, walked with Mrs Baudelaire to the charred kitchen tiles at the back of the building, where nothing remained of the kitchen but a melted lump of metal that was once the stove. Together, mother and daughter stood crying silently in the ruins of their home, remembering the happy times they had once had. Sunny had spent many afternoons with her mother in the kitchen, sitting on the floor tiles whilst her mother cooked up an inventive dish for the family, and was usually given something interesting to bite, as Sunny had only just had her four front teeth grow through, and she loved to bite anything and everything that she could get her hands on.

But those times could happen no more.

With little more purpose to stay at the desolate scene, the Baudelaires took one final look at the destruction before heading out of the property for a final time.

Mrs Baudelaire, who was again emotional as she left the property, ran straight into her husband's arms, who attempted to console her.

"Oh, Bertrand..." she cried. "What are we supposed to do?"

The three Baudelaire children weren't used to seeing their father upset, as he rarely showed his emotions, but even though he wasn't crying the children could tell that he was upset as his voice wavered considerably when he spoke.

"I guess there's only one thing we can do," he said glumly. "We need to get away from here. The city is no longer safe."

The city is no longer safe, thought Violet. Those are the exact same words that mother used. Something is going on here, and I don't like the look of it.

Mrs Baudelaire had wandered away from her husband to look back at her destroyed home.

"Where can we go to?" she asked quietly.

"Into the mountains," her husband said firmly, trying again to console her. "Back in the old days, the Mortmains were always the safest place."

"Back in the old days?" said Klaus frustratedly, having not yet managed to conquer his tears. "You make it sound like you expected this to happen!"

Klaus would have said more, but his father gave him a deadly look - a phrase which here means "he glared at his son threateningly" - so Klaus stayed silent.

"How are we going to get there?" asked Mrs Baudelaire desperately. "We have nothing. We can't even get money from the bank; all our account information went up in smoke. It's almost hopeless to try and reach the Mortmain Mountains."

"Why do we have to go to the Mortmains?" Violet asked, feeling frightened, but neither parent answered her. Instead, she walked over to Klaus, who was holding Sunny, and observed her parents' discussion.

"That's not exactly true, Beatrice," said Mr Baudelaire, who was attempting to appear cheerful but was failing miserably. "I might not have had much time, but I did manage to grab a couple of belongings in the panic."

Mrs Baudelaire turned back to face her husband, a small glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"What did you save?" she asked desperately.

"Oh, it really isn't much," Mr Baudelaire said as he pulled a small object out of his pocket that the three Baudelaire children recognised as their car keys.

You see, although the large family car that the Baudelaires owned had been destroyed in the fire, as the built-in garage had also been consumed by the inferno, but the Baudelaires were one of the very few lucky families to own two cars, and their second car, a smaller vehicle that might just be able to transport all five Baudelaires, sat untouched across the street from the ruinous mansion.

"This is how we're getting to the mountains," Mr Baudelaire said confidently, smiling for the first time since the fire.

"Did you get anything else, father?" said Klaus, suddenly filled with hope that maybe one of his prized possessions, such as an expensive fountain pen that his mother had bought him for his eleventh birthday, had somehow survived the blaze.

"There's only one more thing..."

Mr Baudelaire slowly reached into his pockets to pull out two small notebooks with solid dark blue covers.

For a moment, Klaus was disappointed; his parents had saved some books from the fire, but these were books that he had never seen before; they certainly weren't kept in the Baudelaire library. However, they clearly meant something to his mother, who ran over to her husband, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Thank-you!" she said excitedly, and the children could see that she was happy - or, at least, relieved - for the first time that morning.

"What were those books?" Violet asked Klaus quietly as her parents embraced.

"I don't know," Klaus replied, equally as quietly. "They weren't in our library. I've never seen them before."

"Do you think they have something to do with the reason why we're having to go to the mountains?" Violet asked, worried.

Klaus shrugged.

"I have no idea." He paused for a moment before continuing. "I get the feeling that our parents have been hiding something from us."

Violet nodded in agreement. She also felt unnerved by the whole situation.

"I'm frightened."

"Me too."

The two elder siblings looked at each other for a moment before looking at their parents, who were desperately trying to search their small car for anything useful, and then looking back at each other, smiling sadly.

In the twelve years that Violet and Klaus had lived together, they'd had a neutral relationship with each other, a phrase which here means "they had got on reasonably well with each other, and they rarely argued." The Baudelaire siblings had never been particularly close to each other, but as they stood together by the ruins of their old home, both Violet and Klaus realised just how desperate their situation was, and just how much they needed to depend on each other to get themselves through even the most unfortunate of events.

(Serious) Author's Note: If you enjoyed the chapter, please review! Constructive criticism is welcomed :)