Disclaimer: Look, the Baudelaires go through enough misfortune without me owning them, okay? I don't own "Ed, Edd, and Eddy" either, nor do I wish to.
Are you ready to find out what happens next? Good. So am I; I've kept both you and me hanging loooooong enough….
Violet, who had been trapped on the left-hand side of the room, pounded the wall that separated her from her siblings frantically, desperately trying to communicate with them. Sunny attempted to bite one of the walls, but to no avail. Klaus could not hear this commotion very well, but guessed that Sunny was trying to call to him. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Klaus began to search for something that could help him crack the walls. He suddenly noticed a chisel in a nearby corner and reached for its handle, but found to his horror that it was being held onto by something else.
A skeleton.
Klaus yelped and jumped back in fear. Was this what became of Sidney's victims? Did he kill them before he drank their blood, or did they die while Sidney was still eating? Klaus grasped the chisel again with a shaking hand and easily broke the fragile hand bones of the nearly intact human remains. Klaus would have found it fascinating if he weren't so terribly frightened, as he had recently took an interest in the skeletal system of various animals. He heard Sunny's muffled whimpering and knew that she must be just as frightened as he was, maybe even more so. He had to find a way to communicate with her. Remembering what had happened earlier that day, Klaus grabbed a rock and began to tap on the wall in Morse code.
As you may know, Morse code is often used when sending telegrams, but in this case, Klaus was not trying to send a telegram. He was trying to contact Sunny, who remembered what had happened earlier that day as well, and could understand some Morse code. She heard Klaus tap out the message Sunny, are you all right? Sunny grabbed a rock and tapped the message Yes. Klaus okay? Yes, he tapped in reply. Tell Violet to use Morse code to talk with you, and then deliver her messages back to me. Sunny quickly crawled over to the opposite wall. Violet okay, she tapped. Violet, who had given up on trying to communicate with her siblings, heard this message, and it sparked a faint glimmer of hope. She grabbed a rock and tapped Sunny, I am fine. Did you come up with this idea? No, Sunny responded. Klaus. Tell Klaus that he's an absolute genius, Violet tapped. Sunny scrambled over to Klaus' wall and tapped Violet say Klaus very smart. Klaus smiled, and then tapped Tell Violet that there's a tunnel at the end of each of our rooms. Tell her to take hers. You have to take yours as well when you finish delivering this message. If I'm right, and I usually am, then we should end up running around in the dark for a while until we run into each other. Do you think you can remember all that? He waited for a response, but none came. Suddenly, he heard two letters: O.K. Sunny had already told Violet as he was telling her the message. Klaus tapped bye, Sunny and left down his tunnel. Sunny tapped I love you, Klaus and left down hers. Violet had already left, but could still hear the tapping behind her and smiled.
As Klaus had predicted, the children ended up wandering down the tunnels for hours and then met at a crossroads that continued up another long, dark tunnel. Violet took an unlit torch off of the wall and lit it on one of the lit ones, as there were no torches to light the way ahead, and she didn't want to bump into anything. After walking for another few minutes, the children came to a large door with a handprint on it.
"I think it's a handprint pad," Klaus said. "They're often used to keep doors locked, but this one's too primitive-looking for that use." "Then it probably is what makes the door open," Violet said. "In certain civilizations, these kind of doors were very common. They also happen to be in some video games." Violet pressed her hand against the door and waited for it to slide open with a rough, scraping sound.
If you have ever gotten lost in a corn maze before, then you know how terrifying it is to be trapped in such a big place with no way out, especially if it is at night, but if you have never had this experience, it goes something like this: there is an entrance and an exit, and the object is to get from start to finish. This can get very confusing and sometimes frightening if you get lost, as the Baudelaires were as soon as they stepped into the massive maze.
Suddenly, Sidney's voice, amplified by huge speakers above the children, boomed throughout the room. "Hello, children," Sidney announced grandly, "and welcome to my labyrinth of terror." Violet leaned over to Klaus and whispered "What's a labyrinth?" "A maze," Klaus answered softly. "He means that he's going to put us in a maze." "Very good, Klaus," Sidney said. "That's exactly what I'm going to do. Starting right after the end of these announcements, you are to find the end of this maze, which has a door at the end of it. The maze is in three sections, the first of which starting right here. If you can reach the end by midnight, which is in two and a half hours, then you escape and win. If not," he paused to chuckle evilly, "you are mine. Happy trails."
A loud, gong-like sound rang as the children started on their way through the maze, but quickly became lost and confused. Occasionally Sidney shouted unhelpful things like "Tick tock, time's running out," making the Baudelaires even more annoyed. They had just reached the entrance to the second area when a large boulder fell into their path. Sunny crawled over to the boulder and tried to bite through it, but it was too large and too strong for her. "Hexinsty?" Sunny asked, which probably meant "Now what?" "Now we try to break the boulder down," Violet said, "by ramming it." "That won't work!" Klaus protested. "We have to try," Violet said, "or we'll end up as a midnight snack." She backed up a few steps and ran at the huge rock at full speed, getting deflected off of it like a ping pong ball. "Well, help!" Violet said. Her siblings walked over to her and tried the same trick she had, also bouncing off of the rock.
After several more tries, the children were so sore that they had to give upon ramming the boulder. Suddenly, Violet heard a calm, soothing voice that could have been her father's. "Don't give up. I can help you," it said. You can break that boulder. Just close your eyes and believe in yourself." She did as the voice said and saw the boy from the mirror standing in front of her, smiling. She smiled back and opened her eyes, feeling ten times stronger, as if the boy had combined his strength with hers. She stepped back from the boulder and prepared to ram it again.
"Violet, we already tried that," Klaus said. Violet turned to him and said in a strange, echoey tone "Well, I'm going to try it again." She ran into it at an almost impossible speed, cracking it as soon as she hit the rock. She stepped back again and ran into the boulder once more, this time causing it to explode into sharp pieces. "I'll be watching over you," the calm voice said as Violet felt her natural amount of strength return. Miraculously, she walked out of the dust and rubble unscathed, a word which means "unharmed".
Klaus ran up to his sister. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Yes, I'm fine," Violet replied, "just a little groggy, that's all. Now come on, judging by the way the moon is positioned, we've only got one hour until midnight!" With those words, the children ran through the doorway and into the second portion of the maze, soon stumbling onto another obstacle.
On the other side of the wall was a reinforced steel door with a large golden padlock on it, and suspended from the very high ceiling was a key. "Oh great," Violet said, "How to we get past this?" Klaus tried to find some solution, even asking Sunny to try biting the door down. Unfortunately, the siblings found out that reinforced steel was one of the few things that Sunny could not bite through. "I know we have to get that key," Klaus said, "but the only way up there would be to –" "Fly?" the strange voice asked Klaus. "Yes," Klaus said, "That's exactly what must be done."
In my travels, I have seen a great number of strange and sometimes unpleasant things. I have been to South Carolina and seen a large plaster dinosaur on a hilltop. I've walked along the bottom of the Grand Canyon and found the skeleton of a gold miner, and explored a cave that I eventually became lost in, but never before, in all of my experiences, have I seen a boy fly, let alone Klaus Baudelaire. As soon as he jumped up to reach the key, he started hovering in midair, and then flew up to the key. He landed smack dab in front of the door and unlocked the door. "I must go," the voice said, "but I will help you when you need me."
Klaus suddenly shook his head as if he had just woken up. Violet walked over to him and asked "What happened?" "I don't know," Klaus responded. "I heard this voice one second, and the next I was flying up to the key. It was really weird. And for a split second when I closed my eyes, and before I grabbed the key, I saw the boy you described from the mirror." He thought about what had happened, then suddenly said "I think we were possessed by ghosts, or should I say a ghost."
Violet realized with a slight pang of fear that Klaus may have been right. "But I thought that ghosts were just an urban legend," she said in awe and fear. "Well, believe, Vi," Klaus said, grinning. "Ghosts are real, and our experiences are proof." Violet looked at her brother in astonishment. "No time to chit-chat," Klaus said, "We have to keep moving. Judging by the angle of our shadows in the moonlight, we have thirty minutes until midnight." "Thirty minutes!" Violet said in fear and slight astonishment. "We better get moving! Time's a-wasting!" The children started on their way as Violet quietly added under her breath "I've always wanted to say that."
The trio was suddenly stopped by yet another road block; this time a large steel wall separating them from the exit. "What now?" Violet and Klaus complained in unison. The strange voice returned, but this time it was Sunny who heard it. "I can help," it said as Sunny crawled over to the wall and bit through it with ease. When Sunny had reached the other side, she yelled back "Chewy" in the strange echoey tone Violet had used. The older siblings crawled through the hole as Sunny shook her head as if she had just snapped out of a trance.
"Where is the door?" Violet asked. Klaus was staring at the ceiling. "There," he said, pointing to a square of light above them. Klaus checked the position of the moon and noticed that it was eleven fifty-five and counting. They had less than five minutes to escape the mansion safely. The whole situation seemed pointless as Sunny glanced at the hole and noticed two small spots of greenish light. "Looky," she said, pointing to the lights. Her siblings turned as they realized in horror what the lights were.
Eyes.
The siblings screamed and clung to each other as the lights approached. What was back there? Was it a ghost? Was Klaus right in saying that the house was haunted? The children could only stare in wide-eyed fear as the eyes got closer to them. They so far had been lucky enough to escape every problem they had found themselves in, but now it was clear that their days were numbered. It was clear that their luck had just run out.
Ooh, cliffhanger! I love to leave you hanging! Oh, I actually DID get a review for this, yay! Thanks for reviewing, you get a muffin! (Don't worry, it's chocolate coated with powedered sugar!)
