The world is quiet here.
The phrase, best known as the motto to the Volunteer Fire Department, means many things.
Its original meaning is that libraries are quiet places, lest you get an angry librarian mad at you and revoking your membership. Many noble people once went to libraries, checking out encyclopaedias, and novels, and everything in between, from every assigned number in the Dewey Decimal System, to every young adult fiction writer.
It later gained a more sinister meaning, one that meant that the places destroyed and warped by fires and flames would be quiet, due to the lack of any living soul able to speak or even make any noise at all, due to the catatonic fire, catatonic being a word which here means, 'murderous, and intentionally set'.
Over time, it gained more and more meanings. The deep sea is quiet. The air ducts are quiet, the jail cells are quiet. Each for their own reasons.
I will use the term 'the world is quiet here' three more times in this chapter, before it ends.
Hotel Denouement was also a place where the world was quiet, as the crowd watched intently as the vastly untalented actor, Count Olaf, rose up. His accomplices were caught, and he was set for jail time.
Count Olaf turned, pulling a knife from his pockets. He turned, seeking the first person he saw. No, not person. Orphan.
His eyes landed on Violet, sweet pretty Violet. He, with one flick, threw the knife, which soared across the air. Violet dodged the blade, but she crashed in Klaus doing so.
"Bow before your grand actor and overlord," Olaf said, the final wire in my sanity pulled taut and tighter until it snapped, "Olaf Handler of Stain'd-by-the-Sea!"
With one move faster than he possibly should have, he moved across the room, and grabbed one of the Denouements – probably Frank, but it could have been Dewey, unless Olaf thought Ernest was someone else. He held the triplet in an iron grip, and Dewey/Ernest/Frank started seeing stars, suffering suffocation.
Quigley and Duncan both moved with remarkable speed as well, considering they were only fourteen, trying to free the Denouement – likely Dewey, judging by how he was saying Kit's name – from Olaf's grip.
Olaf smirked, tossing Dewey down, grabbing Quigley instead... unless it was Duncan, it was hard to tell in the action. Duncan's eyes went wide, as he tried to break his brother free from Olaf's grip instead.
"An orphan dies tonight!" Olaf exclaimed, tightening his grip on Quigley. Violet, Klaus, and Isadora all ran to Quigley's aid, but Olaf took a couple steps back.
"One more step, and I snap the boy's neck!" Olaf warned, and his look most certainly showed he wasn't bluffing.
Everyone froze. Quigley was turning blue, and no one could save him. Isadora flinched a little, scared for her brother. Duncan clutched his fists tightly in anger.
Suddenly, they both relaxed. Olaf glared, smirking.
"Why are you two both so calm all of a sud-"
Suddenly, the count dropped Quigley, who started inhaling as much as he could. Through the dead center of Olaf's chest, was a harpoon gun.
Fired by Dewey Denouement himself.
In his left arm he held the harpoon gun that nearly killed him last night, and in the other he held my sister, Kit, who was injured but safe.
Olaf staggered, collapsing. He grabbed Violet's collar on the way down, pulling her with him. "Man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf." He spat, his shiny eyes gleaming like they never had before. "Get out as early as you can." He continued, before coughing worse than Mr. Poe. He had left go of Violet, who stood back up. All six children peered at him a bit clos-
"And don't have ANY. Kids. Yourself." The count spat, before shaking, and lying down. And letting him draw his very last breath.
There was silence, and then one could say, the world is quiet here.
As the sinister duo of judges were courted away to prison, Olaf simply lay there, dead in the lobby of Hotel Denouement.
All was still, until...
Wrong!
The clock in the Hotel Denouement started going off, signalling that it was twelve o' clock. There are many things in this world that can't help but happen. The rising and falling of the sun, life and death...
Wrong!
Violet couldn't help but think how this sick and twisted man who had chased them around the world and back was finally dead.
Wrong!
Klaus couldn't help but wonder if Olaf had set the Baudelaire fire. He may never know, but some things were likely better off not knowing.
Wrong!
Sunny couldn't help but remember that ten years from now, she wouldn't remember all this. She wasn't sure if this was a blessing or a curse.
Wrong!
Isadora couldn't help but cry, knowing she almost lost Quigley a second time, this time for good. But at least the nightmare was over.
Wrong!
Duncan couldn't help but cuddle his siblings, scared that if he let go, they'd be kidnapped or hurt yet again.
Wrong!
Quigley couldn't help but shake, as he tried to breathe at a rational pace again. He could've sworn his life was flashing before his eyes.
Wrong!
Dewey and Kit couldn't help but acknowledge how close the six came to experiencing great loss, and even wondered if they should try and protect more, and give the library to someone else.
Wrong!
You couldn't help but read this story, and you have witness life and death beck and call to this six children, hoping they might finally get happiness and closure.
Wrong!
Just as I couldn't help but love one woman enough to devote my later life's work to sharing the story of her children.
Wrong!
You likely couldn't help but suspect this wasn't the last of the misery for the Quagmires and Baudelaires. That there misery would never end.
Wrong!
But, luckily, that's not how the story goes.
Despite what things seem, many people over or under estimate their own reactions to something. You might expect a great deal of joy when you have strawberry ice cream, only to find you are allergic to strawberries. You might expect a great deal of sadness when you break up with a girlfriend, but you come to realize it was a toxic relationship you should have cut off sooner.
As Olaf's limp body was carted away on a stretcher, despite how lucky the kids felt, they felt no joy or happiness from his death, merely a sense of relief, and of crushing stress being lifted from their shoulders.
They couldn't help but wonder why Olaf was so insistent on hunting them, especially after Esme. Did he want more than the fortune? Did he want revenge?
Was there a chance he just wanted a true challenge in his rapidly declining life?
They would never know, but they knew not to dwell. I myself have learned dwelling on the past too long results in old flames never dying, even when that flame themselves perish to a flame.
As the police and ambulance and coroner arrived, the orphans lie on the sidelines, silent, as they had been since Olaf died. It was almost like with his death, their very ability to speak was stolen.
Dewey sat down beside the six. "The world is quiet here, thanks to you six. You all made noble sacrifices today." He said, and when no kid objected to his presence, he continued. "Even our greatest in the V.F.D. haven't done as well as you. You deserve the happy ending you're about to get..."
"If only your parents were here. They would be so proud of you." Dewey said, lamentably. Lamentably is a word here meaning 'wishing he could have done more to save the parents of the six orphans'.
"Have you decided what you'll be doing with your library?" asked Isadora, timidly.
"Kit and I want you to have it." Said Dewey, calmly. "You don't always have to be there... but it can be a home. You will have space to live, eat, enjoy life. I had built originally in case I never wanted to leave."
"You'd be safe." Dewey added, looking at the six. If the death of the villain that caused all this misfortunate hurt them like this, how hard had the death of their parents been?
They never got a chance to grieve, really... thought Dewey sadly.
"We'll do it, right?" Klaus asked, looking at his friends. The calm silence verified what everyone was thinking.
"We'll volunteer." Said Violet.
Dewey nodded. "No, thank you." He said, before leaving.
The six friends hugged and embraced, excited for the new, safe life awaiting.
They went over to Kit, who was about to leave with Dewey to an unknown safe house. They didn't want more enemies.
"Will I be a good mother, do you think?"
Before anyone could answer, the clock in the Hotel went off one final time. The last time Kit or Dewey would ever hear, probably.
Wrong!
When everything seemed bleak, the two sets of friends made it.
"We know it." Isadora said.
They couldn't help but watch Olaf drive away, in the police's hands. At last, their troubles went away, at least for a time. The six children hugged, hand in hand, bracing themselves for their brand new life in the secret library. The brand new stories waiting to be told there.
"You'll be a good mother, Kit." Violet assured her. "We'll always be here for you."
Kit wiped away some tears, "I have a question for you children..." They all looked at the former volunteer... "May we name her after your parents? Beatrice Moxie Denouement?"
So much silence fell over them, but Violet broke it. "You don't need to ask." They all hugged, not a cry or scream or whimper among them.
The world isn't quiet with kids, when they're born, as they cry, and require attention. Despite this, we don't mind, while the tears shed anyway.
"Promise me you'll take care of yourselves?" Kit asked, and they assured her. "Children... You did wonderful things today."
At last, it seemed like all the dark, twisted, corrupt, villainy and torture lurking around the whole world could go away. Of course, this is wrong.
Sadly, it is impossible to get rid of all villainy, but making things quiet, at least for a time, is all we can ask here, really.
The world is quiet here.
AN: Thanks for reading! I've got two more short one-shots, another full story, and an one-shot compilation to share soon, but enjoy this for now!