After The End

Chapter the Second: The Old Abandoned Building

Word Count: 2364

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"You'll never have anyone who loves you! Not anymore! Your parents are dead, you have nowhere to go!"

The frightened girl shot up on her small mattress, hugging her knees to her chest. She rocked back and forth while she tried not to cry too loudly, since it would wake up the other girl in the room. She took a moment to calm down, wiping the tears from her eyes and trying to calm her breathing. She stood up, walking on the cold, stone ground past the other sleeping girl. She left the room, slipping through the doorway without having to move the squeaky door.

The girl's feet padded down the small hallway to another room, an even colder room, in the old building. She approached the couch, stepping around another sleeping body; a boy. She hugged herself with her arms, trying to stay warm, then knelt in front of the old, worn out couch. She gently shook the boy that was sound asleep on there, "Duncan," she whispered, trying not to wake his brother who she knew was a light sleeper.

Duncan's eyes opened slowly, "Carmelita? What happened?" He asked her, sitting up, "Was it the nightmare again?"

Carmelita nodded, trying to hold in the sobs that threatened to escape her mouth again.

Duncan scooted over a bit, allowing Carmelita to sit down next to him. Duncan wrapped an arm around her comfortingly. Carmelita let her head rest on his shoulder. The two were silent, and soon the crying stopped, then they both fell asleep once again.

. . .

"Oi, wake up you two! Quigley prepared some breakfast!"

Duncan and Carmelita woke up to see Isadora standing there in their faces, looking grumpy, since she usually was in the mornings.

"What time is it?" Duncan asked her, rubbing his eyes.

"9:37, now get up," she said, walking over to the corner of the big room, where they had set all of their things. Quigley was there, some bowls set out on the blanket they always ate on.

"Shocker, she's actually awake..." Carmelita commented, then Duncan laughed. Isadora never woke up before 10 until now, since all this crap started happening to them and she started getting very tired from it.

The two then stood up together, walking over to the other two.

"So Quigley, what's for breakfast?" Duncan asked.

"Canned peaches; same as every morning," Quigley replied with a sigh.

The four were silent for awhile, picking at their canned peaches with some sporks, not really knowing what to talk about...

"What should we do today?" Isadora piped up.

"Stay here, probably... it's still around the anniversary of the Baudelaires leaving, so we could get recognized if we leave... they'll be talking about us in the newspaper too..." Quigley told them.

They all sighed and realized Quigley was right.

. . .

Duncan sat on the cold floor in Isadora and Carmelita's room, Carmelita was at a small table they had found (someone had left it out in front of their house saying it was free), sewing some new clothes with the old sewing machine they had found too. Duncan was writing down in his commonplace book, the pencil and the soft whirring of the sewing machine being the only noises in the room.

"Duncan, how does this look?" Carmelita asked. Duncan turned around to see that Carmelita had made Quigley a flannel using some brown plaid fabric they had found at the market. Quigley had shown interest to it, and it had been the first thing he had shown interest to in a while. He was depressed, and Carmelita knew it. He was spending a lot of time in one of the empty rooms, going through books and old newspaper articles, trying to find the Baudelaires, though his siblings didn't know that was why he was down all the time.