Memento Mori {A Series of Unfortunate Events}

•ONE• In Which a House Burns Down

WORD COUNT: 930

You sat at the kitchen table of your home, a large house, comfortable and extremely tidy. Your mother was responsible for that. You were currently writing out the beginning of a new story in your notebook. You had been writing in detail the entire plotline for weeks and weeks, and you were finally ready to write the book.

You were well into the first chapter, completely absorbed in the story, when–

Is that... smoke?  You closed your notebook with the pencil inside, standing up from the table to go investigate. You clutched the notebook to your chest with one arm as you opened the door to the living room with the other, and could immediately see the problem. The room was filled with smoke. You could nee no flames, so it could be your Dad burning toast in his personal "Desk Toaster." A toaster he kept in his office for "HuNgEr ReAsOnS"

 You walked out the door and down the stairs, holding your notebook under your arm. If he had just burnt his toast and you had interrupted your writing for it, you were going to be so mad. You knocked on his office door. It didn't open, so you turned the knob. It was locked. You took out one of your Bobby pins and picked the lock. You looked inside, and he wasn't there, so you closed the door on your way out; in case there was actually a fire, it would spread more slowly if all the doors and windows were shut because fire needs access to oxygen. You learned that when you tried to keep a  candle in an airtight container to give off some light and it stopped burning after a few seconds. You walked down the hallway, shutting the doors behind you, making your way towards the Library. As soon as you entered it, you could see the reason for the smoke. The house was on fire.

The door on the opposite side of the room you had just entered, the library, was burning. You froze for a moment, then screamed "MOM!" You could hear pounding feet running down the stairs and ran to open the door for her. She came into the room from the door you'd just opened and stared wide-eyed at the burning door, which had been only smoldering at first, but was now completely ablaze. She was completely still for a moment before springing into action. She ran to the bookshelf and pulled out a book and a small metal cylindrical object, a spyglass. She handed both to you, then pushed down on the top of a blank grey book. It sank into the shelf and a passageway opened up. She shoved you through the doorway, and it closed behind you. You pounded on the solid wooden wall blocking you from her. "MOM! MOM!" You heard her voice coming through the wall. "The newspaper will tell you where to go. Find the Quagmires. This is not an accident. I'm going to get your brother and then we'll get out. Don't lose the book or the spyglass! I love you, and I'll see you soon."

You heard the sound of running feet and you knew she'd run off to find your twin brother. Stepping away from the wall, you held your notebook and the book your mom gave you in one hand and the spyglass in the other. You turned towards the dark black nothing behind you and slowly trudged into the darkness, the shock slowly sinking in.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The tunnel was circular, and the rounded ceiling rose about two feet over your head. It was damp and smelled like mouldy grapefruit. You thought it was maybe an old sewer system, but there were street signs on every place the tunnel branched out. "Montgomery." You muttered, having trouble reading the sign in the half-darkness. "667 Dark Avenue. Lake Lachrymose ferry station." You kept walking until you were too tired to walk anymore, taking turn after turn in the dim light until you were completely lost. 

You slid down a wall and set the three items on the ground. You looked at the spyglass. It was wooden with gold embellishments, and little compasses, buttons and dials. When you tried to expand it to look through, you realized it was only half of a spyglass, and therefore completely useless. You sighed and picked up your notebook and sketched out the spyglass, labelling the materials it was made out of, brass and wood, and possible uses, (Whacking things, looking at things, melting down to make fake money, etc). Not that it was important, but you needed something to do. After that, you turned the page and continued writing your story. You had written three pages by the time your writing trailed off, and your eyes closed and you fell asleep. You hoped that in the morning, you would wake up, and that this would never have happened, and you would be home in your bed, with your twin crashing around in the room next to yours.

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Thanks for reading the first chapter of Memento Mori, an 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' fanfiction. I hope you enjoy the rest of the book, or enjoyed the first chapter if you don't want to read the rest. It's a miserable story for sure, a word which here means "A story full of good, honest people who have an inordinate amount of problems for children so young of age."

Thanks, LianLily