★ 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖎𝖗𝖑 𝖂𝖍𝖔 𝖁𝖔𝖑𝖚𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖉 ★ (𝓐𝓼𝓸𝓾𝓮)

The Slippery Slope 2

"My name is Lemony Snicket, and I have spent years, months, and countless consecutive and nonconsecutive days investigating how a person might survive a fire. A person might survive if he was unable to sleep, so instead of being in bed with his siblings, he was in the kitchen drinking hot cider with his mother, who smelled the smoke...and helped him into a secret tunnel
under the house while she went to get the rest of the family. She never came back." Lemony Snicket said.

"One might also be able to survive a fire if the mother of the kid noticed a starting and quickly ushered her under the trap door, and the mother helped other people escape selfless without caring about herself," Emily let out a sigh and continued. "When trying to return to her kid the mother realized she was too late. The kid under the trap door could be waiting for her mother for hours, but with no sign of her. A good friend of the mother finds the kid and takes the kid with them. They manage the convince the kid to not return to her sibling because that would mean her sibling would be in danger. So the kid went 4 years without ever seeing her sibling until recently."

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous. If someone asks you how you are, for example, you might automatically say "Fine, thank you, "when in fact you have just failed an examination or been trampled by an ox. A friend might tell you, "I've looked everywhere in the world for my keys," when you know that they have actually only looked in a few places in the immediate area. Once I said to a woman I loved very much, "I'm sure that this trouble will end soon, and you and I will spend the rest of our lives together in happiness and bliss," when I actually suspected that things were about to get much worse. And so it was with the two elder Baudelaires and Nadia when they stood face-to-face with Quigley Quagmire and Katherina Nairobi Jewels and found themselves to be saying things they knew were absurd. 

"Katherine," Nadia breathed as she blinked. She rubbed her eyes hard trying to figure out, what she was seeing was a hallucination or...real. "You're dead."

The blue-eyed twin shook her head. "No," She said softly.

Nadia quickly ran towards her and hugged her. Surely, if Katherine was a hallucination she wouldn't be solid right? A tear escaped her eye as she tightly hugged her sister. Happiness, relief, were hitting her as if she was run down by a bus. The brunette sobbed slightly as she could hear her sister sniffle as well. Embracing her sister, made Nadia feel like a hole in her heart had been filled again.

"I missed you so much," Nadia sobbed tightly hugging her. She felt as though Katherine would disappear if she let go.

"I missed you too," Katherine said as she hugged her sister back just as tightly. The two sisters wiped their tears, and reluctantly let go of each other. The girls were tightly holding each other's hands and both had a beaming smile on their faces.

"We were orphans," Quigley said gesturing to himself and Katherine. "Well not fully because Katherine's father was still alive but other than that our stories were frighteningly similar. Our mothers had saved as risking their own lives."

"We know exactly how that feels" Violet sympathised with Quigley.

"I know you do," Quigley said.

"The survivor made us follow the tunnel until it led to a house... An empty house filled with empty cages that once held the finest reptile collection in the world."

"Our Uncle Monty lived there," Klaus said.

"No one lives there now. You might find canned peaches to eat...And books to read. With a little research, you might learn of a secret organization and the schism that tore it apart. You might learn other startling information." Quigley said.

"As I was in that house,  someone entered the house through the trap door, Nairobi," Quigley said gesturing to Katherine, calling her by her middle name. "Nairobi helped me and took me the house belonging to Mr and Mrs Hawkings,"