How It Should Have Been

Chapter 5: Trapped

Begin!

Universe*

~Normal POV

"Good evening, children."

The orphans looked up to see that Hal had found them. He smiled and held up a tray with several bowls and spoons.

"I made some soup that I wanted to share with my new coworkers. If you don't mind that is."

Violet tucked the false key ring behind her, though there was very little chance he had seen it clearly in the dim light, and smiled, "We wouldn't mind that at all, Hal."

Hal carefully stepped over to them and they all sat together. Klaus subtly moved the spyglass out of the old man's vision just to be on the safe side. Each of the children politely took a bowlful of soup as Hal began talking about nothing in particular. They couldn't help ignoring him though as their minds were preoccupied with the fact that the soup tasted terrible. Sunny wasn't a fan of soft foods, but even she knew that she could definitely prepare something better than this. After some time, Hal fell asleep against the wall letting them put their plan into action. Violet carefully unhooked the key ring from Hal's belt and dropped her ribbon in his pocket instead.

"Alright," She whispered standing up, "Let's go."

Klaus grabbed their spyglass, and the five children went back into the hospital and made their way down to the library.

~...

"It's not filed under 'S,'" Duncan groaned as he picked through the papers in the cabinet.

"Hal said he had special instructions for anything labeled Snicket. What do you think he meant," Isadora asked.

"I don't know, but let's try under 'F' for fire," Klaus answered, "It's the best option I can think of."

Violet quickly flipped through the files in the F cabinet, "It's not here either."

Duncan pulled his dark green notebook out of his jacket and flipped through his notes; thankfully the lights were only dimmed down here rather than turned off for the night. They didn't have to worry about using the spyglass to see.

"Try 'J' for Jacques Snicket," He suggested after a few seconds.

Klaus opened the J cabinet, "Nothing, damn we're running out of places to check."

Duncan put his notebook back into his jacket as the five of them returned to the center of the room.

"Anybody else got any ideas," Violet asked.

"V.F.D.," Sunny replied.

"V.F.D. that could work," Klaus said.

They hurried over to the V cabinet and sure enough they found the small canister tucked inside a file labeled V.F.D. Violet set up the projector but didn't turn it on immediately.

"Alright, everyone, we don't know what we're going to find out from this film, but we know it'll be important. Duncan make sure to take down everything in your notebook," Violet commanded.

"Always," The journalist replied as he readied his pen.

Violet turned on the projector and they watched as Jacques Snicket appeared before them. He appeared to be sitting at a desk being interviewed by someone off camera.

"You said you were here to discuss the two most recent fires. Which would those be? There have been quite a few in recent years."

"The Baudelaires is the most recent only a few months ago, followed closely by the Quagmires about a year and a half ago. However, before I continue on the subject I must preface this by saying that there may be one survivor of the fire," Jacques said right before the film cut out.