#presley smith

    Insomnia, if you have been fortunate enough to have never heard of it, is the ability or lack thereof to fall asleep and remain asleep, most commonly due to psychological turmoil and anxiety. One might be suffering from insomnia if they have a big test coming up, maybe a beloved pet went missing, or perhaps a treasured friend and brother had returned from the optometrist acting quite strange and unusual.

    This could be said for Violet Baudelaire and Y/n L/n. They did not have an important exam coming up - not yet anyway, nor did they recently misplace a pet near and dear to their heart. But each girl was terribly worried about their friend and brother, who had recently returned from the optometrist and was acting quite strange and unusual.

    Violet plucked another flake of sawdust from her sister's head when she heard shuffling, followed by a disgruntled sigh from the bunk below.

    "Can't sleep either?"

    Y/n sighed, shifting onto her side to face Violet up above. She could just barely see her from above Klaus' bunk, though she tried not to focus on him.

    "No." She whispered. "Is Sunny asleep, at least?"

    Violet looked to her sleeping sister and smiled weakly.

    "Yes. I'm grateful, today has been awfully tiring for all of us, and I'm glad she is able to get some sleep."

    "Me too." Y/n said. "I can only imagine how tired she must be, what with all the biting she's done today."

    It was quiet for a moment, and Y/n spoke, hoping she wasn't crossing a line.

    "I don't blame you one bit for being concerned about Klaus. Truthfully, I am worried as well."

    "It's just that, our parents made me promise to always look out for Klaus. But I didn't. He wanted to leave and I made him stay. And now he's acting strange and unusual. It's all my fault."

    "Violet, I do hope I'm not overstepping my boundaries here. I only mean well, but don't you think you might be a little hard on yourself? That seems like an awfully big weight for a fourteen-year-old, to be responsible for what happens to your siblings. Though I do suppose I understand, having siblings myself. But my point is, the burden of motherhood falls on young girls such as ourselves and we are often blamed for how our siblings turn out when we were the ones who stepped in to help when our parents failed to do so when the fact is we are only still children ourselves."

    It is silent again in the lumber worker's dorm, apart from Norma Rae's snoring, and Jimmy's mumbling, and for a moment Y/n fears Violet is angry at her. She prepares for the worst when suddenly her friend speaks.

    "I suppose so. But that doesn't mean I'm not always going to look after my siblings,"

    Y/n shook her head immediately.

    "Nor should it."

    "It sounds like you know an awful lot about this."

    Y/n's eyes stared blankly ahead as she thought back to the years of her early youth.

    "I do," she mumbled. "My parents traveled frequently, and even when they were home they scarcely had time for us. Whenever B/N or S/N needed something, I'd have to fetch it for them. It was up to me to entertain them, feed them, dress them, bathe them, teache them, watch out for them. I was their mother more than I was their sister, and truthfully I resented it. Not them of course, I loved them and it wasn't their fault."

    Violet listened intently, her heart hurting for her friend.

    "What I'm saying is Violet, I don't blame you one bit for whatever is happening, nor do I believe Sunny would blame you either. Or even Klaus. And don't forget, I'm here to help in any way I can."

    For the first time that day, a smile broke out on Violet's face. She slowly turned her small cramped bed to look at her friend down below in the adjoining bunk.

    "Thank you, Y/n. Thank you for being such a good friend."

    Y/n's smile rivaled Violet's and the two girls nodded in understanding. Not long after that, with the strengthened sense of friendship and comfort, the two girls had fallen fast asleep.

    That was until,

    "Get up, lumber laborers." Bellowed the foreman's voice from the intercom. "Lucky Smell has no time for dawdling."

    Y/n, Violet, and Sunny all stirred from their beds, rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Y/n and Violet had been in fact, lucky enough to catch a few hours before they were awoken. Y/n mindlessly sat up, and threw her legs over the side of her bed and began slipping on her shoes and socks, just as any other day. But her ears perked when she heard the next few words from the intercom.

    "Klaus Baude-liar, would you like to get out of bed this instant?"

    Y/n watched blind sighted as the boy before her, abruptly rose from his bed where he had not moved since the previous night. He looked wide awake. And he smiled.

    "Yes, sir."

    Y/n rose to her feet and shook Violet awake, keeping her eye on the boy. The brunette stirred awake and looked at her friend groggily.

    "Y/n? What is it?"

    "It's Klaus. He's-"

    But before she could utter another word, the screech of the intercom interrupted her.

    "Would you like to bring your baby sister?"

    Y/n's eyes widened and they darted to Sunny, who had been so exhausted from debarking logs with her four teeth, had slept through all the raucous. A word which here means, a very loud lumber worker's dorm filled with the sounds of bustling people and the terribly loud shouts coming from the intercom. Before she could stop him, Klaus left his bed on the opposite side and grabbed poor little Sunny.

    "Sunny!" Y/n cried, running after the boy. "Klaus, what are you doing?"

    In all the commotion, Violet had managed to jump out of bed and as quickly as she could, began slipping on her shoes though not without wondering how Y/n had done it so quickly. No sooner was she able to slip her way through the crowd of fellow lumber workers and catch up to Y/n, who had seen him enter the lumber mill.

    "Lucky boy," called the foreman from the speaker. "It's wood chipper time. Would you like to make some mulch?"

    "Klaus?" Y/n called, quickly following the boy up the stairs, where he had already started making mulch.

    It was at that moment that Sunny let out a series of intelligible shrieks. Only this time, not a single person could make out what she was saying, not even her siblings, not to mention the young survivalist. But she knew well enough the poor young Baudelaire wanted out of her brother's arms. She reached the top of the metal staircase and quickly brought Sunny into the safety of her arms.

    "Klaus! Stop this now, you're frightening us," Y/n urged.

    Klaus did not answer but merely continued his current lumbering task in an unusual silence.

    "Klaus, what is going on?" Violet pressed.

    The bespectacled Baudelaire boy carried on with his task of turning lumber into mulch, still not uttering a single syllable. And the three children opposite him watched in great sadness as each scrap of wood was chucked into the woodchipper, feeling as if their hopes were being thrown inside the chipper as well, and immediately torn to shreds.

    Violet stepped forward towards her brother to stop him from throwing another piece of lumber into the woodchipper and looked at him with a pleading gaze.

    "Stop it, and we can leave." She offered, much to Y/n's dismay.

    The young L/n child's heart fell at the proposition, even though she had no intention of intervening. She was of course in full support of breaking Klaus from his unusual behavior, and whatever he and his siblings would choose to do thereafter, but she couldn't deny her disappointment.

    If you've ever found yourself in a position where you are alone, or in an environment surrounded by unpleasant and or people you share no interests or commonalities - whether it be a different taste in genre or very fickle depression that prevents you from maintaining relationships, maybe even a significant age difference with the people around you, because you are a child working in a lumber mill with several adults, like Y/n L/n, was - then you might be saddened to hear this. To have made such fast, and good friends with three wonderful children of varying ages that share like experiences with you, only to have one of them disappear for an entire day, and come back acting strange, and then plan on leaving you behind. It was all very overwhelming, after all.

    "Lucky Smells is our life," Klaus replied rather bleakly. "Lucky Smells is our home,"

    "No, it's not," Violet argued, unaware of the suspicious look crossing Y/n's face at the all too familiar statement. "A home is where people take care of you, not make you work in a mill for gum. I should have listened to you when you wanted to go. If you're still in there, I want you to know I miss you. An inordinate amount."

    The moment Violet uttered the words, Klaus got a very funny look on his face, as is he were waking from a dream. He blinked several times before he fell into a squint, trying hard to discern where he was. When he realized where he was and what he was doing, he shut the machine down. Phil, who had been passing by and caught Violet's words, stopped and smiled up at the children.

    "'Inordinate?'", he giggled merrily. "What the heck does that mean?"

    Klaus instinctively smiled, and had he been wearing his glasses he would have pushed them up by the bridge in his usual manner.

    "It can mean many things, immoderate, irregular," Klaus trailed off, looking at his older sister. "but in this case, I think it means you miss me a lot."

    Violet smiled widely, a smile larger than she had in a long while. As did Sunny and Y/n.

    "Klaus, you're back!" Violet cried, a great wave of relief washing over her.

    Klaus chuckled and tilted his head.

    "Where was I?" He wiggled his toes and looked down at the floor to see that the only thing covering his feet were his socks. "And where are my shoes?"

    "You left them at the dorm," answered Y/n. "We were awfully worried about you."

    Klaus felt his heart sink at her concern, and he only then realized what strife he had inadvertently caused his sisters and friend.

    "I'm sorry I caused any worry," Klaus said earnestly. "But to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what's going on any more than you do."

    "Teefca," Sunny said, meaning "We're just glad you are alright now."

    "Me too, Sunny." Klaus smiled.

    "Klaus," Y/n said, a thoughtful look in her eye as the gears turned in her brain. "What's the last thing you remember?"

    Klaus thought about this a great deal, realizing just how fuzzy everything had become. It dawned on him how serious it was when he realized just how much time he was missing.

    "I was with Phil, in the waiting room. Dr. Orwell showed up, and everything kind of blends together after that." The growl of his stomach grabbed his attention, and he brought a hand over his abdomen. "Didn't we just have lunch?"

    Violet and Y/n shared a concerned look before glancing back at Klaus worried.

    "Klaus, that was yesterday," Violet said worriedly. "We didn't see you again until after lights out. You were acting very strange."

    A harsh screech filled the dusty air, quite abruptly interrupting their conversation, and the even worse sound of foreman Flucatano speaking followed.

    "Baude-liars!" He barked, grabbing their attention quite rudely. "Go to the very fancy door. You have visitors."

    The Baudelaire children were filled with an odd, flickering sense of hope at the words. They did not know why especially considering their vastly unfortunate luck in the recent episodes of their lives. Sunny babbled, reaching for Violet, and Y/n immediately complied, handing her over to her sister's waiting arms.

    Together, they descended the stairs and Y/n watched them forlorn. A word which here meant, a sense of dread and worry for her friends, sensing something dreadful was around the corner and knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it. Klaus turned to her briefly, and upon noticing her look of forlorn, he offered a weak reassuring smile.

    "We'll be right back, it'll be okay."

    If you, like thousands of people, have what is called arachnophobia - a profound fear of spiders - then you might know the great and festering feeling of dread and fear. And if you were to find one, lurking in your bathtub, per se, and were too afraid to dispose of it, you might ask a friend or relative to do so. And perhaps when you left the room to fetch them, you, like thousands of others who have experienced such a terrible fate at least once in their lives, will return to find the spider is gone. It's a terrible, painstaking experience, to know a threat is nearby, but unable to stop it. You feel helpless.

    Much like how Y/n felt at this moment. She nodded at Klaus, not out of feeling reassured. Like one might, had their friend or relative returned from the bathroom to tell you they had disposed of the spider plaguing your plumbing. But she nodded, ruefully accepting the fate placed before her, and sick, plunging feeling of fear from not knowing. Not knowing what was to become of her and her friends as they left for the very fancy door.

    What she didn't know, was that Klaus was half right. They would be back, but it would be far from okay.

    The Baudelaires disappeared from her field of vision when they existed the lumber mill, and Y/n's sense of fear only grew. She was faced with two options; get back to work and hope her friends would return, or she could follow them discreetly, assuring that everything would, in fact, be okay.

    Y/n, being the skilled survivalist she was, went with the latter. She exited the platform in the direction of her usual station, the board stamper, and when she was positive no one was watching - especially foreman Flucatano - she slipped behind a stack of finished wooden planks. As she had discovered rather quickly in her time at the mill, behind their outgoing stack of lumber, there was a rather snug route to safely sneak away and outside without being seen. This is where she typically went to eat her lunch, the scraps she saved during dinner. But this time, she was quick and agile enough to navigate the dangerous machinery and sneak outside unnoticed.

    She found herself in the usual spot outside the mill, but on the opposite side from where she wanted to be. No matter for her, as she was quite adept at adapting. She navigated around the warehouse with ease and followed the footsteps of her friends. Y/n found shelter behind one of many stacks of outgoing lumber. She could not see them, and she was much too certain from where she stood, if she were to peak, someone would surely see her. But it wasn't difficult to imagine their expressions based on their tone.

    "But who is visiting us?" Asked Klaus, sounding rather confused.

    "Oh, I don't know," Charles answered, sounding as if he had brushed the question and their concern away. "But they can't come inside, because that would be trespassing and then they would be put to work. But, I can tell you they are just on the other side of that very fancy door."

    No more words were said in following, but Y/n did hear the sound of work boots traveling across the bark chips and she then deemed it safe enough to look. Peering around, ever so slowly she noticed three things; her friends, the Baudelaires heading away from her, Charles with his back turned to her watching the three orphans, and what was indeed a very fancy door in which the Baudelaires were headed.

    Their trip to the very fancy door was a short one, but it did not feel that way to the Baudelaires or Y/n L/n for that matter. It was a moment filled with anticipation, and dread which is exactly what made this moment stretch on for a small eternity, and all for good reason, too. The doors opened slowly, revealing-

    I am dreadfully sorry if I have caused you any frustration or dismay by interrupting this woeful tale, but I promise you it is for your own good. I beg of you, put down this story right now and leave the Baudelaires with their small victory of fleeing Captain Sham, and finding solace in the company of their new friend. By doing so, you are gifted with the ability to imagine that they lived the rest of their lives in a series of unencumbered experiences. Not unbridled by wretchedness and disasters like their previous endeavors. Because what you are about to read, should you continue, is exactly what you will find, I'm afraid.

    I encourage you to imagine something far better than what really happened that day. You could imagine that the woman on the other side of that set of very fancy doors was the Duchess of Winnipeg that had come to throw the Baudelaires and their good friend Y/n a pony party at her chateau. Or you could pretend that she is a butler with a tray of blueberry pancakes, or a loving parent that you thought you'd never see again. But if you choose to read on, let me warn you, the misery does not end here.

    In fact, I visited Paltryville myself, many years later. It was long after the Lucky Smells Lumbermill had closed its doors and Dr. Orwell's office had fallen into despair. Of course, it was not originally an optometrists office at all, but the headquarters of a secret organization.

    That is where I learned what happened to Klaus Baudelaire. Poor, poor Klaus Baudelaire. It's enough to make you want to abandon civilization and live by a pond, but if you choose to look this misery in the eye, you should be asking one question. It's the same question that the Baudelaires should have asked, and my beloved Beatrice on the day that she died and that question is;

    The pink figure in Klaus's blurred vision slowly came into view as she placed his freshly repaired glasses onto his face. It was a woman, two women in fact. One of them Dr. Orwell herself. The other wore a rather convincing wig - though of course not convincing enough to fool the Baudelaires and Y/n who had watched the scene unfold astonished - a bodysuit under the blinding pink outfit that gave off the illusion of certain physical traits and a rather heavy face of makeup. The woman, who was in fact, not a woman at all but a ghastly villain in yet another disguise, smiled, revealing several lipstick stains on her many crooked teeth.

    Where is Count Olaf?

    "My, my, my, my, my," purred the fake secretary, with a most wicked grin. "Aren't you a... lucky boy."

    The same ghostly smile Klaus had worn the night before returned to his face and he nodded slowly.

    "Yes, sir."

+ + +

    You might be wondering what will become of the Baudelaires and Y/n L/n, and you might not and I would not blame you. But I cannot in good conscious end this miserable chapter without providing you with all the details in their egregious encounters at this miserable mill. Only minutes before the arrival of Count Olaf, unbeknownst to the orphaned friends who were in the mill attempting to break Klaus from his trance, Sir received a very suspicious phone call.

    "Lucky Smells lumbermill," He barked, listening to the mysterious voice on the other line. "Yeah, this is he."

     "..."

     "The Baudelaire orphans working at the mill? Well, that's ridiculous!"

    Now, you might or might not be wondering about the identity of the mysterious caller who rang to inquire about the Baudelaires. I've conducted extensive research and all that I can tell you is whoever it was,

    "Now who is this?" Barked Sir, awaiting an answer that would never come. "...Hello?"

    They were of no help whatsoever.

    The banker on the other end hastily hangs up his phone, eliciting a long string of violent coughs. He picks up his pen and crosses off the words Lucky Smells Lumber Mill on his list of nearby locations.

    "Let's see what's next on the list," chirped Mr. Poe, with misguided optimism.

+++