Klad Baudelaire

"What the hell are you talking about?! Our parents are good! They won't do such a treacherous thing!" Laura yelled, trying to break free as she looked at Travis with disgust.

"Shut up! Stop trying to mess with me!" Travis growled. He then paced back and forth, the terrifying harpoon gun still in his hands.

He then stopped and glanced at the dead mountaineer before looking at us, slowly nodding. "That's it." He said and placed the harpoon gun in his back pocket, before walking towards Laura and untying her.

When she was untied, Laura was about to punch Travis in the face, but he was too fast about it and quickly held both of her wrists. "Nice try princess." He muttered and pulled her to heaven knows where.

"Where the hell are you taking me you jerk!" Laura hissed and I gave a muffled gasp when Travis opened a hidden trapdoor from the ground, roughly pushing Laura inside.

He did the same with us, untying all of us one by one, grabbing us by our wrists before being pushed inside the deep, dark underground basement I didn't he know he had.

"So no one will be able to hear or see you." He remarked and shut the trapdoor with a clang! leaving us in total darkness.

I plopped down on the cold ground, not believing anything that has happened, not believing what our fate had taken us.

"We shouldn't have trusted him." I heard Klara cried, her sniffs echoing the cramp room -- can we even call it a room?

I then heard Quill sigh, before saying, "No need to cry. What we need to do right now is devise a plan."

A finger touched my arm and I gripped it gently, familiar with it. "Klad, is that you?" I heard Laura whisper.

"Yeah." I told her and she looped her arm on mine, afraid.

"I know you guys can't see me but, Quill is right." I said, jumping in. "Our parents are smart, and we should be too."

My statement was replied by a certain bump and crash, along with Vivian's cry. "Ouch!" We heard her shout and I could hear someone fumbling -- which was probably Quill -- towards her.

"What did you crash onto?" I heard Quill ask.

"I -- ow! -- don't know-w." Vivian said, probably wincing at the pain.

There was a pause of silent fumbling before a sharp light cut through the shivering darkness.

"Wait, what? There's light?" I asked in wonder. Guided by the light Quill had produced, me and Laura walked towards him to see a crate of flashlights nearby.

"Yeah. Luckily, Vivian crashed onto it." Quill said with a funny-looking grin and as I grab one of the flashlights and shone it at their faces, I saw Vivian giving him a frown.

"So, was it lucky and fortunate that I had to trip over a bloody crate?" Vivian asked in an annoyed tone as she snatched a flashlight from the box.

I shook my head and glanced onto Klara's direction, who was on the other corner of the small underground basement.

"Klara? What are you doing?" I asked as I slowly walked towards her. When I stood beside her, surprise had resented across my face with what I had saw.

Klara then looked up at me -- I was a bit taller than her -- and gave me a toothy smile, before facing the others with the same triumphant grin, as if she had found something that could save us.

"We might actually be fortunate indeed, Viv." Klara said with a smile and grabbed the flashlight in my hands before shining it to the spectacular thing she had discovered.

Laura gasped and the three of them went to our side, eyeing the thing Klara had found.

Right in front of us, were two cages. One big cage had a big, black snake eyeing is curiously. The other cage next to it had pigeons inside, who were gawking and cooing at us.

"Klara, this is interesting and all, but how could this help us escape?" Quill asked exasperatedly as he stared at the black snake with green eyes.

"Not the snake, silly." Klara said, rolling her eyes at Quill who frowned at her. "The pigeons! The pigeons can help us!"

"Klara, how can pigeons help us?" Laura asked gently, putting an arm on our sister's shoulder.

My eyes widened in realization with what Klara had in mind. I think I get it now.

"Because they can be messengers." I said thoughtfully, putting together the pieces. "Pigeons are trained to carry messages."

"Bingo!" Klara said cheerfully, jumping up and down.

"But..." I said, making her quiet down. "How can we send the pigeon outside? There's no exit in this basement."

"Oh? But there is." She said, smiling mysteriously. She then put a foot on one of the hinges of the pigeon cage, pulling herself up on top of it.

"Klara, what the hell are you doing?!" Vivian asked in surprise. Klara, did not answer and instead knocked on the wall behind the cages.

She knocked on this side, on the upper right, until she knocked on the upper left part. It was hollow. She breathed in, before giving the hollow part on the wall a hard budge.

Surprisingly, that certain part of the wall fell on the other side and a clearing of the forest could be seen.

"We're too small of course to fit in this hole," Klara told us as she looked outside the small hole she've made. "But the pigeons are a perfect fit. We could send a message to our parents, and then we'd be free!"

"That's a good idea..." Quill said quietly as he looked at the pigeons. "...But we don't have a pen or a paper."

"Actually, we have." I said as I reached my hand in one of the holes of the pigeons' cage and pointed at their feet. "There's a small pocket tied to it, meaning that it could be use as a messenger."

"And if I'm not mistaken..." I said, my voice trailing off as I opened the pocket. "There has to be something inside it."

I was right. When I had opened the pocket, a small pencil and a folded piece of paper was inside.

"Good thinking you two! You've outdone yourselves again!" Laura shouted gleefully as Klara went down from on top of the cage. She then gave me and Klara a big, sisterly hug.

"Wait," Vivian cut in, grabbing my wrist. I looked at her in confusion. "Shouldn't we be careful about this? I mean, what if Travis sees the bird and gets the message? Then we'd be waiting forever and our parents will never get to find us." She said tearfully.

"Well..." Quill said, getting the small pencil and the piece of paper. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening it again with a smile on his lips. "We could always do it in code."

"I'll do it." Klara offered with a smile. "I'm the literary adept here, not trying to brag by the way."

"I'll help." I said, smiling as well. "I've read books about codes." Klara nodded in agreement and together, with a bit help of the others, devised a code that I hope, can save our lives.

~*~

Klara breathed in as she held the pigeon we've chose. The message we've done was already in its small pocket and we were anxious on knowing whether our plan was going to work or not.

"Ready?" Laura asked and Klara nodded.

"Fly to our parents little pigeon." Klara whispered. "Fly to the Baudelaires, or to the Quagmires. Send this message to them. Please." And with that, she let go of the pigeon who exited outside using the small hole.

To our dismay, he stayed on the ground, pecking on the green grass with its beak.

We all gave a groan of exasperation and Klara's eyes started welling up with tears.

"W-We won't be able to survive..." Vivian cried, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"We're going to die." Laura said quietly as she leaned on the cage, all of us without hope; when suddenly, the pigeon looked up at the blue sky, flapped its wings and flew.

To our surprise and amazement, none of spoke a word. Our eyes lit up in happiness, knowing that we may now have a chance of survival. What we were now worried about was, whether the message will be received by our parents... or not.

~*~

Hope you played the video in the media while reading this chapter! :D