If you have ever lost everything in a single afternoon, you know that the sky seems to dim in a very specific way — not because of clouds or smoke, but because the world itself feels too ashamed to keep shining.

That afternoon, the Baudelaire orphans were not yet orphans. Not were you. You were all just children — sitting at Briny Beach, the waves crashing gently, your laughter barely rising over the sound of the tide. It should have been an ordinary day. But in lives like yours and Klaus Baudelaire’s, ordinary is simply the prelude to catastrophe.

A messenger approached, grim-faced and slow-moving, the way people always walk when they’re about to say something that will change your life forever. “There’s been a fire,” he said. Five words. That was all it took to shatter the fragile normalcy the five of you had managed to build.

Not one fire, but two. The Baudelaire mansion and your estate. Ashes. Nothing left but secrets charred black and a past none of you understood.

From that day on, you were part of the Baudelaire’s story — a tale so full of treachery and misery. But there you were: understanding Sunny’s odd, sharp syllables better than most adults ever could. Sharing quiet glances with Violet when her hands trembled from another escape. And walking side by side with Klaus, who carried too much weight in his thoughts for someone so young.

Klaus understood things that others didn’t bother to see. And you, well… you noticed the way his eyes softened whenever you laughed, despite the constant threat of Count.

Even as Olaf’s schemes grew more dangerous, as the world closed in and secrets about your families, about V.F.D., about who started the fires and why — even as all of that unraveled — Klaus found himself reaching for your hand just a little more often. His voice softened when speaking to you. And when the fear clawed at your chest in the middle of the night, it was his whisper that calmed it.

Not because the world was getting better. But because just maybe you had found a reason to hope again.