Lemony Snicket sat in the hotel room. His hands rested on the desk as he stared out the window. He was finally finished – the story of the Baudelaire orphans had been fully told. The whole world was now able to know the story. Of course, he had warned the readers to put the books down, but they hadn't listened. Now, he had no more purpose. Thirteen books had been published about the orphans, one book had been published on his life, four books waiting to be published on his childhood, and one book (the most important of all) had been published with letters to Beatrice and from her. Oh, Beatrice. He had nothing left to do now. He had finished his goal. His apartment was flooded with notes and letters and pictures – pieces of the puzzle. His readers had always complained that some questions went unanswered. But how could he answer them when he didn't know the answers? The most popular question for readers to ask was: what happened to the children after they escaped at the end of Book the Thirteenth? Unfortunately, the answer to that was, like many other answers, a sad one. Snicket felt pity for his readers. They had followed the Baudelaire orphans' journey for thirteen whole books and many years. He had warned them multiple times that there would be no happy ending but they seemed to not believe him. He found himself unable to crush their hopes of a happy ending. So, he did not write the full ending to the Baudelaire's tale in the thirteenth book. If the readers truly wanted to find out, so be it. He would leave clues, clues in his most precious book: The Beatrice Letters. After all, the ending to the tale had to do with Beatrice – with all three: the loved, the niece, the boat. Snicket wondered if the readers would understand finally. They traveled through the journey of the Baudelaire orphans, convincing themselves that a tale this tragic must be fiction. Sometimes Snicket felt as though he was the only one who truly knew. And maybe he was. His hands rested on the desk as he stared out the window. The year was 2010. Just a year ago, he had signed a deal to write a series of four prequel books. He had written them within two months. However, he was still unsure whether he wanted them published so he pretended to be still working on them. It had been four years since The Beatrice Letters was published and his readers had sent him many letters – asking if they were correct in their guesses and assumptions. Some of them were – some of them weren't. He wanted them all to be wrong. He had never realized how painful it would be to tell the final tale of the Baudelaire orphans – to tell their final non-happy-ever-after – to finish their story in two simple words: Beatrice sank.