Die Another Day
I'm gonna break the cycle. I'm gonna shake up the system. I'm gonna destroy my ego. I'm gonna close my body now.

My writing muse has been murderous all freaking month, so I figured I'd finally knuckle down and write something productive. Unfortunately, this prologue is crap because it hasn't gotten to the best part yet. But stick around, and it'll get better, I promise.

Disclaimer: I don't own SpongeBob or the titular Die Another Day. I don't even own the concept of all the death that will follow in the next chapters; some of the credit deserves to go to a Bond fanatic.

In all honesty, SpongeBob shouldn't have been having this house party at all. And if he had to, he couldn't have picked a worse day to do so if he'd spent his childhood planning it.

It wasn't that it was October or Friday the 13th or anything superstitious like that. No, a regular Wednesday in June, when the sun was in just the right place in the morning. And it was meant to be a regular party, like the one he'd thrown last month, the one that'd gotten him in jail with a bunny outfit (d…don't ask).
It was just that the murderer had struck again the previous night.

Yeah, the murderer. This mysterious assassin had been taking down random citizens for a few days now. First Tom and Fred were reported as having been suffocated in bed. Then some other citizens got involved in a mysterious serial drowning at the Goo Lagoon. And now, as it turned out, Scooter had been found impaled on the Krusty Krab.
It was all very strange, if you pardon the understatement.

Needless to say, everyone was very edgy all that day. If the murderer was now killing people that would actually be missed, how long would it be until someone really significant went down? Some even went as far to tell SpongeBob to stop the party.

Naturally, SpongeBob could never stop the party. That would be hell on his OCD.
But he did downsize it a little. Only the people he completely and totally knew and trusted would be going…and from those 100-odd people, only those who were brave enough. The final guest list ended up being Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, Mr Krabs and his daughter Pearl (who, to be honest, couldn't stay away from a party no matter what the circumstances).

Of course, 7 people (if you counted the host and his snail) wasn't much of a party, even with Twister cranked out. But SpongeBob was gonna make it work.
After all, it was his party.

It was his party, he could die if he wanted to.

All guests had entered the safety of the house. The party was not yet kicking, but that wasn't of priority right now.
The important thing was that everyone was away from the dangers of murder.

SpongeBob was finishing up the bolting and taping down of the doors. Regular locks weren't going to cut it this time. Not if they were to stay alive.
"Well," he finally sighed, "that's the doors all finished. Now for the windows."

"Does that mean we can party now?" whined Pearl. "I just spent 50 minutes getting here and I don't want to waste any more on your barnacling about."
"Pearl! Don't be so rude to the lad," her father reprimanded her. "He's trying to protect our lives here."
"Quit patronizing me, Daddy."

"No, Pearl, Mr Krabs is right," the sponge butted in, closing all curtains. "Life is a precious thing; if anybody is going to die tonight it's not going to be us."

"So if life is so precious," protested Pearl, "why are we wasting it asphyxiating ourselves through someone's oversecurity? We can all take care of ourselves, right?"
"Woooow." A gormless Patrick stared at her in wonder. "You used a lot of big words!"
Mr Krabs rolled his eyes at his stupidity. "'We' and 'ourselves' aren't big words, Patrick."
"Sure they are," he smiled. "They're more than one, right?"

Thankfully, the boringly-written conversation was interrupted by the announcement from the host that all windows and doors were now secured. This was met with applause all round. Finally, the party could begin with ea—
"Wait a minute. I'm not sure about this. How do we know that this murderer can't get in down the chimney?"

Squidward's slightly unusual implication earned him a clonk on the head. "Now don't ya start gettin' party pooper on us," Sandy intoned. "Can't ya go one minute without stallin' the whole process?"
"I'm not stalling," he muttered, rubbing his sore head. "I just don't want to risk someone barging in through the chimney and splattering us up against the wall with machine guns any more than you do."
Of course, by this time, SpongeBob had blocked the chimney anyway. "All done," he grinned. Now the party could really begin.

But hang on – "What about the snail flap?" Squidward disputed again. "He could get in through the snail flap."
Heads, meet hands.

After the snail flap, the tako casually brought up the risk of tunneling through the floor. Then the wall. Then through the fireplace… With each new idea he brought up, Sponge proceeded to cover up the potential entrances, with steel if necessary.
The amount of involvement Squidward was having in security all of a sudden was slightly suspicious at first. Why was he so concerned about how one could get in? But all Squid had to do was mention how important everyone's lives were and they could relax a bit.
Albeit, only a bit.

Half an hour after the guests had first entered, every possible entrance to the house, and indeed the living room, was plastered over. It was a wonder anyone could breathe the water (or in Sandy's case, air) that circulated throughout.
But finally, finally, everyone could relax. As Sponge put it to his frazzled guests with delight, "I am now totally confident that no mass murderers can get in."

That was when Squidward pointed the gun at his head.

"Or out."