Chapter 1
It was moments like this that Spongebob Squarepants wondered why he'd chosen a foghorn-based alarm clock. Each blast seemed to rip right through him, tearing at his eardrums and causing him to shout out in pain and surprise. His right hand fumbled desperately for the off-button.
*Click*
…
The silence was almost as deafening to him as the blaring alarm had been; it seemed to whine on and on, ringing in his ears and making his head spin. And speaking of his head, that hurt too. In fact, he noted, everything hurt. A dull ache gripped his body. Had he been beaten up during the night? Sure he was a heavy sleeper, but he didn't think he would have slept through that. The sponge slowly cracked his eyes open, then winced, immediately squeezing them shut again, using his hands to help block out the light. The world was too bright this morning, the colours too vivid – which was unusual, since Spongebob normally lived for bright and vivid.
"Something isn't right," he thought, "But I have to get up and feed Gary."
Gary agreed.
Squidward Tentacles was an introvert. Among the many things he couldn't stand was noise. Noise startled him, and with Squidward, "startled" nearly always led to "angry".
Up until now, the day had been unusually quiet, and therefore Squidward had been enjoying it. He didn't question the absence of giggling, or screaming, or reef blowers, or bubbles shaped like elephants that inexplicably made elephant noises when popped, because he didn't care. Why ruin the moment of peace by questioning the lack of noise? From a second-story window of his Tiki head home, he exhaled deeply, a rare smile playing on his lips, and admired the quiet, quiet world.
"Mau!"
The mostly quiet world.
"Maaaaauuu!"
The … kind of noisy world ...
"MAAAAUUU! MAAAAAUUUUUUU!"
"All right, that's it!" Squidward balled his tentacles, his usual frown now firmly back in place, "I'm going to give that Spongebob a piece of my mind!"
He left his own home and began to walk purposefully toward the pineapple next door, shoulders rigid, chuntering angrily under his breath the whole time.
"Yowling snails at all hours of the day … who does he think he is? … no respect for other people's sanity …"
He pounded on the door. "Spongebob!"
No answer. This only riled the squid more. "Spongebob, open up!"
In between his own yells, Squidward noticed that the yowling had stopped. Instead he could hear a new, quieter, stranger sound that he couldn't identify. A kind of ripping, crunching sound, as if somebody was chewing up the sofa. End of tether reached, Squidward flung the door open. Gary, Spongebob's pet sea snail, was chewing up the sofa. Curiously, the sponge himself was nowhere to be seen. Squidward shrugged, making a mental note to yell at the his neighbour later, whenever he got back from wherever he was. But just as he was turning to leave, one tentacle resting on the door handle, he heard yet another strange noise. This one came from the kitchen, and sounded like a cross between a wheeze and a hiccup.
"Spongebob?"