Well, it's been a while coming, but it all must end here! Squidward is at the end of his rope, both emotionally and mentally. He's to drop the curtain on his own show.

It has been fun, and a pleasure writing this story to entertain you, my readers. So as promised, here it is! The Final Murder ...

Edited and updated: 11/29/2012

The Curtain Falls

By the morning, Squidward's eyes had the darkest circles under them from his terrified lack of sleep. No matter what he had tried to do, he could not shake the inescapable feeling of dread that his nightmare had induced. As he walked into his private study, he wasn't dressed in his normal fancy clothing, but his old clothing that he never wore anymore. He shakily picked up the remote and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until he got to the news station.

"– are still investigating the conditions behind the recent death of Bikini Bottom's only detective, L Fish, who died under strange circumstances yesterday. As though he were possessed by some kind of strange force, he ripped out his brainstem, ran out to the middle of the nearest four–way intersection to his location, and for some crazy reason, began to skip rope with it, before getting run down by an eighteen–wheel truck."

Squidward buried his face in his hands and began to mope. "Oh, I knew it!" he said as he slapped himself in the forehead. "I was hoping that L Fish wasn't his real name, but when I had that dream … that terrible dream … I just knew that he had died, too."

He looked at the safe where the Death Note was hidden. Turning the dial and pulling the heavy door open, he took the deadly notebook in his hand. "This notebook … has given me so many things that I thought I'd wanted. But the one thing it took, was the only thing I still had … my peace of mind," he spoke softly to himself, as if in regret.

"What do you mean?" Ryuk glided in, juggling several apples and catching them in his mouth. "Your life was practically a never–ending cycle of torment and depression. The Death Note gave you the power to end that cycle."

"Yeah, only to give rise to a cycle of fear!" Squidward shot back. "I'm even worse off now, Ryuk. I'll never kill again." He threw the notebook over his shoulder, sending it flying onto his desk.

Ryuk just laughed his maniacal laugh. "You claim you'll never kill again, but many people have claimed that, and they all succumbed to the notebook's irresistible nature. Once you kill someone, you can't help but feel compelled to kill again."

Not if I destroy it! Squidward ran to his desk and opened a drawer. As Ryuk watched, Squidward took out a pair of scissors, but as he tried to put his tentacles into the holes, he found he couldn't use them. "DAMN THESE TENTACLES!" he screamed in frustration as Ryuk laughed another insane laugh.

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," Plankton laughed from deep within his laboratory. "Ever since I received the Krabby Patty formula from that sap, Squidward, my restaurant has flourished. The newly renamed 'Patty Bucket' is going to make me rich!" He went back into his maniacal laugh.

"That's true, Plankton," Karen agreed with her crazed husband. "But will this really make you happy? I mean, your old friend and business rival had to die for you to get that recipe."

"Are you kidding?" Plankton said angrily, remembering how his "business rival" had made his life miserable. "That crab's death was the best thing that could have happened, plus now I don't have that brain dead sponge and starfish to get in the way of my plans. This is the culmination of all my efforts, Karen. And now that I have this, the next step can begin."

"Annnnnnnnnnd? What's the next step?"

"Monopolizing the entire fast–food industry!" he climbed up on his desk and stepped on a button, opening the desk drawer and peering inside, laughing all the while.

By the turn of the week, Squidward's huge house had been reduced to what it once was: just an ordinary Easter Island Head. Everything expensive that he had owned had been donated to various charities and he had invested everything in the stock market, having gone with complete potluck. Now, he had little more than he started out with. He only had enough money to get him by, and the Death Note.

"Oh, come on already!" Ryuk nagged him for tenth time in the last three days. "You haven't given me an apple in almost a week! I neeeeeed apples! If you don't the symptoms will start."

"I already told you, I don't care anymore," he sulked. "I don't care if you kill me now – you'd be doing me a favor."

"Hmph! No point in doing it, then" Ryuk slumped against the wall. "That'll take all the fun out of it."

"You know, I wish I could just take it all back," Squidward looked up at the ceiling. "I even miss Spongebob and all the others. You know, even though they made my life miserable, I'd give almost anything to get them back. But I can't, so I just wish I could live my life without all these things haunting me forever."

"Would you like to forfeit ownership?"

"Huh?" he looked at Ryuk as though the Shinigami had asked the be–all, end–all question.

"What?" Ryuk looked at him. "Didn't I tell you? If you forfeit ownership of the notebook, you'll forget everything that has happened since you first picked it up, including killing all your friends."

Squidward smiled sadly, practically going limp where he lay on the couch. "You know, as crazy as that sounds, I'm just desperate enough to agree with that."

"So you're doing it, then?" the black Shinigami asked, wanting to confirm the squid's intentions.

"Yes," Squidward sighed. "I yield. Take your notebook back."

Ryuk stood up right away. "Well, I'll just take it, then. I guess I'll see you in Hell," he laughed as he reached into Squidward's desk and pulled out the Death Note.

"Rest assured," he said, gliding towards the door. "You'll never see me again." And then he laughed his crazed laugh as he fazed through the wall.

At that moment, Squidward's eyes rolled back and he passed out.

He awoke that evening in a daze. "Hey, what happened?" Then he realized where he was. "Why am I sleeping on the couch? It's not like I'm depressed over anything."

He went to his bedroom, changed into his pajamas, and picked up his alarm clock. "I'd better be on time tomorrow morning, or Mr. Krabs will kill me."

"Wait a minute," he said as he was about to get under the covers. "Something's missing," he tapped his forehead. "OH! Of course," he found his clarinet in the corner and laid it against his pillow as he "always" did. "Good night, Clarrie."

Those were the last words Squidward Tentacles spoke, as he would die peacefully in his sleep that night.

As Plankton stepped back onto his desk, he couldn't help laughing. "Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh," he chuckled as he looked behind him. "Didn't see that coming did ya?" he asked as he put down his oversized pen.

"Nope, not a bit," Ryuk said sarcastically, tossing an apple into his mouth. "If you didn't kill him, I would have. He was just pathetic."

"Wow, that's cold … I LIKE IT!" Plankton raved, closing up the Death Note and putting it back in his desk drawer, making sure to step on the desktop button to close it. He was so small, he could never do it on his own, and he didn't dare ask a Shinigami for a favor. "Ha ha ha! Ryuk, I think you and I are going to get along just great!"

"As long as you keep these apples flowing nice and plentiful," Ryuk added, pointing into his oversized mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha," the diminutive villain picked another apple out of a crate and tossed it to him. "Lucky all the money from the restaurant goes to me now. With Squidward's death, all the liquid assets pertaining to this establishment defer to me. At last, I will have what I so rightfully deserve."

"By the way," Ryuk piped in, still munching on his apple. "How did you get the Death Note from right under that squid's big, fat nose?"

"Oh, don't get him started," Karen rolled her digital eyes.

"Hidden camera show!" Plankton pulled out a miniature remote control and pointed it at Karen's screen. "Watch this!"

As the images flashed across the screen, Ryuk's eyes opened wide. "Oooooh!" he opened his mouth so wide, the remainder of his apple fell out, but he didn't even seem to notice. "So when he actually killed L Fish –"

"Eeeeyup," Plankton sneered, shadows hiding devious grin. "I saw the whole thing, so I just wrote what he wrote in the fake notebook I so devilishly crafted. Pretty clever, that cause of death. Heh heh. Regardless, he thought he was so smart, but he wasn't smart enough to realize that he was being watched. So when he gave it up, the ownership that book in the drawer automatically reverted to me. Then, there was no reason to keep him alive, and so fell the curtain. And now that I have it and all the money from my little slice of heaven, it's time to initiate a hostile takeover of the fast food industry," he laughed. "Very hostile. LAUGH WITH ME, RYUK! LAUGH WITH ME!"

Their maniacal laughter rang throughout the otherwise empty building and some say they could hear Plankton laughing miles away.

Once again, thank you all for sticking with me this whole time. Don't forget to review!

But don't think I'm quite done yet. My final part of this fic will be a list of entries that Squidward wrote in the Death Note. I'll get to it as soon as I can.

By now, you're all probably aware of the tragedy that was the shut down of MegaUpload. I, just like countless people around the globe, was hit hard by this, especially because of the fact that now nearly all online videos are gone.

Let us hope that things will improve in the future - this is nothing like what happened with Napster way back when. That was a ripple and this is a tidal wave in comparison. Keep your fingers crossed and keep watching the Internet for more information, whenever more becomes available. And don't forget to keep opposing SOPA and PIPA, or they'll kill the Internet!