Chapter 3: No Sanctuary.

4PM- Previous day. Sandy exits Spongebob's kitchen with haste, Squidward snorts in her direction. "Lover boy isn't in the mood" Squidward made a laugh that would be unrecognizable to some breeds of dogs. Sandy gave Squidward the finger, revealing a christ tattoo coiled around her hand. She stormed off and exited the doors of the Krusty Krab, not before she ran into an old friend.

"Why isn't it Sandy Cheeks?" A man in an alligator green suit, and a white fedora gave her a loving smile. Sandy recognized him, and instantly her heart dropped. He wrapped his arm around her, giving her a side hug. "Come with me, so this will be easy." He concealed a gun in his heavy overcoat. Her ushered her to the black limousin, she stepped inside, knowing her fate if she refused or fought back.

Inside the limo a fish with fake teeth and a greasy face looked at her with contempt. "Where's my money Ms. Cheeks?" He was sipping some kind of alcoholic, and she could feel the motor start beneath her.

"I'll get it, I have it. I will give it to you- uh- tonight" Sandy was lying of course. She looked around shiftily, to both her sides were large fish in similar garb, wielding large guns. The fish across from her was wrapped in jewels, poking into his fat stomach.

The fish chuckled. "You are one terrible liar." He said. He smirks at Sandy and pistol whips her.

10PM- Sandy Cheeks wakes up, her head killing her. The fish who attacked her were sitting there, waiting for her to wake up.

"Well, morning sleepyhead!" Says the white fedora'd fish. Sandy never got to learn their names, however none of them looked like anyone she ever knew. Sandy said nothing.

"You don't need to tell us anymore lies. Your time is up." Sandy flinches as he steps towards her. She looks around, avoiding eye contact as he got even closer to her. They were in her house her dome.. She whimpers at the realization, but everyone else around her just looked fascinated with her.

"You will meet a watery grave in here, squirrel." He laughs maniacally. So, this was it. Her time had finally come. The pleas of help were useless, no matter what she did. Spongebob never offered to help her. The thing was, he probably would have had the money to help her had he not gambled away his paycheck every friday night. All she needed was a little money from the loan sharks, she was desperate in paying for an invention she was working on. Funding was originally cut after an accident, but people still keep their passions. Even though the accident was covered up, the institution never forgets.

Caught in her mind, she didn't notice the fish leave. All she heard was a faint gunshot, and the cracking of glass. Sandy's stomach dropped. They were shooting at the glass dome. The hissing of the water was stabbing her ears, and the timer on her life had begun counting down.

Sandy looked around for something to untie her, she was an inventor, she could solve this. She was bound and gagged, tied to a chair with her hands behind her. Her feet, well enough were tied together, but not to the chair. She didn't know how long she had before the water would inevitably drown her. Where was her helmet? The more she struggled the tighter the binds felt, slowly stabbing into her wrists. She was in her own bedroom, she strained her neck to look out of the tree hole and at the cracking dome.

The hissing grew as pieces of glass exploded from the bottom of her dome, the water was slowly filling it up. Sandy knew she would die here, she was certain of it.

9PM. Spongebob finished his first shift, his lunch break was really the highlight of his day. Squidward never ate with him, besides the fact the employee kitchen was a 2' by 2' broom closet with 2 chairs. They always sat in silence, besides the crunching of food beneath their teeth. Squidward never made eye contact with Spongebob, but Spongebob constantly glared at Squidward though.

Lunch break over, Spongebob went back to the grind, and continued to stare at the back of Squidward's beautiful bald head. The night shift was always the easiest, that's why he prefered them. Less customers, less complaints, less work. God, he wondered, have I really changed that much? Krabs stumbled drunkenly into the room. "SpongbobINeedYouTo" He began to cough from talking so fast. Krabs was clearly high on, according to under his nose, coke. "CleanUpASpillOutFront" Krabs had lost all feeling after he blew all his money on mountains of coke. He now walks around a shell of a man he was before.

"Already on it" Spongebob felt like death at that point, he had been working for a few straight hours already.

11:30PM. Sandy Cheeks had been using her legs to pick up the floating boat keys not too far from her. It was barely out of reach and the water was rising fast, it had reached the top of her tree, and at her shins. She was touching the keys with the tip of her boots, slowly dragging them towards her.

She finally gets a hold of the keys, and she angles them on her restraints. She held the keys between her boots and used the keys to cut the rope that bound her hands together. Her hands were eventually freed as the water splashes around her. It had to be at least half full by now, and the flow of water did not stop. She was quickly able to free herself once her hands were free, and she sprung into action now that she was able-bodied again.

Gotta find a way outta here… She whispers to herself. The hole in the top of the dome was sitting there, menacingly. If she didn't find a way out soon…

She'd die.

Her sanctuary would soon be gone. The place she had made those inventions, created nights she'd never forget with various men and women...and so much more.

There would be no sanctuary after tonight.

When I get outta here, they're all fucking dead…That was of course, if she didn't die too.

She had her suit and boots on, but could not find her bowl. She scrambled around the filling room, as the waterline grew higher in her tree. She would need hours to find a way out. Given her situation, she may not have hours.

Sandy felt the water pressing into her chest, her suit could only keep out so much water, once it reached her neck it would swell up like Mrs Puff after her morning yoga. She trudged through her bedroom for the exit, where was her god damn helmet? She felt pure adrenaline pushing through her veins, she was not thinking, she was in autopilot. Sandy was unable to take control of her body, she had the strong feeling in her heart of death.

The water was closing up to her neck, she had to swim now. She scrambled through the house, checking everywhere for her fucking helmet. Sandy felt a myriad of feelings, including fear, frustration, and strangely enough - content.

12:00AM. She didn't know what to do, she double checked - no triple checked her house, there's no extra oxygen helmets. The water sloshed in her tree, it was completely submerged in the salty sea. Sandy began to flee her home, but as she passed her kitchen she felt a tug. She glanced down, shit, her boot was stuck. Her right boot was wedged in the fridedoor. How? She did not know. She looked towards the exit of her treehouse, only a yard away. Her clunky boots would not budge from the refrigerator door's handle.

The average human can only hold their breath for 2 minutes, but sadly Sandy was a squirrell and could not hold her breath nearly as long. Over a minute had passed for Sandy to be absent of air. She bent down and hurriedly untied her shoes, sadly they were goth biker boots and they had roughly a hundred loops down her shin.

She felt herself get lighter, as her head felt dreamy. She was so close to gasping for air. Shit. Sandy looked down, shit. Sandy untied the wrong shoe on the wrong foot.

Sandy had to start again and slowly undo her other foot, tugging her clawed rodent foot swiftly out of her shoe. She lost her breath, it slowly floated upwards. She clawed her way up, and out of her tree.

Outside of the tree, what little oxygen remained in the top of her dome caressed her lungs, bringing her back from the brink. She could touch the ceiling of the dome, and the water was almost done filling up her home.

I'm going to die here was all that repeated in her head. It couldn't shake from her. Sandy began to hyperventilate in her last seconds of her life. The water flowing into the dome met the water that was already inside the dome. The different pressures of water finally collided. The extreme pressure of the water flowing in clashed so hardly with the water inside the dome it created a reverse vacuum and sucked Sandy out. The glass dome exploded, and the glass from it flew around in shards with such pressure it cut across rocks around her dome.

1AM. Sandy lost consciousness in the water, leaving her body floating through the ocean arbitrarily.