Squidward Grew Lungs
I absolutely love Spongebob Squarepants. It is definitely one of the greatest cartoons of all time, especially in the early seasons with its witty humor and cast of fun characters. However, after the events that took place that day, I'll never look at that yellow sponge the same again.
It all started in 2008, I was a really young boy at the time. One of my neighbors was having a yard sale, and I was rummaging around it trying to find anything I could buy with the 10 dollars my mother had given me. I eventually came across some old DVDs, all of them marked with names of cartoons. Amongst the many DVDs, there was one VHS that had the title "Squidward Grew Lungs" on it. I presented it to my neighbor and asked what it was. He chuckled a little bit and said that a kid like me wouldn't want to watch something like that. I was always nervous around him, but I really enjoyed going to his yard sales as he always had good stuff, so I insisted. He laughed, and explained it was a very special episode of Spongebob, and said I could have it for free, but told me I could only watch it by myself. I was confused by this, but I thought nothing of it, I was just happy to have a new episode of my favorite show.
I went into my room, turned on my small box TV and put the VHS in the player. The episode started pretty normally, though there were a few audio glitches and cuts during the intro, but I assumed it was just because it was an old VHS. The title card came on, and it showed "SQUIDWARD GREW LUNGS" in big red letters with a white paper background. There was no music, and the episode started without the usual bubble transition. At this point, I thought the episode was just an unfinished draft, which piqued my interest, as even at a young age, I loved knowing the process of animation.
The episode starts with Squidward at the Krusty Krab. There aren't any customers, and it's clear that he doesn't want to be there. He looks in the kitchen and notices Spongebob isn't there, so he goes to Mr. Krabs' office, and he's not there either. Squidward ponders this, and decides to head into town. Lo and behold, no one is there either. He starts to worry, but decides to enjoy this solitude. He looks at an art museum, plays clarinet uninterrupted, and even relaxes in his front lawn. However, he suddenly starts panicking, and desperately searches for anyone, anything that is still with him, after a brief montage of him manickly searching, he ends up in the middle of Bikini Bottom. Squidward then falls to his knees and starts to cry. Then suddenly he hears Spongebob's voice say, "Don't worry, look up, Squidward". Squidward looks to the sky and sees Spongebob and every other character above the water, breathing air and looking like their 3D selves, however looking a bit more humanlike. This sort of creeped me out, but I ignored it and kept watching. Spongebob then says, "We have evolved, Squidward, we can live on land. You just have to evolve too". Squidward is confused by this and yells to Spongebob how he's supposed to "evolve". Spongebob then smiles really wide, as do the rest of the Bikini Bottomites, and he whispers, "Grow lungs".
Squidward then starts screaming and holding his chest, and not in a cartoony funny scream, he sounds like a real person in agony. His chest starts pumping violently, and it shows an X ray view, showing lungs growing inside of him. After convulsing for a small bit, the camera shows a close up of his closed eyes. When his eyes open, they are bloodshot. The camera zooms out, and shows Squidward floating in the middle of the ocean. He looks more human-like, like the rest of the characters, but more deformed, and less complete. His skin has a realistic leathery detail to it, and his arms have extended while his tentacles grew human joints. He then suddenly holds his chest as bubbles start pouring out of his mouth. He's drowning. As water fills his new lungs, and his eyes are nearly popping out of his skull, blood drips from his tear ducts and his nose. The music cuts out again and all we hear is the sounds of Squidward struggling. He starts desperately trying to claw for the surface, trying to breathe air like the rest of his kin, to no avail. His veins are appearing on his body, as he starts becoming fully deprived of oxygen. He slowly stops struggling as his pupils fade and he finally drowns, as the background fades to black with the only thing on screen being his corpse.
After watching that horrific display, I paused the tape and started crying. Who would make such a demented cartoon? Why was it in my neighbor's garage? I didn't want to continue after that, my stomach hurt and I felt I was going to vomit. I turned off my TV and ejected the VHS, putting it in my top drawer. I laid down and just stared at the ceiling, processing what I had just witnessed, before eventually falling asleep. My dreams were haunted by visions of Squidward's bloodshot, faded eyes, and his sickening choking and screams. I felt his pain through myself, and I suddenly started gasping for air. I felt my lungs filling with water, and that excruciating burning sensation in my chest. As my vision started to fade, I was jolted awake by TV static. I could've sworn I turned the TV off before I took a nap. I then looked at my clock and saw it was a little past midnight. The street lights outside illuminated my room in a subtle yet eerie orange glow, and I sat up and took the VHS out of my drawer. I stared at the title of it, contemplating if I should continue watching it. Eventually, through my fear, I worked up enough courage to put it back into the player.
The video then plays back where it left off, with Squidward's corpse just floating in the middle of a black void. Nothing is happening, just that disturbing visual of his corpse with a low and dreary droning sound playing. After waiting for a minute, I start to fast forward, my morbid curiosity taking over me. I notice Squidward's corpse isn't just a still image, it's moving slowly, subtly bobbing and down with the currents of the ocean. I turn up the speed and see that small chunks of his body are slowly disappearing. No, he was decomposing. I watched as his corpse bloated slowly, before disgustingly discharging a pitch black substance. The black substance eventually completely hid his body, leaving me in complete darkness. A sentence in red text appeared at the top of the screen that said, "NOT EVERY CREATURE CAN EVOLVE".
Suddenly the video cuts, and the text "FEBRUARY 08, 2007" appears. The video cuts again, and shows very grainy footage of a white room, with a small wooden table in the middle of it. On top of the table is a plastic container filled with water, and an octopus sitting inside. Suddenly, a voice comes on, a text to speech voice, and says "EVOLVE". The video then jumps to a close up of the octopus having its legs ripped off slowly by a pair of gloved hands. I could see the octopus struggling to get away to no avail, as one by one its legs were pulled off its body. Though it couldn't scream, I could tell it was in agony. The video jumps again, this time to a close up of a wrinkled old mouth. He then starts slowly putting all of the octopus' legs in his mouth, all of them still wriggling around. He then starts chewing them, keeping his mouth open as he does so you can see every chunk be ground down to mush. I felt really nauseous watching it, but I couldn't look away. The video jumps once more, showing the octopus sitting there with no legs, as the man grabs a scalpel and then brutally stabs it in each eye, pulling each out of the sockets, and shows a close up to the camera, squishing them in his hands. He then walked back over to the octopus, which wasn't even moving anymore, and started petting its head. Then suddenly, the man began laughing and proceeded to repeatedly stab the octopus in its head, over and over and over. I eventually had to look away, I just kept hearing the sound of the knife entering its flesh. After the noise had stopped, I nervously removed my hands from my eyes, and saw the aftermath. I couldn't even recognize the mass of flesh and chunks on the table as an octopus. The man's shirt was completely covered in the viscera of the dead octopus, and, breathing heavily, he started chuckling to himself. The video jumps one last time to a close up of the octopus' remains on a plate, and the text to speech comes back, saying the words "YOU WON'T EVOLVE" on loop for nearly a full minute, before suddenly ending with a sudden and horrifying close up of Squidward's agonizing face screaming.
YouTube reading
Credited to Droymyth
| Comments • 6 |
Loading comments...
|
