The Krusty Krab was almost empty by the time the rain started.
Outside, the wind pressed seaweed against the windows in slow, slapping rhythms. A broken sign flickered overhead, casting a sickly green light across the wet pavement. Inside, it was quieter than usual—no shouting, no customers, no Plankton peeking through the glass. Just the soft murmur of fry grease and the occasional tick of the wall clock above the register.
SpongeBob SquarePants stood alone behind the grill, humming a little tune with no real melody.
It was a tune he only hummed when no one else was around. Something wordless and slow, like an old lullaby he'd once made up for Gary and promptly forgotten. He moved with muscle memory—bun, patty, lettuce, tomato, bun again—stacking one final Krabby Patty onto the small silver tray beside him. Not because anyone had ordered it, but because it felt strange to leave the day unfinished.
The spatula in his hand had a small crack near the handle, but he still used it. It was his lucky one. The first one he'd ever flipped with. He'd named it Spatty.
"That's the last one, Spatty," he whispered, and slid the tray onto the warmer.
He didn't look tired, but he was. It was the kind of tired that settled in behind the eyes, not in the muscles. The dining room lights had been dimmed hours ago, but Mr. Krabs hadn't come to lock up yet. Probably asleep in his office with a pile of coupons across his chest.
SpongeBob didn't mind. He liked the quiet.
He liked the way the grease on the floor squeaked under his shoes when no one was talking. He liked how the fryer gurgled when the oil settled, like it was sighing after a long day. He liked being the last one out, because it meant the day had belonged to him, right up until the end.
A low sizzle drew his attention.
He turned. One of the old fryers was still on. The small one in the back corner, the one Mr. Krabs never bothered to replace because "it still heats up, doesn't it?"
That fryer always made SpongeBob nervous. The pilot light flickered too much, and sometimes the dial would stick and turn itself just a little more to the right, like it wanted to go hotter than it should.
Tonight, it had done just that.
The oil inside bubbled violently, spitting little droplets onto the metal lid. The smell had shifted, too—less like food, more like something scorched and electrical.
SpongeBob approached it slowly, spatula still in hand.
"Whoa there, buddy," he said gently, like he was talking to a jellyfish tangled in a net. "Let's not make this a thing."
He reached out and tried to turn the dial back, It didn't move, the fryer buzzed. Not loudly—more like a breath caught in a wire, then, a sudden pop, the lights above flickered. A burnt orange glow pulsed under the fryer's lid.
SpongeBob blinked. "That's not good."
The next few seconds stretched out oddly.
He thought about the leftover patties in the fridge. About how Patrick had borrowed his ukulele and never gave it back.About the smell of bubble soap on a sunny day. About jellyfish fields and how the grass there was always just a little damp, even in the summer.
He tried again to turn the dial.
And that's when the heat bloomed.
A quiet thrum—like the deep sound a boat makes when it pushes against a current—and then the fryer ruptured with a hiss and a flash of light, no fire, just heat, smoke, and something sharp that knocked the air from his body.
His last thought was not a dramatic one.
It was a simple, stupid little thing:
"I hope I turned the oven off at home."
Then the smoke swallowed the light, and the restaurant was quiet again.
There was no light, no grill, no sizzling, no Mr. Krabs barking orders from the office, claws clacking on spreadsheets.No Squidward sighing like a dying balloon in the front, no restaurant. Just a soft, warm darkness pressing in from all sides, like the inside of a soap bubble that refused to pop.
And then—grass.
It crinkled under his back, sharp and dry. Not like kelp or sea moss, it didn't float. It poked.
SpongeBob opened his eyes.
Above him stretched a sky so wide it made his stomach tilt, the colors were wrong—too pale, too clean. A few soft clouds drifted by, but they didn't look like jellyfish. Just blobs, white blobs on a blue sheet that went on forever.
He sat up.
The grass swayed around him, tall as his knees. A few crooked stones poked out nearby, shaped like shells that had been smoothed and flattened by time. A breeze tugged lightly at his body—his tall, upright, weirdly large body.
SpongeBob blinked, looked down, Then froze.
He was…He was still sponge.
Yellow, porous, squishy in all the right places. His shape was still vaguely rectangular, and he still had that familiar uneven texture around his edges.
But he was big now.
Human-sized.His arms reached farther, his legs were long enough to tangle if he wasn't careful. His feet looked absurd with no shoes, he patted his sides—he was completely bare. Not even his trusty brown squarepants.
"Oh barnacles," he muttered, standing up carefully. "I lost my pants."
His voice sounded the same—cheery, high-pitched, slightly nasally, but here, in this wide-open world, it sounded tiny.
The field around him was silent, there was no bubbling ocean above, no swishing fins, no coral structures or glowing jellyfish.
Just grass, hills, a single tree off in the distance, twisted like it had grown in the wind too long.
And silence.
He rubbed his head, more out of instinct than confusion. "Okay, think, SpongeBob, you were at work, you were flipping patties, the fryer was making weird noises, then there was a boom... and now…"
He turned in a slow circle.
"…this isn't Bikini Bottom."
There was a pressure in his chest, but not fear. He didn't know what it was yet. The world didn't feel dangerous, just... different, still, Waiting.
Somewhere far off, something rustled. Leaves maybe, or wind, or some animal he didn't know the name of.
His stomach made a noise like a slowly deflating balloon, right, no lunch break.
"Well, first things first," he said, trying to shake the grass out of his pores. "I gotta find a spatula, and maybe some pants, and also figure out where here is. Then I can start rebuilding my résumé."
He took one awkward step forward and nearly tripped over a rock.
"Yup," he grunted, steadying himself. "Definitely gotta get used to this height."
The sun hung high overhead, casting long shadows from the bent tree and the stones.The light was warmer than he was used to—not filtered through seawater, not tinged with plankton or algae glow.
Above him, a flock of birds cut across the sky, their wings moving like folded fans.He had no idea what they were, but he waved at them anyway.
"Hi ! I'm SpongeBob!"
They didn't respond.
He smiled to himself. "Rude."
And then he started walking.
One step at a time, no plan,no map, Just his spongey feet in the grass, and a vague feeling that there had to be a town, or a cottage, or at least a clothesline somewhere out there.
The breeze picked up.
The tree in the distance shimmered with a strange, soft color as its leaves turned over in the wind.
SpongeBob narrowed his eyes at it.
He saw something dangling,It was just fabric, caught in the crooked arms of the tree. A long, tattered cloak hung from one of the lower branches, the ends frayed like it had been dragged through a thornbush. The wind tugged at it halfheartedly, making it flutter like a flag left behind on a forgotten battlefield.
He stepped closer, cautious, The cloak was dark—deep charcoal gray, almost black—and heavy-looking. Up close, it smelled faintly of ash and old wool, like a campfire that had gone out in the rain. A dull silver clasp shaped like a curled flower held it together at the collar. He didn't recognize the flower, but it looked important in the way old things sometimes did.
"Well," he said, plucking it free, "I guess this is mine now, sorry, tree."
The cloak dragged behind him as he slipped it on, hanging awkwardly on his square frame, but it did the job.He cinched the front shut with a strip of bark until it stopped flapping in the breeze.
The cloak hung unevenly on him, trailing in the grass like a curtain that didn't quite fit the window.
"There," he said, brushing off his chest. "Stylish and practical. Business casual.
A gust of wind puffed through the field, and SpongeBob squinted into it, no tents, no horses, no adventurers with maps and big hats shouting about cursed ruins. Just the camp remains, the empty tree, and him.
He tugged the cloak tighter and kept walking, careful not to trip over the hem.
He took a few steps past the tree. The grass thinned out as he went, and soon he noticed a break in the earth ahead—a narrow dirt path, half-overgrown but still walkable, winding through the field like a lazy line drawn in the dust.
SpongeBob paused at the edge of it.
It wasn't much, no signs, no road markers, just the kind of path people make by walking the same way too many times. Still, it was something,better than wandering in circles through knee-highgrass and pretending he knew what direction he was facing.
"Paths usually go somewhere," he said aloud, rubbing a bit of dirt between his fingers, "somewhere is better than nowhere, right?"
No one answered.
He shrugged and turned to follow the trail. As he walked, he kept his eyes moving, taking everything in—the scattered wildflowers growing in clusters along the edges, the way the wind moved in waves across the field, bending the grass like a sleepy tide. Somewhere far off,a bird called out once, then went quiet again.
Every now and then, he looked back over his shoulder. The tree with the cloak was getting smaller, the campfire was just a black dot now, fading into the gold and green behind him. It felt like he was walking out of something— not just a place, but a moment, a soft goodbye pressed into the air.
He didn't know where he was going, but he had a path, and for now, that was enough.
The path wound gently between low hills, dipping now and then into shallow hollows where the grass grew longer and shadows pooled beneath thorny brush. SpongeBob walked slowly, not because he was tired, but because walking slowly felt like the right way to move in a place like this.
A beetle crawled across the path in front of him, shiny and green like a piece of sea glass. He stopped and watched it for a moment, crouching down with his knees tucked awkwardly under the cloak.
"Hey there, little guy," he said, softly. "Nice day for a stroll."
The beetle didn't reply, but it paused, twitched its antennae, then kept going.
SpongeBob stood again and kept walking. A few birds passed overhead, their shadows rippling over the ground like tossed cloth. He waved again, just in case they were friendly. They didn't wave back.
Eventually, he reached a bend in the trail where a small cluster of trees leaned together like they were whispering. One had a broken limb hanging low, half-split from the trunk and just barely holding on. He stopped beneath it, looking at the branch.
It wasn't much. Dry, splintered, kind of crooked.
But it was wood.
Land wood.
He pulled it loose with a grunt, snapped off the worst of the splinters, then sat cross-legged at the side of the path and pulled a small rock from the dirt nearby—smooth and sharp at one end. Not ideal, but it would do.
He didn't rush. He didn't even know why he was doing it, really. But after a while, little curls of bark began to fall into his lap.
"You're not Spatty," he murmured to the branch, "but maybe you'll do until I find better."
The shape was rough at first—just a flat stub with a tapered end, but SpongeBob worked with surprising care, smoothing the handle with the side of the stone, chipping in the edge a little at a time. The sun moved slowly above him, and the wind rattled the leaves overhead like soft applause.
Once, a rabbit peeked out from the underbrush, stared at him for a few seconds, then darted off with a startled squeak. SpongeBob blinked, then waved after it.
"Nice ears," he called.
He carved until his fingers cramped, then stood and dusted himself off. The spatula wasn't finished, not yet, but it was starting to take shape—familiar in a way that tugged gently at his chest.
He tucked it into the strap of the cloak like a tool belt, and kept walking.
The path curved again, climbing a slow hill, and just before the crest, the trees parted slightly, and something new came into view.
Smoke.
Thin, pale strands rising frombehind the next ridge, curling into the sky like a question mark.
SpongeBob squinted. "Maybe someone else forgot their cloak."
And he started uphill.
The hill wasn't steep, but the wind at the top pushed against him like it was trying to turn him around, SpongeBob leaned forward into it, one hand on the cloak to keep it from flapping over his eyes, the other resting lightly on the carved wooden spatula tucked into his belt.
When he reached the crest, he paused.
Below, in a shallow dip between two long ridges, a small camp had been set up beside a narrow stream. Not much — just a thin blanket of smoke curling from a low fire, a rolled-up bedroll near a tree, and someone sitting very still with her back to him.
She was alone. Tall, thin, with long white hair that moved only slightly in the breeze. Her robe was pale, nearly colorless in the sun, and her posture was relaxed but not careless — the kind of stillness that came from long habit, not tiredness.
SpongeBob didn't speak at first.
He wasn't sure what kind of place this was, or what kind of people lived in it, but this didn't feel like a moment to shout.
So instead, he approached slowly, stepping around a patch of thistle and letting the grass swallow his footsteps. When he got close enough that the fire's smoke brushed against his face, he cleared his throat.
"Hi," he said, softly.
The woman didn't startle, she turned her head slightly, not all the way, just enough that one jade eye was visible beneath her bangs.
"…Hello."
Her voice was quiet, not unfriendly, just cautious.
SpongeBob offered a small wave, keeping his hand low and open.
"I'm not from around here," he said, "but I saw your camp from the path, and, uh… just wanted to see if there was someone here."
That earned the tiniest movement in her face. Not quite a smile, but the edge of something, like a ripple in still water.
She looked at him now — properly looked — taking in the tall, sponge-shaped figure in an ill-fitting cloak, with grass stuck in his pores and a wooden spatula tucked into his belt like a sword.
"…You're not human," she said.
SpongeBob shrugged. "Nope."
She didn't seem alarmed, just curious, in a distant sort of way, like someone reading an unfamiliar inscription on a gravestone.
There was a long silence.
Then she turned her head back toward the fire and said, "There's a place to sit."
SpongeBob blinked. "Oh. Thanks."
He sat carefully on a smooth rock a few feet from her, crossing his long legs under the cloak. The fire crackled softly between them, it smelled like dry wood and moss, not grease and fryer oil.
He looked around the camp, then back at her.
"My name's SpongeBob," he said. "SpongeBob SquarePants."
She didn't answer right away, a breeze passed between them, stirring the flames.
"…Frieren," she said finally. "Just Frieren."
And for a little while,they sat like that.
Two strangers, one elf and one sponge, sitting quietly by a fire in a world that didn't yet know what to do with either of them.