Hello, my name is Snap, and I don’t have much time. My brother Crackle is trying to break into my cottage. I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have had him cosign the lease. In case I don’t make it, I want somebody to know what happened and why Crackle went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. It all started when we developed our famous recipe for Rice Krispies cereal. It started right here in this very cottage. We were experimenting in the kitchen, trying to create a tasty snack. As I shuffled through the dusty cupboards (I’ll never get around to cleaning them now), Pop called for my attention. My dear, sweet Pop was so optimistic and joyful. He excitedly showed me what he had cooked up. It was the first-ever batch of Rice Krispies! After that, our formula took on a life of its own. We sold the recipe to Kellogg, who milked us for all we had, not even leaving us the dust at the bottom of the cereal box. We became nothing but Kellogg’s cereal whores, better heard but not seen as they drained every last snap, crackle, and pop out of us. 

Pop took it the hardest. He was still a minor when we found him with the Trix Rabbit. I told him that Trix isn’t for kids, but he didn’t listen. Crackle turned to the hardest substance of all: Lucky Charms. I told him to go easy on the Charms, but like Pop, he wouldn’t listen. After the second intervention failed, he lost his job, his girlfriend, and all of his friends. Soon after, Lucky the Leprechaun went missing. I asked Crackle if he knew what happened, but he swears he had nothing to do with it. “Lucky went home to Ireland,” he said. Lucky was from New Jersey, and we all knew it. I couldn’t ignore Crackle’s behavior anymore. After a bar brawl with Tony the Tiger and a hospital bill longer than our copyright, I couldn’t let him be around my family any longer, especially Pop. Had I intended to abandon Crackle? Of course not. But there are only so many times that a person can wake up to their brother snorting lines of pixie sticks off their ottoman as Toucan Sam dances with a Hula girl on the coffee table. I had lost my fruit loops at that point.

As I write this, Crackle is circling the house. Each step he takes echoes like the crinkling of a cereal bag fresh out of the box. I’m terrified. I was visiting Pop when I walked into the kitchen to find him standing in a pool of blood. He finally snapped and cracked Pop over the head with a giant spoon. And he’s coming after me next. I ran home as quickly as I could, but my legs are quite small, so it wasn’t very fast. I locked the doors and windows just as I saw Crackle running up the driveway. I called the police, but thanks to Crackle’s love of prank phone calls, they wouldn’t answer.

It wasn’t just Kellogg, the Lucky Charms, or the pixie sticks that drove Crackle nuts. It was the sounds. The constant snapping, crackling, and popping reverberating through his skull pushed him to the brink of madness. In Pop’s kitchen, I met Crackle’s eyes and saw how far gone he was. He was a hollow Cheerio, a shell of his former self. He was bloodthirsty. He could only be satiated by the crunch of Pop’s bones. But even that wasn’t enough… one bite is never enough. Sitting here now, I can only imagine the sound of my own body collapsing in on itself with a loud snap (much like our delicious cereal) as Crackle folds me into a gnome sandwich.

Wait, I heard a crash. Crackle has broken a window. He’s inside the cottage. I don’t know if I’ll make it out of this cottage alive, but I only have one option left. It’s time to honey-nut up or shut up.

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