Cereal would be my downfall. It wasn’t exactly a thought, more a notion that tugged at the back of my mind where I couldn’t quite get a hold of it. It stayed there, just out of reached and it felt like days had passed since this nagging feeling came over me like a shadow.

I was in the kitchen when this notion surfaced into a fully formed thought. I was sitting on the breakfast island in my underwear, tile cold against my bum cheeks, hand rooting about inside my roommate’s favorite cereal when they walked in and caught me.

I was immediately apologizing, springing down to the floor, trying to extract my hand and set down the box at the same time. The maneuver failed and suddenly there was crispy chocolatey puffy swirls scattered loudly across the whole counter and some of the floor.

I freeze, eyes locked with my roommate’s. I can see their rage, their eyes unnaturally wide, their mouth twisted in an angry sneering scar across their face. And that, is when the ever helpful thought popped into my mind. Cereal would be the end of me. My greatest vice, my last downfall.

They lunge after me as I scramble in slow motion toward the door, to our tiny backyard. My feet in fuzzy socks crunch against the cereal scattered on the floor and I feel it sticking, clinging to my socks with each step I manage to gain as my roommate seems to fly across the room, leaping the counter, and landing immediately behind me.

They grab the back of my oversized gray sweatshirt, a fist full of my hood. I’m yanked backward, thrown, body twisting back the way I’d come. My feet slip from under me, I feel as if I’m floating, and I turn my head to see my roommate’s face, blazing fiery anger, before there’s a loud crack inside my head as everything resumes speed, time, and my face crashes into the corner of the kitchen counter, snapping my head sideways, and blinking out the image of my roommate’s face in an instant.

I jerk awake in bed, my legs tangled in sheets, blankets crumpled to the floor in a heap, my hand clutching at the front of my tiny sweat soaked camisole. I take several deep breaths, relieved as all hell that it was just a dream.

But still weary at the strange smile my roommate gives me every time I go past them eating their cereal in the kitchen.