The Origin of the Craving

    The year was 1995 and night had fallen upon the region.  Somewhere out on the countryside loomed a large, cereal making factory that belonged to Post.  It was a big provider of jobs for the area and people seemed to really love it, especially since the employees could bring home plenty of free samples so that they and their families could have food for breakfast.

    There was one other thing to this factory though that really made it special.  It also functioned as a laboratory as well, where certain scientists and higher ups had been trying to perfect and get the most out of their cereals’ taste.  Something that would make their products irresistible and desirable.  Something that anyone of any age would have a hard time resisting, while all remaining perfectly “legal”.

    One day though… something happened.  Something rather unusual and peculiar emerged in their scientific experiments.  Well, it came more out of an accident than anything, a careless member of the cleaning staff knocking over some chemicals and substances onto a box of Honeycomb Cereal.  What followed was something created that the staff had to absolutely keep a lid on, no matter what.

    But then one night, despite their best efforts, the worst happened.  The night shift, which mostly consisted of a few scientists and janitors, heard the sound of a large alarm blaring.  It pierced through the hallways, flashing lights accompanying it.  The whole scene felt reminiscent of a bio-disaster taking place within lab after virus broke out.

    “What’s going on?!” a janitor asked some of the scientists that came rushing by him a few minutes after the alarm started blaring.

    They dully ignored the concerns of the man and hurried their way into the deepest parts of the building, the third basement floor.  Rushing through several different hallways and eventually through a few labs, they reached the door that led to a vault room.  It was where they kept their special… discovery.  It was air-tight and nothing could possibly escape from it.

    Or so they had hoped.  Moving through the normal door and glancing towards the back, to their horrifying discovery, the vault door was cracked open.  Opening the vault door further and looking into the room, they found it completely empty.  The only thing that could be seen of any importance was, painted out in some random chemicals and paint left in the room, the word: Honeycomb.

    “Crap crap!” one of the scientists panicked within his hazmat suit, looking around the room frantically “It’s out!  How did it get out?!”

    “It doesn’t matter now,” another one fiercely stated, “What does is that we track this thing down before it does any harm!  We still don’t know what it is capable of yet or what harm it could cause!”

Several days later…

    It was lovely autumn afternoon.  The air was warm and the sun fully out, but a cold breeze occasionally blew through the small community, keeping things at a normal, average temperature for the season.  Winter would soon be arriving in the coming month, but everyone was out trying to enjoy the weather as much as they could before things went south.

    The only thing out of the ordinary today was the gold colored van with the Post Cereal’s logo plastered on the side.  It belonged, obviously, to the factory just outside of the town’s limits and in the past, could be seen passing through to deliver some cereal personally to the grocery stores around the area.  However, it was appearing much more frequently nowadays, even if every store was stocked.

    Of course, that wasn’t the only thing out amongst the community either.  This one though went unseen by people and its presence was almost invisible to anyone in the area.  Those who could see it were extremely few, but if everyone could see it, it would certainly cause a panic in the streets.

    The odd, bizarre thing was very small and looked like a living, breathing cartoon character with cartoon anatomy to it.  It could be best described as a living koosh-ball made of long brown fur.  It had dinner-plate sized eyes and an orange muzzle with a canine mouth.  It also had orange arms with four-fingered hands and orange feet that wore yellow tennis shoes.  It bounced around the entire area as free as can be, no one being the wiser of its presence.

    As it bounced around carelessly, it’s eyes fell upon a small scene up ahead.  A young group of middle schoolers were talking and walking together towards the public library.  There were three of them in total, a young man with a basketball team jacket, another young guy with dark skin and sweater & vest combo, and the other a young girl with darker skin and a more stylized haircut.  They were all chatting amongst each other happily as they approached and entered the large building.

    The mysterious creature felt drawn to the trio and charged right towards them, sneaking in whenever the next person opened the door.




    “So I’ll write stuff down,” the young man in the basketball jacket explained to the other two as he pulled out his notebook, “and you guys look through the books.”

    “Oh sure,” the girl with stylish haircut stated, raising an eyebrow, “You just write things down and do the easy stuff.  Max and me will do all the hard work of reading and going through the books, looking for the stuff we need.”

    It was Sunday and the trio had went off to their local library to get some work done.  A big group project was just assigned two days ago that would not only include a presentation, but an actual written report on the subject of prehistoric animals.  Max and his best friend, Jordan, quickly teamed up with each other, another one of their friends, and the new girl in their class that was currently with them, Charlotte.  They especially wanted her on their team due to her outspoken love for dinosaurs and such.

    The group needed a topic for their presentation to be on, so they made a plan to meet up that day to go over some different things in the books on prehistoric creatures and such at the library.  Looking around, Jordan asked curiously, “Soooo, did Shirley say she was sick or something?  She didn’t meet us outside of the old rundown building on main like we planned.”

    “She said she was coming,” Charlotte said as she unloaded some things from her backpack, “I’m sure she’s just late.”

    “Or early!” a young girl called out, rushing over to them.  They turned around to see a fair-skinned girl with long brown hair running up to them, carrying a bunch of books in her hands.  People shushed her as she passed by and dropped her findings onto the table the trio had taken a seat at.  She looked proud, declaring, “I found everything we’ll need!  I’m sure there’s plenty of good stuff here that we can work with.”

    “Gees!” Max replied, looking at the books as he unloaded his backpack as well, “How many did you get?”

    “Everything I think we’ll need,” she explained, taking off her own orange backpack and sitting down at a big table.

    “Oh!” Charlotte exclaimed excitedly, yanking one of the books over to her, “I don’t have this one at home!  You don’t see a lot of books on megalodons!”

    “Ok then,” Shirley pleasantly said, “Start going through each book and writing down anything that sounds good that we can use!”

    “Can’t I just write down whatever you guys find?” Jordan asked, looking rather disappointed with the work in front of him, “I think my plan…”

    “…is crap,” Charlotte replied with a small smirk as she looked up from her book.

    "Come on dude,” Max stated, taking a book for himself to look over, “Just do it.  The faster we look through these books, the faster we can get out of here and get some pizza!”  His best friend sighed dejectedly and grabbed one of the books himself to go through.  It was going to be a long day of work that he was not looking forward to.

    Unseen by them, the mysterious fuzzy creature was watching the young teens work away on their project.  It didn’t say or do anything outside of twitching and shaking uncontrollably, like it couldn’t completely stand still.  It just kept staring at them with its large eyeballs.


    After an hour or so had passed, the creature was still watching the group work away on their assignment.  They had gone over a few books so far, writing down different things on what might be a good topic and what they could use for their project.  Nothing so far out of the usual or anything besides that.

    Then suddenly, there was a low gurgle, or perhaps a grumble, from under the table.  The kids glanced across the table at Max, who looked rather sheepish and embarrassed.  He mumbled, “eh… sorry guys.  I… I kind of skipped lunch… and breakfast by accident.”

    “It’s okay,” Shirley reassured with an amused smile, “Did you bring a snack or anything?”

    “No,” Max glumly mumbled, “The library doesn’t let us bring food in and plus, I figured we’d be done by now and already at the pizzeria.  Ah man, I really should of had some Honeycomb Cereal before I left.  My dad brought home like four boxes of it from the factory…”

    “That’s a lot!” Charlotte remarked, “My dad only gets to take home one box as a freebie and that’s it.  Your dad must be some REAL bigwig or something…”

    “No,” Max remarked, “Not compared to your family… but I kind of wish he would bring home something different.  I’m getting sick of having it all the time.”

    “I don’t know,” Jordan mumbled, busying writing away irritably, “I wouldn’t mind some Honeycomb myself.”  His voice was low so no one could make out exactly what he said.

    The creature seemed to pick up on their whole conservation though, panting now and licking its chops excitedly.  It also seemed to be picking up on some other, much more subtle rumbling of the stomachs from the other kids at the big table.  They were growing hungry as well, but were trying their best not to show it, just focusing on their work.

    However, it didn’t seem to help them much after Max admitted he was getting hungry.  Their reading slowed down considerably and their note taking grew worse, their handwriting almost illegible from just a simple glance at it.  They needed something to eat soon otherwise things weren’t going to get easier for them.

    This was exactly the opportunity the creature was waiting for.

    Without a moment’s hesitation, it zoomed forward and disappeared.  After a moment, it phased right out of Jordan’s stomach, jumping onto his arm, and then onto the top of his chair he was sitting in.  Phasing in and through him left the teen with a strange, weird feeling even though he couldn’t see the creature. The feeling was of hunger, but not just that.  No, it was a hunger… or a craving for a certain food.

    He tossed his pen onto the table and closed his notebook, his thoughts no longer on the book or the task at hand.  He rubbed his stomach and said with a smile, “I can feel that crazy craving for Honeycomb!”

    The creature behind him, now holding the box top for Honeycomb Cereal, hollered out in a hungry, excited voice, “HONEYCOMB!!  HONEYCOMB!!  ME WANT HONEYCOMB!!”

    Charlotte and Max gave Jordan the strangest of looks, while Shirley just had a nonplus, though rather curious reaction smacked across her face.  None of the three seemed to know where that came, nor did they, or anyone else, hear the creature’s outburst either.  Max thought strangely, what’s with him?  Why did he…

    At that moment, the creature zoomed over to Shirley, who tried to return to her work.  She scratched at her head and bit down on her lip as she tried her best to write something down, not seeing the creature pull out a book of its own.  It opened up its own tome as wide and as far as possible, revealing several pictures in it.  One of the Honeycomb Cereal logo, one of the box itself, and one of a piece of the cereal itself.

    It tried waving at her and slapping its book, all in a desperate attempt to get her attention.  She still did not see it despite its best efforts.  However, her stomach growled and she dropped her pencil, its presence still having some effect on her.  She started speaking, an air of excitement and eagerness in her own voice, “I can’t concentrate when the craving hits!”

    The creature hollered out again as it still smacked its book, Shirley trying to return to taking her notes, “HONEYCOMB, HONEYCOMB!  ME WANT HONEYCOMB!”

    Max and Charlotte glanced at each other strangely, not sure what was going on with either of their friends.  They’ve never seen either of them act like this before and it was rather strange to say the least.

    At that moment, the creature zipped over to where Max was and somehow dived into his blue backpack that was sitting on a chair next to him.  His backpack rumbled and shook, but like its presence in general, no one seemed to really notice at all.  No one even noticed when a few random books started popping out of the bag and sat perfectly normal on top of it.

    However, the creature’s presence seemed to infect Max as well, his stomach rumbling and the thought of Honeycomb Cereal reappearing in his mind again.  He sighed and agreed with Shirley and Jordan, “I know the feeling!”

    Charlotte glanced at him, raising an eyebrow.  And there he goes as well, she thought, is this stuff really that good or is it just something this town is really into?

    The books in Max’s backpack rose up and the creature popped out, nodding in agreement with what the boy just said.  It got out of the bag, all of the books falling back into position in it as if nothing had ever happened.  The creature sat right next to him then, looking at him eagerly and patting his shoulders.

    Doing so, a vision of Honeycomb being poured slowly into a cereal bowl popped into Max’s mind.  That looks sooo good, he thought dreamily, imagining a big bowl right next to him.  He pleasantly said out loud, rubbing his chin as he focused on his vision, “So sweet… and…”

    He seemed to get hung up on the next word, dragging out “and” for a tiny bit.  The furball smiled and leaned end, whispering, “crunchy.”

    “Crunchy!” Max exclaimed ecstatically.  Both Jordan and Shirley nodded in agreement with him, mumbling to themselves, “Sweet and crunchy… sounds so good right now.”

    Charlotte just looked between the three with her usual odd look, not sure what to say to any of what was happening.  “Ok,” she slowly said, “Maybe we should just call it quits for today and gets some pizza.  I think we went over enough books to put together some kind of…”

    Suddenly, the creature darted over to her and grabbed onto her, her expression quickly changing.  She started smiling and looking excited as well, her thoughts turning from pizza to Honeycomb Cereal as well.  “Sweet and crunchy,” she breathed dreamily, before adding, “Yeah!  Like…”

    She just had another way to describe the cereal, but the thought vanished from her mind abruptly.  A frown crossed her face and just when she was almost left completely speechless, the creature grabbed onto her shoulders and whispered into her ear, “toasted honey.”

    “…toasted honey,” she slowly said, a smile returning to her lips.  A vision of several pieces of Honeycomb Cereal appeared in her mind along with some unseen force drizzling soft honey onto each individual piece.  She thought, that… that looks really good.  Forget pizza!  Honeycomb is where it’s at!

    Max chuckled, the same vision appearing in his mind, “that weird shape.”

    The kids chuckled a bit and their stomachs growled louder, the entire conversation fueling their hunger and inner craving more and more.  They badly needed something to eat and they knew exactly what it was.  They all thought in unison, Honeycomb…

    The creature jumped into the center of the table, seeming to enjoy all of this craziness going on.  Just a little bit more pushing and they would…

    Shirley dropped her pen onto the table and closed her notebook, her hands trembling as her craving became too much for her to handle.  She shot up to her feet and slammed her hands on her notepad, staring off to the center.  She shouted, “ME WANT HONEYCOMB NOW!!”

    Everyone in the room, from her friends to the adults busy looking over their own books, turned and looked at her.  A sharp silence fell over the room as Shirley’s face turned red and her whole head filling with embarrassment.  That…, she thought, looking about nervously, that was a bit of a mistake…

    However, the creature shouted triumphantly, “YES!”  It had achieved what it had set out to do.  What it was born for.  It passed on the desire, the strong inner craving for a person to want to have and eat Honeycomb Cereal… while also potentially having others lead it to the cereal so it could eat some itself too.  All it needed to do now was hitch a ride with them to see its plan in action and get in on the food.

    Trying her best to save face, even if it was pointless, Shirley said to her friends as she reached for her backpack all casually, “I mean… let’s get some!”

    With that, she yanked her orange backpack off the table, the same one the creature was trying to crawl into.  She tossed it over her shoulder and charged out of the room, leaving the furball spinning wildly on the table.  Her friends immediately followed close behind, ready to get some Honeycomb themselves.

    “Where can we find Honeycomb?” Jordan asked Shirley, following closely behind.

    “My place!” Max declared, “There’s plenty of it at my home!”  With that, the group charged all the way to Max’s home to have their cereal, the strange creature following them the entire way there… after it recovered from its spinout.

    Less than half an hour later, the four were piled up at Max’s kitchen counter and eating some of the amazing cereal.  Their inner cravings were slowly being satisfied while the fuzzy creature looked down on them from a ceiling light hanging above.  It tried reaching down to grab at the cereal box that they left opened on the counter as it swung about.  However, it ended up falling into the box itself and got stuck, hollering out “HONEYCOMB” as it fell.

    And that... that was the first reported incident that the Honeycomb Craver was attached to.  And it certainly wouldn’t be the last or craziest one either.  In fact, it wouldn’t be the only one that would happen that week.

To Be Continued…