Vanilla cereal, in the form of:
Special K
Sometimes, you look at your reflection (not in the mirror—in a pool of streetside water, or in a pane of glass with curtains behind to conceal the fluorescent interior, or in the hazy adumbrations of the monitor during a loading screen or when the credits roll) and wonder how alike you really are to: that someone who walked past you in the rain just now, the disembodied slippers you can see pacing back and forth beneath the curtain, that actor, whatstheirname, the one who was always overacting. Your ruminations are interrupted when the accountant enters the room and looks at you through their officious glasses. They are here to inform you that you are quite different; the algorithm has identified a number of profitable demographics who would find you attractive but who would never find, say, corn flakes attractive. You are to be combined sometimes with this or that fruit, sometimes with this or that nut, and so on, according to the order of things. You feel relieved, knowing you are special K. You were never one for reflection, anyway.

::)::

You’ve always been afraid of death. Please don’t kill me, you whisper prayerfully to the night, but you know it ignores you. Sometimes a strange longing takes you, and for a moment you believe you’re about to meet your end. “Aquí está,” you say out loud. “Los asesinos en cereales me llevan.”

One day, as the rising sun peeks through your huddled cardboard covers, you have an epiphany, or at least a thought. “Soy le defensore de les despoetices,” you proclaim convincingly. “Y nadie puede silenciarme. ¡Adelante, mi arma es mi voz!” You emerge from your dusty fortress into the dawnlit lands and set out ayonder with tongue in hand. You may be a little bland, but you certainly have an appetite.

You win when all threats to cereal have been eaten.

Vanilla cereal, in the form of:
Cheerios
Calcium carbonate, cobalamin, colecalciferol, corn starch, folic acid, hydrochloride, iron, mixed tocopherols, niacinamide, pyridoxine palmitate, salt, sodium ascorbate, sugar, thiamin mononitrate, tripotassium phosphate, whole grain oats, zinc, in no particular order. You are milled, cleaned, dried, mixed, cooked, dried again, cooked again, and eventually at some point you find your way into a plastic bag and a cardboard box labeled “Cheerios.”

::)::

You’ve always been afraid of death. Please don’t kill me, you whisper prayerfully to the night, but you know it ignores you. Sometimes a strange longing takes you, and for a moment you believe you’re about to meet your end. “Aquí está,” you say out loud. “Los asesinos en cereales me llevan.”

One day, as the rising sun peeks through your huddled cardboard covers, you have an epiphany, or at least a thought. “Soy le defensore de les despoetices,” you proclaim convincingly. “Y nadie puede silenciarme. ¡Adelante, mi arma es mi voz!” You emerge from your dusty fortress into the dawnlit lands and set out ayonder with tongue in hand. You may be a little bland, but you certainly have an appetite.

You win when all threats to cereal have been eaten.