To say the boy was hungry was an understatement. He was starving. It was a strange hunger that woke him up from his peaceful dreams of, ironically enough, devouring a tasty cake. Probably was what caused his insatiable hunger. Or maybe the hunger caused his dreams? It mattered not. The point was, he was hungry.

Crawling out of his bed, he carefully left his room, trying not to make a sound as it was three at night after all. He went down the stairs and entered his kitchen. Not even bothering turning on the light yet, he went straight for the fridge. Inside was nothing but milk. Well, it was to be expected. His family didn't have much in ways of food at the moment. But with milk comes a snack those of all ages can enjoy.

Cereal!

He took the milk out and placed it on the counter. Next he looked at his options of cereal to eat. Rice Krispys? Nah too bland, he didn't have any sugar to sweeten it and he was still too tired to even be enjoyed by their popping sounds.

Frosted Flakes! He was about to reach for it when that tiger on the box stared deeply into his soul. Almost saying "Go ahead. Eat me and suffer for it." Scary. No go for that one.

Fruit loops? He hadn't had any for a long while so he couldn't remember or not if they had real fruit in them. He was allergic to most fruit. He briefly considered just reading the box but that much reading of fine text would just put him back to sleep.

In the end, he settled on the final and, in hindsight, only choice. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It was god's gift to man in terms of cereal choices. Truly one had to be a fool to even consider other cereals when this was around. He would have liked to blame his tiredness for forgetting that this cereal was here but he went through this routine every time. Even though his family only bought it for his consumption. He had no idea why they did such a thing.

Continuing with the task at hand, he got himself a bowl from the cabinet. His favorite deep, round bowl. It could hold a lot of food in it. Perfect for cereal consumption. He placed the bowl down next to the milk and box of cereal before looking through the drawers for a spoon.

First drawer, no spoon. Oh. Okay that's fine. Probably the next drawer would have a- Nope. No spoon there either. He looked inside the dishwasher. There's spoons! But... they're all dirty. A deep despair had filled the boys heart. He would have to hand wash a spoon now. He hated doing so. The idea of water splashing and getting him all wet unnerved him to his core. Curse the heavens for damning him to such a fate!

The figure in the corner of the room stepped out of the shadows (which isn't a hard thing to do in such a dark kitchen) and handed the boy a spoon.

"Oh hey, thanks man."

"No problem."

The two just stood there in silence as the boy simply stared at the spoon while his mind processed what just happened.

"Wait what?" The boy said before looking up. What he saw was... still just a dark shadow figure as it was far too dark in this kitchen. "Hold on!"

The boy stumbled in the dark, touching the wall near the entrance for the light switch. When he found it the room was illuminated.

"Ow!"

"Ow!"

Both of them screamed as the light blinded them both. This is why he didn't want to turn on the lights before. They were far too bright. After a few moments for his eyes to get used to the sudden brightness of the room, what he saw standing in front of sink was a man, same height as him, same build, same hair, color, same... pajamas? What? There can only be one explanation for this!

"You're..."

The doppelganger smiled and began to speak himself. "That's right! I'm-"

"Another stupid dream great. What a massive waste of time." The boy finished. "I hate dreams like these. Because now when I wake up chances are I'm gonna repeat the same actions again!"

"No! You idiot this isn't a dream! I'm you!"

"Well of course you're me. It's not that hard to tell. I seriously doubt this isn't a dream though."

"Do you really believe that? Does this seem like your usual dreams?"

The boy was about to respond before pausing. His other self wasn't wrong. This didn't seem to be like his dreams. Normally when he noticed he was dreaming, the dreamscape would get very wonky. The fact that it was still normal (except for there being a clone of himself) was very odd.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Okay... so it isn't normal but if it's not a dream then what is it?" The boy said while walking towards his clone.

"I'm you from the future!"

"The future?" He slightly pushed himself aside to get at his items for his cereal. Dream or not, he was still hungry. "Can you prove it?"

The other boy showed the first boy a pocket watch. Gold with a silver chain. How generic. "This is my time traveling watch!"

"Okay. But that doesn't reall-"

Suddenly a loud noise that sounded like a record player disc dying permeated the room, the shock of it made the boy drop his cereal bowl, shattering it on the floor. A great flash of white appeared in the center of the room. Once the light faded, there was left another person. Another version of the boy.

"Is this proof enough?" the third copy said.

"I suppose... but look at what you did!" The boy shouted and pointed at the floor. "There goes our favorite bowl!"

Another horrible sound, another flash of light and another boy showed up, this one carrying his bowl.  

"Here you go." The fourth boy said. All three other boys were confused.

"Where did you come from?" The second boy asked. "This didn't happened the last time when I was him." The second boy pointed at the first.

The first boy took his cereal bowl from the fourth. At least something good happened after all of this dumbness. He placed it onto the table.

"When I was you, that guy over there wouldn't stop complaining about his cereal bowl being broken. He over there said it would be fine, that I just needed to go back and become him but I thought that was dumb. It would be much easier to just go back to a point when the bowl still existed and just bring it here."

"I think you guys need to differentiate yourselves better because I barely understood that." The boy said while twisting the cap off his milk. The weird safety seal got stuck to the cap. He hated that. "I'll be number one since as far as I'm concerned you're all just copies of me. And each newer copy is number two, three and four."

"You moron!" Number three said. "It would have been fine and you should have listened to me because I already have a bowl." He said as he pulled out another bowl from who knows where. Boy One was glad this newer version of him gave him a nice, seemingly cleaner bowl than that one.

"Where did you grab that one from?" Four asked. "When did you even go back to get it?"

"I... don't actually know where this one is from. I got it from myself when I was that guy- err Number Two before I jumped."

"Do we even know where the spoon is from?"

"Sounds like a grandfather paradox to me." One said as he poured his cereal in the bowl. He liked to fill it just below the very max. It was a very careful process.

"So wait," Number two piped up. "What does this mean? Is there just an extra version of us now? Because Four got impatient?"

"Seems like it." Three said. One filled his bowl to about two-thirds of the way up with milk. Too much and the entire thing would get soggy. The goal was to always have some above the rest so you can still get a nice crunch.

"Doesn't this completely screw everything up though?" Three said. "Because if you remember guys after I sent Two back to become me I told one to start the process over, probably to prevent a time paradox."

"...Which already has happened." Four concluded.

"Sounds like you guys seriously messed up!"

"Shut up One!" the three shouted. Geez. Jerks. Maybe they need some cereal too. One’s eyes lit up as an idea popped into his head, but before he could voice it, two more flashes of light along with their terrible sounds (Seriously what the heck? couldn't they have invented a quieter time travel device?)

One of the newer clones that showed up first had two bowls of cereal in his hand. The other had four bowls. Weird. But hey more cereal!

"Where did you guys come from?" Three asked.

"I'm One over there, I took one of your watches and came back for more cereal. I'm not sure who that guy is though." Five pointed at Six.

"I'm you Five from about ten minutes later. I realized I still didn't have enough bowls of cereal for everyone even with time traveling. I thought if I just went back to the same moment I would just replace you but apparently not."

"...You tried to delete me from existence? What the heck!"

"It's fine it's not like you would have really noticed anyway."

"Because I would have been dead!"

One took his spoon and scooped up his cereal from the bottom. He placed the just perfectly soaked cereal in his mouth. Delicious.

"You wouldn't have died just not around to exist."

One wondered if they were going to eat their bowls of cereal. They were gonna get soggy at this rate. He continue to eat his food with gusto, not wanting to suffer a soggy cereal fate like his clones will.

"That's arguably worst!"

Five looked as if he was about to kill Six, but Two stepped in. "Okay okay, knock it off you two! Heh. Two."

"Two's right. It doesn't really matter now anyway. You both are existing so it's fine. At least we're learning more about time travel." Four said.

"What are we really learning though?" Three asked. "That we're all idiots?"

"That free will sort of exists?" Four said

"That one action can have drastics effects?" Two said

"That we're surprising comfortable with killing ourselves?" Five and Six said.

"That cereal is really good even at three AM?" One said.

"Shut up One!" The others shouted at him once more. Tough crowd.

"What the hell is going on down here!" Mother said as she walked down the stairs. "Why do you always make such a racket at-"

Her eyes went wide at seeing six copies of her son in her kitchen.

One smiled. "Hey Ma, want a bowl of cereal?"