Fruit Loops

A Short Horror Story

Aug 01, 2025

As a small child growing up in the early 2000s, Fruit Loops had a cult-like presence in my life. I watched him every Saturday morning, every moment I could possibly spare before I had to leave for school.

Fruit Loops was my world, my everything. I couldn't live without him.

That was until I saw the tape.

It was a clear Saturday morning when my mom came back from work. I was sitting at the little plastic Spiderman table that I had dragged up in front of the TV to watch Fruit Loops, spilling milk down my chin from my cereal as I giggled at his quippy jokes.

"Benny!" My mom called out to me as she came through the front door. "I have a surprise for you."

Switching off the television and shoving the last spoonful of cereal into my mouth, I got up from the floor and bounced over to my mom.

"A surprise? For me?" I asked my mom excitedly, crowding around her to try to see what was in her hand."Let me see, let me see, let me see!"

"Settle down, Benny." My mother warned me. "I'm not going to give you the surprise until you sit down and listen."

With that, I sat down quietly on the kitchen table, my ankles crossed and my hands folded up in my lap. This was the performance I had always put on when I wanted something from my mom.

My mom produced a bright orange VHS tape from behind her back.

"I found this at the neighbor's yard sale, the one with the adult kids who have moved out years ago." She said. "I thought you might be interested in it."

I stared at the tape in utter awe. I gazed upon the familiar, colorful face printed across its bright plastic surface.

"Fruit Loops!" I sheirked, reaching out and grabbing for the tape.

My mom held it out of my reach. "Not so fast, Benny. You know I can't let you have this until you clean your room. We talked about this."

"But mom." I began to whine. "I already promised I'd clean my room. Why can't I just watch it now?"

"I don't want to hear it, Benny." My mom glowered down at me. "Clean your room like you said you would, and then we'll talk about it."

Bitter and pouting, I went back to my bedroom with the intention of picking up a few of my toys and throwing a few pieces of my dirty laundry into my hamper, but soon enough, I found myself lying flat on my back in the middle of my floor, staging an epic battle between a few of my plastic dinosaurs.

Time began to tick by little by little. Soon enough, my mom was calling me downstairs for dinner, and I had barely cleaned a single square of my bedroom.

The rest of my day went by in a blur. Frozen chicken nuggets for dinner, a shower with bubblegum scented shampoo, being tucked into bed with my Webkinz, my Beanie Babies, and my room was still not clean.

I sat awake in my bed for a few long moments, restless. Even though I had not managed to get my room clean like I had promised my mother, I knew I couldn't rest until I watched that tape.

I waited until the dark of the night was so thick it was like smoke in the air, and the world outside my bedroom was quiet, signaling to me that my parents had finally fallen asleep.

This was my chance.

I pulled my carefully tucked blanket off of me, set my feet softly on the floor, and began creeping down the dark hallway towards the TV room.

The tape was not hard to find. It was as if it were waiting patiently for me to find it, begging me to watch it.

I had never used the family VHS player by myself before, but I had watched my parents insert tapes into it, so I had at least a reasonable idea of how to do it myself.

With just a little bit of difficulty. I managed to insert the bright orange tape into the VHS player, hit the play button, and sat back, ready to watch.

Fruit Loop's bright orange face appeared on the screen, smiling with warmth and friendliness.

"Hey there, Benny!" He said in his exaggerated voice. "Are you ready to have some fun?"

My mouth gaped in awe. Fruit Loops knew my name. He was talking to me.

"Y-yeah," My voice came out weak, shocked.

"I can't hear you, Benny." Fruit Loops pressed a puffy white gloved hand to his ear. "You're going to have to speak up."

"Yeah!" I yelled out louder than I intended, and I took a nervous glance over my shoulder, scared that I had awoken my mom.

"Alrighty then!" Fruit Loop continued. "I have a fun game in mind for us tonight, Benny. Take a look at that table."

I rushed over to the red Spiderman table to find a sliver knife sitting right at the center of it. My stomach dropped.

"What do you want me to do with this, Fruit Loops?" I asked, my voice small.

"Cut your throat, Benny." Fruit Loops said. His voice was twisting and distorting, sounding deeper and more electronic, "I need your blood."

I started down at the knife, feeling more and more sick to my stomach.

"Come closer, Benny." Fruit Loops urged me, his face somehow escaping the boundaries of the television screen and into the outside world. "I need your blood, Benny, I need it."

I approached the TV screen with the knife drawn to my throat by my shaking hand. Fruit Loops watched me eagerly, stretching its colorful, rubbery body further out from the screen.

I withdrew the knife from the skin of my throat and plunged it deep into Fruit Loop's eye socket.

Fruit Loops let out an inhuman shriek as his body launched from the TV screen and onto the floor like a coiled rubber coil in a can, shriveling up like a dried snake skin before disappearing entirely.

My mom's heavy footsteps came barreling into the TV room. Her shadowy frame appeared alarmed and irritated in the doorway.

"Benny, it's past midnight. You shouldn't be out of bed." My mom said, glowering. "Are you alright? What do you need?"

Grace’s Spook Show

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