I Will Find You

* ~ 24 ~ *

Gwendolyn's POV

I step in from a door and see someone standing in front of me, although all I can see is their back. I walk a couple steps closer, and when I lift my hand to tap their shoulder, they turn around and I can see it's the count. He has a huge fruit bowl in his hands, filled with the most exotic but also very common fruits. Dragon fruit, oranges, cherries, kiwis, tamarinds... I don't even know what some of them are.

I look at the count. He looks weird: wide smile, eyes like big plates. He hands the bowl towards me, shrugging his shoulders:

"Go on, take one."

I lift my hand to pick a fruit, but all of a sudden I don't know which one to take. My hand sails between two or three options before finally landing to an orange. I take the orange and drop it to the floor, and take a pair of cherries instead of it. The cherries are pretty, perfectly round and so shiny I can see the reflection of my face in them. 
My eyes stuck on the reflection for a second. The another side of my face is all over covered in shadows. I look around in the room but there are no windows or lamps where the light could come, causing the shadow. But there isn't dark in the room either. Maybe the light is invisible, like oxygen and just hovers in the air. 

"Eat it."

I look at the count who said the words and see that all the happiness on his face a couple minutes ago has faded away, like dust when you blow on it. He looks so commanding and scary that in lack of options I have to force myself and eat the cherry.

Immediately when I bite into the cherry I feel how it turns into a hard, cherry-sized rock, and I feel how a bitter, oversweet stink fills my nose. The rock doesn't get out of my mouth, no matter how hard I try to spit it out. No, instead it just gets stuck into my throat, so I can't breath anymore. When I'm almost out of air I glance at the count. The arrogant smile has found it's way back to his lips, and his hand is waving me goodbyes. The rock is draining deeper.

"Bye bye, Ruby."

Those are the last words I can hear before I fall in the darkness.

*

I jump to sit in my bed. I'm breathing heavily, almost choking. I've never seen a dream that would feel so real. And hopefully won't ever see again.

I look at the clock on my nightstand. It says 2.53 am. I sigh and fall back to my bed, clawing the covers back on. I can still have almost four hours of sleep if I fall asleep right now.

But when the covers bring back the soothing warmth, I can't think anything else but the dream. Why the count was offering me fruits? Why everything turned out how it did?

I sigh and try to get my phone with one hand from the nightstand. Somehow, a memory of the limousine driver jumps into my mind. Maybe I am playing the same game as he did yesterday, getting something with one hand without looking directly at it. Luckily there is no one else in the room, seeing how I hopelessly try to get the phone into my hand. When I've tried to find the phone for a while, I give up and get into a sitting position. I take the phone and pick Leslie's number.

I hear three beeps before she answers:

"Gwen, is it you?"

"Yes, it's me. Look, I'm sorry I woke you up, but I just saw a crazy dream and I can't fall asleep anymore..."

"Tell me everything, I'm ready", Leslie responds on the other end.

And I tell. When I reach the end, it feels like I've been speaking for twenty minutes. The clock tells the opposite: only five minutes have passed.