Carol, Part 16 - Apple

Something happens.
First I don't know what it is, but then I realise everything has gone dark. I can't see anything, and Cecil, Rachel and Leea have disappeared from around me. I can't see even Flame anywhere. I wave my hand in front of my face. Nothing.
It's cold. I turn around. There isn't anything more to see. What ever this place is, it's making me very uncomfortable.
I hear a sound behind me and I flip around. I'm still staring into complete darkness. I hear the sound again. It's like someone eating something. Biting into... an apple? Someone is munching an apple. I can't decide whether to run away from the sound or towards it. I don't know who it is. 
I don't know what it is. There's no way for me to know if it is someone breaking into my dream or just another weird dream.
I try to wake up and fail.
I can't wake up. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself.
Where am I? The munching is getting louder.
I fall.
I fall like in the way you do in dreams, waking up when you hit what ever it is you hit in dreams when you die.
I don't wake up. I just hit what ever it was I was falling towards. It's impossible to tell whether it's soft or hard. I'm on my knees, breathing hard and shivering in the deepening cold. I can't feel my fingers. I don't know if I have toes to feel any more.
I try to get up, but I'm heavy. So very, very heavy.
Finally I find balance on my feet and try to catch my breath. The sound comes from somewhere in the dark again. I turn and start running away from where it's maybe coming from.
I'm not moving anywhere and I keep running, and I'm staying in place. I don't now how it's possible to know if I'm moving or not, since there's nothing around me I would see myself going past anyway. But I just know I'm not moving.
I can feel something is after me it's reaching me every second I'm not moving. It can almost feel it touching me from behind.
Something flies through the air and hits me in the head from behind and I fall.
I scramble on the ground and try to get back up. A voice sounds from behind me.
"I know."
I turn to face where I think the voice is coming from and back away. My hand lands on something round on the ground, the size of a tennis ball. I close my fingers around it.
An apple. I throw it at the direction of the sound.
"I know you have the elemental."
I try to get up but my legs won't carry my weight.
I...
I sink in the ground. I can't move.
"I know you have the elemental, and I know you have had help hiding it."
No. No.
This isn't happening.
It's just a nightmare. It's nothing. I've been fearing this. My brain is messing with me. It's showing me what I'm afraid of.
"I know you have had help from my employers."
It's just a dream.
"I know everything."
It's just a bad dream. This...
I...
No...
No.
I'm blinded by light. I can't see any more than I did in the dark.
"Hey!"
"Are you ok?"
I recognise those voices.
I'm lying on the floor. There are people around me. I see Leea's face above mine. Cecil and Rachel are a little further away, looking worried. Something is in my ear. It's Flame, sniffing and tickling. I can't breath.
I try to pull one single breath and succeed.
"What happened?"
"He..." I breath, with a lot of effort, "He knows... Everything..."
The others stare at me, questioningly. Cecil's face is twisting.
"Wasp."
____________________________________________________________________

Yeah, ok.
I'm late with this. But, you know.
Gingerbread house.
Your topic for tomorrow is Warmth.

~matu