When I woke us, there was a large, red candy on the bed next to me.

 

It was one of those sour patch kids candies that my daughter loves so much, the type that came in little plastic packets that had several colors. They'd all taste the same honestly, just sweet gummies dusted with a layer of sour sugar. But my daughter likes the red one the best.

 

It must be one of those dreams, I thought. The type where you wake up but you haven't really woken up. I felt hungry for some reason -- again, probably because it's a dream. So I picked up the candy. It was looking more and more appetizing, even though sweets aren't really my thing. But the smiling face of the gummy stared back at me, enticing me to take a bite.

 

So I did.

 

My teeth sank into the arm of the soft gummy. Flavor exploded on my tongue. It was a lot harder to chew than I thought, probably because it's so big. I chomped down and pulled, trying to rip off a bite. It was a bit rubbery, but I managed to tear off a good chunk of it. As I chewed my mouthful of candy, I realized that it was surprisingly delicious.The inside of the gummy wasn't as hard as the outside. In fact, it was downright gooey. It tasted a bit like raspberry filling. Some of it dripped out of the arm where I took a bite, I must've been squeezing it too hard. The raspberry filling swelled over the missing piece on the gummy's arm, before dripping down onto the sheets. I must've made a quite a mess, I realized, there was raspberry filling all over my face as well.

 

A high pitched sound rang in my ear. Oh, it's the fire alarm going off. What a weird dream.

 

But oh well. I was getting hungrier by the minute. It was strange too. It seemed like the more I ate, the hungrier I became. So I just sat in bed as the fire alarm blared from somewhere in the room, and took another bite of my gummy.