The gift, a purple spotted apple, was a strange one, he thought.
It wasn't a real apple (something he would have found useful - he was always hungry after all, and the odd colours of the apple wouldn't have put him off).
It was made of some kind of material that wasn't stone, nor glass. It was very shiny and it had the appearance of glass.
But it wasn't fragile like glass.
He had tested this by throwing the thing on the floor in an attempt to shatter it but all that happened is that it bounced off the stone floor and right back into his hand.
He was quite shocked, actually.
It was cold to the touch, almost as though it sucked the heat from his hands.
But it wasn't unpleasant to hold.
He stuck it on a shelf, one that he didn't look at very often, and tried to forget about it.
But he found he couldn't forget.
Every morning he awoke with a fuzzy memory of a dream. He couldn't remember the details but he did know it was very important that he remember. And he also knew it involved an apple.
After a few days of disturbed sleep and mornings spent trying to remember what had happened in his dream, he went to the shelf, pulling a stool up to the unit and clambering on. He reached up and grabbed the apple. As he did so a flash of memory hit him between the eyes and he fell off the stool.
...
