A/N: It is always good to break up the mad rush of the #NaNoWriMo with little exercises in creative writing. Get those squirrels and shiny things out of the mind, keep the distractions away by scribbling them into a few paragraphs then back to the WIP! This is the April 3rd prompt from a wonderful Twitter group I belong to, the @turtlewriters , hosted by the lovely RosettaYorke .

Image above. Horror or Happiness. 

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"Keep to the path." The sign read but the grass was so beautiful, no matter how acidic the rain that fell, or how harsh the unshielded sun shone in the scarred sky, neither the pummeling of fist-sized hail nor hurricane winds that ripped other plants from the barren earth by their roots, could blemish it. It was an aberration in a world where mother nature had gone mad. The only thing made by man that survived on the surface or outside of the domes.

Once a year, the school toured the old weapons development facility outside the domes and caverns where the remnant of humanity barely survived in synthetic homes and on synthetic foods. Every year the instructors explained the horrors that were created in this place. Every trip, the only question Eve asked was "What about the grass?" And every year, the only answer given was "Keep to the path."

After five years, her curiosity was too much to bear. She had seen the vids of old movies; happy people would run barefoot and throw themselves down in the lush greenness that had been lost to the world as it was today. It seemed to be an ecstasy to run on the grass, and the calmest euphoria to lay on the soft blades. She longed to know what it felt like. The next year, she was particularly sad when they took the tour. Her father had been caught out in the rain with his group of scavengers, they had been melted along with their environmental suits. Her mother began taking solace tabs, one day she took too many.

Eve began going to the edge of the dome, she stared at the green patch for hours. She watched it resist the murderous intent of nature, and she admired it. It's resilience, it's strength, it's elegance. She longed to touch it the way one would long for a lover lost. It consumed her waking thoughts and dreams. Finally, the day of the tour came again. Eve lagged, pretending to lace the heavy boots they were to wear whenever they left the domes and caverns. She really unlaced them and watched her class leaving covertly from behind a bin "Place rubbish here."

She was alone with the grass. Slipping off her boots, she set them next to the bin and in three steps she placed her first tentative foot into the grass. It was warm as though the sun had been shining on it and so soft, almost like synth-fur. It tickled, and she laughed as she ran across it, twirling and dancing just like in the movies, singing the song from her favorite vid clip salvaged from the archives of old, only thirty second but she sang it over and over.

"The hills are alive.... With the sound of music... With songs they have sung... For a thousand years..."

Her happiness felt better than a dozen Solace tabs. Then something pricked her foot and she tripped falling into the green softness. Sitting up, Eve looked at the wound. A glassy spear of green in the shape of a single blade had impaled her foot. She pulled it out painfully and was shocked to see her blood had been wicked inside the strange crystal. As she studied it, she felt a prick under her leg, then another then dozens. Horrified, Eve stood but it was agony to stand, each step was like walking on needles. She stumbled and fell, screaming as her knees and hands were pierced. Looking around desperately, she saw how far she was from edge of the green and that in every direction the once soft blades were standing at rigid attention. Terrified, she tried to run...

The next year, on the Day of Remembrance, the tours began. It was the usual, except this year many lingered at the patch of green grass. An iron fence had been unnecessarily erected around it. A partial skeleton lay almost to the edge, almost to the sign. A warning against disobedience. "Keep to the path."