He stared out at it, the wind whipping at his skin and tugging at his hair.
Rolling hills.
Peaked mountains.
Deep, cavernous oceans.
It was beautiful, in a dangerous way, and it made his heart pound and his breath escape. Was it an invitation?
What, he wondered, lay out of his sight? What was hidden under the blankets of mist in the early mornings, before the warm rays of the sun banished them to their place? What hid in those rocky caves, in the depths of the water where no eye could reach?
He would never find out, he knew. The walls were too high to get down from, and if they caught him...he dreaded to think what could become of him, of his family.
No one was allowed out anymore, not since the radiation. They said the beasts were too dangerous to even think of approaching, and that monsters lurked in the darkness. Stories abounded, stories of wolves the size of cars, of horses with fishlike fins and dagger sharp fangs.
He wondered if any of them were true. The wilderness...it looked so peaceful. So calm. The warm summer wind raked its tendrils through his messy auburn hair, alluring him to run with it, as if it was asking him to play.
The clouds on the horizon, dark and brewing, spoke of the rain to come. Rain that would bog down their city and flood the lower levels where the poorest of them lived. He wondered if rain felt different when you were standing on those hills. The elders spoke fondly of rain, of the smell it left behind and the puddles that rippled with the breeze before the thirsty earth slowly swallowed them to nothing more than mud. Down here, the rain was different. It was a curse, something that left the city smelling of mildew until the janitors scrubbed it all off.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds- the quiet of the wilderness, and the noise of the city, two very different worlds within each other.
And then he turned away from the wall, leaving behind Nature, his ever-present temptress.
