Yes, you are reading the prompt correctly, lettuce.
4 - Strawberry
Prompt: Lettuce
To be the first real conversation Madeline had in…
She did pretty well!
The sole idea of solitude she'd have in the mountain was one of the reasons she even dared to go in the first place. But she couldn't deny Theo's company was a mouthful of fresh air she didn't know she needed. That had left her fresh like a lettuce to resume her journey.
That spirit lifting allowed her to stop seeing the city as scary. Ironically when she regained the idea she got lost again she knew this time she was going for the right path, for she found herself in new zones of the city
Madeline could be refreshed, but she city certainly wasn't. Not when she found rectangle machines moving from one point to another with traffic lights still working. She didn't understand their purposes, but it helped her move across the frozen city with her dash alike, so she reciprocated the help those mechanical blocks gave her with a confused gratitude.
To exacerbate her doubts about the city, in her path she found more life other than herself. No other people–something she thanked for–but life nonetheless.
It was a strawberry in a small fruit and vegetables shop in the middle of the street abandoned and covered in snow just like the buildings around it. Said strawberry not only caught Madeline's attention for its strong red standing out in the blue, dead and alive at the same time city, but also because of how strangely fresh it looked in comparison to any other item in the shop, which were rotten and beyond any saving.
At first Madeline found it strange, but in a day span she had acquired a dash that practically allowed her to fly for a few seconds and she was in the amalgam of a city, a maze and a frozen cave with machines that helped her cross massive gaps when her dash was not enough.
Maybe strange, but not impossible.
Madeline grabbed the strawberry and put it in her backpack. Not because of hunger, she had studied how much food she would need in her climbing and she rested sure she had enough water and prepared food to survive a few days, but she didn't like the thought of leaving to rot probably the only thing with life in this place. The mere idea of it made her feel a knot in her throat.
Was she having feeling and emotions for an inanimate object? Yes. There was someone to stop her? As far as she knew, no.
The further she continued moving the space turned more and more ample. Madeline could see peeks of orange sky among the buildings. Her sense of wonder was met again with surprise when she found another strawberry in an unsettling perfect state. This time, in a bench somewhat covered in snow in an old park.
She already had one, so why another one? But on the same hand, if she already took one, why not take a second one? It wasn't like someone would miss it. She had room to spare in her backpack.
That same surprise began to transform in an absurd confusion when she continued to find more strawberries in the most unlikely and hidden places in the last stretch of this city.
In the moment she could already see the ruin's silhouette Madeline had already collected a total of five strawberries. Bit by bit the space around her became easier to breath in, erasing that silent fear the ceiling over her head would crumble over herself. Her eyes and mind were put on ease with the now dark blue sky filled with stars. The cold buildings city was slowly replaced by structures old as the mountain itself.
Madeline found a resting place in a middle point between the forsaken city and the old site Theo told her about.
As she made herself comfy, she glanced from time to time at the ruins ahead she'd visit the next day. Every time she did, she felt her stomach dropping, not stopping and falling deeper and deeper until she looked away.
To her eyes, the old site was the antithesis to the forsaken city that all of a sudden showed glimpse of life. Both with the strawberries she took with her and the machines that maintained the city in a perpetual movement.
Madeline just hoped Theo would have an easier time making his way to this old site. That part of her mind that never rested ruminated with its desire of not wanting to be alone.