(1)
My face slides forward, my skin feeling as if it is about to fall off the very bone; the winter air chides me shamefully for daring to step into it. It hasn't snowed but the frost still lingers. Black ice pools in hidden spots, catching me off guard as I step down the heavy concrete bolted into a mount point.
I shuffle my feet along the ground with my socks sliding around in my boots, bunching and pinching.
It is early enough that service lights and Winter Sun haven't been enabled. The darkness only pierced by the light that emanated from the pillars card slot.
The card consumed in a moment before appearing on the display - a single profile picture of me, pale eyes and skin with my hair grown out longer than it should have been. The photo was an older one taken almost seven years a'go at this point when I'd still been living at home, and it was just for an ID card. I didn't need to worry that much.
I grabbed my nose between my thumb and index finger, the cold making my nose run at this point. This was the fourth season of winter at this point, it wasn't unusual now especially since this side of the planet rarely made it into rotation. It beat being under perpetual heat at this point and having to re-shelter again.
The plants had been set up below ground long before anything else or anyone else was allowed down there, these churning masses of metal, gas and unconscionable heat.
"Congratulations on your 5th Anniversary!". Ejecting my card back at me, the pillar opened up as if wings spreading creating an ad-hoc shelter. The material made of a hard metal to the touch but almost seemed malleable as it moved around me, creating a platform raised out of the ground.
I shuffled a few pieces of paper on the ground out of the way, a few wrappers from leftover snack foods pushed up in the corner weighed down by a hopefully empty can of soft drink.
Until the ground gave way and the horizon was wrought with metal.