As Nin made her way towards the surface, she could tell it was going to be another scorching day outside. Foraging in the summertime heat was not for the faint of heart.

She, and a throng of foragers, slowed as they neared the exit of the colony. It was the last opportunity to savor the underground coolness before stepping out into the withering heat. Once outside, they raced across the searing blacktop to the relative safety of a grassy median before crossing a second stretch of scorching asphalt, to finally arrive at their foraging grounds.

Running this superheated gauntlet had resulted in numerous deaths amongst the colony members. The leadership had even instituted a summertime ban on retrieving the bodies of the fallen in this area. The logic being that the act of retrieving the dead would cause even more overheating deaths. This was in opposition to the normal policy of never leaving behind colony members, even in death.

Heat wasn’t the only danger for the foragers here. There were the fast moving Shadow Storms. These deadly phenomena descended upon unlucky foragers as they crossed the asphalt. Nin had witnessed several of these storms. There was a rapidly approaching shadow, a terrifying roar and then oblivion for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up in the maelstrom. The storms swept away their victims, making them disappear without a trace. It was as if they had never existed. In their wake, the storms left behind only a cloud of dust and a smear of muddy water, which quickly dried in the summer heat.

The fact that these storms occurred with inexplicable regularity did not diminish their lethality. The Shadow Storms happened every seventh day. However, predicting the exact time of day for the arrival of a storm had proven impossible. This, coupled with the colony’s perpetually low food reserves, meant that the foragers couldn’t afford to take a day off, in spite of the danger.

Nin left the main body of foragers as they began searching for food and set off into the rising sun. She had always been contrary by nature and found that by not blindly following the others, she would frequently find valuable food items, or new water sources. Prizes that would have otherwise been missed by the masses of group thinkers.

While she had received praise for her discoveries, solo foraging was a dangerous business. Common logic dictated there was safety in numbers and the older colony members regularly admonished her to stay with the others. Nin accepted these criticisms with the appropriate level of contrition, out of respect for her elders.

The elders were the leadership class of the colony. Thanks to a shared mother but different fathers, they were technically half-sisters to the younger generation. However, they were always referred to as “aunts”. By virtue of their life experience, they were expected to make decisions regarding the welfare of the colony and its inhabitants. Although they commanded great respect amongst the colony members, Nin wasn’t about to let her nominal fear of a scolding by one of her aunts stop her from foraging on her own. It was the only thing that relieved the tedium of daily colony life.

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Nin was an adventurer. She didn’t care much about social correctness or fitting in with the groupthink of the masses. She just wanted to explore her world and benefit the colony. With the hubris of youth coloring her logic, she had decided that the risk of death was simply the price of admission to a life of adventure. Adventure was what drove her to go against the grain of the social fabric that held the colony together.

Moving at a running pace into the glare of the rising sun, she quickly covered the forbidden ground, into unknown territory. It was here that she made her greatest discoveries. This was where she had benefited the colony the most.

Nin had encountered numerous threats during her forays into the unknown. There were gigantic reptiles and lots of predatory spiders. The most dangerous were the jumping spiders. These relatively small arthropods were ambush predators, who lay in wait for vulnerable prey. On several occasions, she had been set upon by these lethal insects but had found that by showing immediate aggression, she could bluff them into retreating.

There were a lot of things she had discovered by foraging on her own, which she thought were valuable to the colony. However, the colony’s leadership wasn’t interested in her thoughts on how to manage the colony. This didn’t stop her from sharing her hard won knowledge with her sister foragers. Thanks to Nin, the foragers within her circle of influence were able to manage the threats better than the others and find more valuable food items. Accordingly, they had become the top producers for the colony. Nin felt a certain pride in her contribution to the welfare of the colony, even without recognition from the leadership.

On the other hand, her favorite aunt Timka frequently praised her efforts but continually cautioned her to avoid taking too many risks. She lectured that one’s contribution to the colony was measured over a lifetime, and the longer one lived, the more one could contribute.

Nin didn’t subscribe to this philosophy. Caution was for the elderly. She only felt truly alive when she was exploring unknown territory. Everything else just felt like waiting and waiting was intolerable to her. The only time she could manage to be still was during the evening lectures.

It was an important part of the social fabric of the colony to hold daily lectures. After the foragers had returned to the colony and eaten their evening meal, they would all gather in the colony’s largest chamber. Here, they would listen as the elders presented topics ranging from the origins of the colony, to updates on the status of the food supply. It was a combination of history lessons, current news and community bonding event.

Nin appreciated the news updates and the bonding but was captivated by the history lessons. It was unimaginable to her still young mind that the colony’s history stretched back so far. She would often find herself replaying historical events in her mind, as she went about her tasks during the day. She was looking forward to tonight’s story. It would be a topic that she knew almost nothing about, the ancient colony of Second Sun.