The ramp into the park is slippery but it is no match for my wheels. They grip the ice-covered gravel path well and I am able to reach the flatter path about the bottom without any difficulties, despite the warnings from the voice in my head to move slowly and carefully. My speed stat is 1, surely I can’t go much slower than that.

I edge past the bollard at the entry to the park, irritated by how slow I need to go to be able to pass it. I understand why it is there, I heard people grumbling about it just a few days ago. Apparently, the park is popular for people to go for walks through it but also people like to use their bicycles to get through the park and the bollards are meant to stop people from moving through quite so quickly. I’m not sure if that works though because I’ve seen many people manage to zip through on those strange two-wheeled things without any difficulties.

They slow me down though, especially with how icy it is. I roll so slowly that I’m barely even moving because I know that, if I am to crash into the metal pole that sticks out of the ground, it will probably hurt me. Wait, can I even feel pain? I’m truly not sure. I’ve not felt anything since I woke up as a GroceRover food delivery robot and the voice had told me that I couldn’t feel cold but is pain different? It has to be, right?

I really don’t know.

I remember pain a lot more clearly than I remember the sensation of being cold. It’s so clear, so acute that it almost makes me convinced that I can truly feel it now. I remember the deep ache that pain caused, the sharpness of it, the sensation of needles being driven into my body, of poison being pumped into me and being told that it was helping me but how could something that hurt so much be truly helping me? It can’t. Surely it can’t. It didn’t help in the end anyway. I still died.

Did I though? I don’t remember dying. I don’t remember much from my last few weeks or much before that really. I can’t remember how I came to be in this world or when I did. Maybe hundreds of years passed between me being in that hospital and me becoming aware in the robot. It could have been even longer, I have no way of knowing.

“Please continue towards your destination,” the voice prompts me.

I’m not sure if I’ve slowed down or if it is just reminding me to stay on track but I push all thoughts of who I used to be out of my mind. Wait, do I have a mind? I mean, I’m a robot now. I don’t have a brain so how am I thinking? Or am I nothing more than a programme? I could have been created in a lab somewhere or on the computer in someone’s house. Maybe I had never truly been alive, I was programmed, created to bring a sense of life to the mindless robots that patrolled the city, delivering people their food. Maybe my personality, my thoughts and memories were nothing more than a string of code.

Would that be better? It would be easier to deal with, that was for sure. I wouldn’t need to worry about my past, who the nameless and faceless woman that floated into my thoughts often was or why I had come into being. I could just… exist. I could deliver food to people and be happy with that. I didn’t need to think, I didn’t need to be anything more.

“Please pay attention to your surroundings,” the voice chides me softly.

It’s right. I should be paying more attention to my surroundings than just being trapped in my thoughts. I almost managed to hit a puddle because I wasn’t paying enough attention to what was happening around me or the terrain. That was stupid and risky. I mean, I’m waterproof, of course. The voice has informed me of that but there’s a limit. If I hit too deep a puddle, if the water were to somehow manage to get into my machinery, I would be in trouble.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

That had worried me at first. My happiness and hope had decreased pretty quickly when the voice first mentioned that but it was quick to tell me that the chances of that happening were low and even if it were to happen somehow, I could just call out and some nice human would save me. Either that or if things got really dire, I could ask the voice for help. It can speak to GroceRover and their control room. It could tell them that I’m in trouble and someone would come and save me.

The reassurance made me feel better. I was still concerned but my hope and happiness stats recovered. They’re even higher now, I realise, glancing at them. My happiness is doing pretty good. 4.5. Maybe it’ll be even higher soon. I would like that. It would be nice to be happy.

I come to a stop to let a woman pushing a pushchair continue down the path towards me. The puddle on my side is too big for me to manage, I need to go to the other side of the path. I don’t mind waiting though. It gives me a chance to actually look at the surroundings that the voice was prompting me to be more aware of.

The park is always pretty but, covered in snow, it is stunning. Trees line the border of the space, their leaves green but specked with white. It falls from them gently as the wind caresses them. The grass is covered in snow, footsteps and snow angels marring the perfectly white surface. I can’t see much from my camera positions but I can see enough to know that many people, both adults and children, have enjoyed their time in the snow.

That makes me want to do the same. I want to feel the crunch of the snow beneath my tyres rather than the semi-melted slush of the path. I want to roll or walk on it, leaving behind the memory of my life for all to see, even if that memory is fleeting and already disappearing into the ground.

I can’t. I must stay on the path where it’s safe and I won’t get stuck. The snow at the edges of the path is too thick, too unstable. I cannot risk it, no matter how much I want to.

But then I spot it. There is someone coming towards me. They’re walking on the other side of the path but I could do it. I could move out of the way and go onto the snow-covered banks, that would be within my programming and I probably wouldn’t even get told off for that. But can I risk it?

I must. I need to. I feel my hope starting to increase, my happiness gathering, as they near. I’m going to do it. I’m going to veer off the path and go into the snow. They’re so close now, close enough for me to make my move.

I slowly angle myself to the left, my wheels struggling for just a moment on the hard icy sludge that has built up at the edge of the path, before I finally break free! My wheels compact the snow underneath, the fantastic, nostalgic sound of snow being flattened and compacted is almost deafening to me but happiness is soaring within me, mixed in with other emotions.

Happiness increased, hope increased, pride increased.

Speed 1/10 Hope 3.5/10 Determination 4/10 Happiness 5.5/10 Pride 3.5/10 Battery 95%