Where?...And When?

When she regained consciousness, the first thing she discovered was she was laying on a solid surface. This thought alone made her sigh with relief. I'm not falling anymore...

Then she realized it was not like any surface she had ever witnessed before. It was not smooth and cold, like the steel and chrome that had covered most of everything before, but instead was loose and gritty, almost like dry bread, but harder. Much harder. And yet, it was not uncomfortable. It had a certain measure of comfort attached to it that made it almost an enjoyable experience.

She opened her eyes. The surface was dark and mottled and indeed loose - she could pick it up and let it run through her fingers like the sand she used to play with when she was still young enough to play in the primitive sand boxes. She would have been completely confused with the substance if it hadn't reminded her of one of the few times she had paid attention during Ancient History class:

"Back when the world was young, before the Great Birth of Technology, it was covered in strange and primitive functions of life, commonly known as nature. It included such things as plants and animals, the common flora and fauna of your fairy tales which you read in your English classes. Of course, during the Great birth, these were all done away with, such ancient and primitive things, and new more efficient ways were created to continue the Earth's natural processes. The most basic and beneficial change was, of course, the conversion from 'soil'.

"Soil was a dirty loose surface which once covered the whole globe. You couldn't go anywhere on Earth without encountering some of it. It caused many problems, such as being subject to violent upheaval every time it sank beneath the Earth's crust violently, causing earthquakes and the like. That is, now, a thing of the much less recent past. It was replaced with our chrome paneling, which was more easily manufactured, maintained, and altered."

So that was what she was now resting on. Soil. Bizarre, but it doesn't seem to be the dirty annoying substance everyone says it is...