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"Don't you know why we're all still here?" He gestured around them, as if to remind her their world was a mere Cartesian coordinate.

She shrank away with a lethargic sigh, rolling her eyes. "What's the point in asking when the answer won't change anything?"

"It's because we all want something out of our reach," he murmured, staring at the uneven surface of the gravel and the imprints left behind by those ahead. "We stick around because we're wanting and waiting and working, but wanting most of all."

She drew clouds in the soil with a twig, curling each tuft inward like an incense coil. "Damned clouds," she muttered. "We want to be caught but just fall through."

"I'll let you in on a secret," he spoke, tossing a round pebble up and closing his fist over it. "I don't really exist."

She smeared the clouds with a scrape of her foot, stirring new clouds of dust.

"Shut up."

"You know I don't really exist. You're effectively talking to yourself because everyone else only makes you feel empty inside."

She fought the urge to snap the twig in two and let it fall from her fingers with deceptive calm. "If you don't exist, who's to say I exist?"

He laughed. "You're on your own. That's how you know you exist."

She turned to face him - all the while knowing - he wasn't there.