Playfully, I straddle through a dirt path defined by the dead grass that lay beside it. The sun burned; the little rocks in the floor where bruising our already exhausted feet. Our face bright red trying to hide from the heat, but failing as per usual. Even though we were in a path, we didn't really have a path to follow; we had no place to go to or a business to attend. Had we ever really had a reason to do the things we did? We've had been constantly walking in this never ending drab path. 

Slowing my peace, I came closer to the only person who had shared this path with me. For as long as I remembered, it had always been him and I; like two little ants, fighting their way through a rainy day. Except a day for those creatures had been a lifetime for us, a life were the only hope was survival and the thing that kept us from giving up was the fear of how painful our deaths would be- although in retrospect, the sweet rest would have been better than the vile reality. Reality. I had long since forgotten what reality was, the same way I had forgotten the name of that peaceful colour that ornated the tress in the horizon.

"Wanna steal some apples?" I asked him, as my tummy rumbled with anger, disturbing the dull silence of the field. Days in which light lasted long had passed without a food in my system. However, my companion seemed unbothered by it, as he did most of the time; he didn't have much of an opinion on anything really. He was just.... there, by my side. The only thing he seemed to do was look after me, caring for me when no one else would. He then turned to me and extended his arm to the horizon, pointing at the obvious: there were neither trees nor any sing of life anywhere near us. 

I groaned in despair and made the terrible decision of kicking the dirt of the path. All the weight of my body was single-handly supported by my right leg, which was already weak due to the exhausting and sustained walking. Consequently, my leg gave up and I fell on my back, little rocks pricking the sensitive skin of my elbows. The boy gasped painfully hard before coming close to me. After analyzing the situation he sighed and gave me an apologetic look.

"What is it?", I asked, trying to get my back away from the ground. A sharp pain echoed through my spine, pushing my back to the floor again.

"It hurts", I whimpered as the boy gently placed my head over his lap.

"I know", he answered in a soft tone; the softest one I had ever heard. His hand was loosely stroking my hair in an attempt to comfort me, to scare away the pain.

"Toby..." his cozy voice made its way through the thin and loud noise in my ear. I wasn't able to do more than hum as a response, as my chest was heavily pressing against my ribcage.

"you need to let go," he announced

"I don't want to,"I wailed, shutting my eyes tight and shaking my head. I wasn't ready to accept reality, because that would have ment I had spent all my life completely alone.

"Toby, you need to let me go. Our time has come." I could feel his touch weakening with each stroke of my hair, but I still was in denial. All of a sudden, the rocks that were before picking my arms, were now also drawing holes against my cheek; the sharp pain being the only reminder that I was still alive. The soft touch of his leg was gone as well as the caring caress on my hair. The realization came crushing as if it were a train. My friend had vanished in a matter of seconds. But, can someone that never existed really vanish? It didn't matter, since now my life was the one slipping away from my body. Turns out that after all I didn't have that much of a choice. Reality had forced me to accept the fact that he was never really here.

"Thank you" I whispered in hopes that wherever he was or even if he was still existing somewhere, he would hear. That whisper was my last breath, my last thought and my last wish. That whisper represented the summery of what my whole life had meant.