Los

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"It's all a dream, you know. It's like we're all asleep from this greater state of mind and we're just experiencing the imagination of ourselves. That's what I think, at least, I mean it makes sense, doesn't it? Why else would strange shit happen all the time, and all the shit that goes on in the world, and nobody does anything about it. I mean, it doesn't make sense to think that we'd see all that and do nothing, right? It must be a dream, or something like that, or maybe we're just put here like some giant laboratory, you know, like a huge alien experiment." Cully took a drag from her cigarette and exhaled slowly as the others around the fire nodded sagely and looked into the hypnotic dance of the blazing flames.
"You know you're probably right, C,  it does make a lot of sense." Fuller added to the conversation. "Like those all those UFO spottings and landings at Roswell, probably mechanics or something that got lost or whatever." Fuller laughed abruptly. "Man, that'd be a bad day at work, getting lost on you're way home and getting a bunch of overfed labrats doing experiments on you."
"So that's what we are, overfed labrats?" Ellie interjected with a slightly exasperated tone. "Nice Fee, real nice."
"To them, probably." Cully agreed. "I mean, if they're advanced enough to run this whole thing, wouldn't we be pretty fucking primitive in their eyes? It's like looking at an ant colony, sure they piss you off when they get into your house but you can still kill them all, just like that."
"Now that's a depressing theory on our state of existance, we're ants ready to be crushed by some unseen race of alien overseers. Sounds sweet." Riley said softly, seemingly lost in the sparkling embers drifting towards the sky.
"Well, you know, they could be nice too. I mean, just because they're alien doesn't mean they all want to kill us or harvest us for oil or anything. Just think of how easy it would be for them to do it already, we'd be dead before we knew what hit us."
"Pretty much what we'd do if we found aliens, isn't it? Kill them and harvest the bodies for oil." Riley mused.
The rest of the group laughed quietly, exchanging glances. They were all beginning to feel mellow in the warm circle by the fire, their backs against the backdrop of the temperate breeze drifting across the valley where they had made camp. They had a long day behind them and an even longer one ahead, yet they were restless as well as exhausted, and needed some comfort in their companions before they would retire to their tents. Such were all first days of travel, the excitement of change and the range of impressions as every path and view was new to them, their brains buzzing with information and smells, sights and other feelings to register. But now, they were slowly drifting towards sleep, one by one.
"So what do you think we are here for Rye? I mean, everyone else seems pretty much in favour of the whole alien thing right now. Let's hear the outsider point of view for once." Howard enquired with a tangible touch of sarcasm in his voice, smiling at Riley, resting against a standing boulder slightly outside the circle, yet still a part of it.
Riley shrugged, smiling at the fire.
"Come on, don't be boring, what is it, penguins ruling the earth? Dolphins?" Howard said tauntingly.
"In that case we wouldn't be eating shitloads of tuna every day, probably wouldn't be feeding our pets with the stuff either." Riley cast Howard a wry glance.
"Fine, you don't have to answer if you don't want to." Howard knew he could bait Riley into anything by saying he didn't have to give his opinion, and Riley never really cared enough to stop taking the bait.
"Well I could, but it'd just depress you all." The others laughed at Riley's characteristic Marwin-like pessimism. "Fine, fine, don't say I didn't warn you." He smiled slightly at the others but then turned his gaze back into the fire. "The way I see it, we are alone. We may be born to a family, but from the moment we leave that womb, we're never a part of something to secure, so whole again. I mean, you look at all those broken families that end up on the news and you think they're really special because they've got it so bad, but then you begin looking at yourself, and you realise that you're just as broken inside, and there is nowhere you can go, nobody you will ever find or connect with, that will take away that nagging feeling that you are, without exaggeration, doomed. We're mortal, and we're simple creatures of biology and chemistry, we're not some unique form of extra-special creation that some loving God made just to please himself with his own supremacy, we're blood, flesh and bones. We breathe and we see, but we are just a big lump of chemicals with the ability to direct itself for greater benefit to our whole. And when we die, we are broken down or burned, our bodies dissolved and our memories expunged. Because that's the worst of it, we think that we'll be remembered, when in the grand scope of things, we are already forgotten. Hell, some of us aren't even remembered to begin with, here, now." Riley sighed heavily, then continued.
"We'll die, we'll disappear, we'll be forgotten, and it's ultimately for nothing. Our lives, as they are, are the most depressing thing we will ever find, yet what's even worse is death, because it is just nothing, plain nothing, we cease to be, and are as dead as the rock and the sand. We will wither and die, before our very eyes, as we look into the mirror we will see a hollow shell of our once young, beautiful, dreaming self. A ghost and a parody, that's all we have to look forward to. Man, I wish there were aliens or something out there to give all this at least some form of meaning, but there aren't and there isn't, we're living futile lives and torture ourselves for such insane details that never will matter in the end, but we still fear death, because the concept of nothing is so fucking scary that it makes us shake just by contemplating the thought of it. And we're all heading straight for it. We dream of becomming something great, and then we just end up in mediocrity and failure and say, hey, at least I had fun in my youth, when all our youth was spent creating the dream life we never can reach. That, is why there is no meaning in our lives, we're chronologically fucked."
Nobody said anything for a while, but just kept on looking into the fire, unsure of what to say.
"Well, no we know why you're depressed all the time at least." Ellie said carefully and quietly.
The others laughed, Howard in particular. Riley looked up and smiled, but said nothing.
They sat up for a while longer, watching sparks travel upwards towards the stars, quickly fading in the cool summer night.