Here is an excerpt from the transcript of the character’s conversation to aid your interpretation. This was taken from the latter part of their conversation, before the disappearance of the characters, but after the appearance of the cat.

F: Sometimes it just feels like you can’t know anything doesn’t it? One moment we’re looking up at the clouds, complaining about how it’s gonna rain soon and the next moment a cat jumps on your face.

T: That would’ve been a lot more funny if I didn’t just have my eyes clawed out.

F: (laughing) You’ll be fine, I can barely make out the scars in this light. But seriously, the worst part of all this is that it never ended up raining and the clouds are already gone. It’s almost like they heard us and wanted to prove us wrong, maybe out of spite, maybe out of humour, who knows? Not us of course. We couldn’t even make an accurate guess about the weather.

T: I mean, It’s not like we need to know either. For one, clouds don’t feel things, for another, our plan was to just stay out here even if it rained, wasn’t it? We would have just done the same thing either way.

F: Yeah but isn’t it a little annoying? Not being able to trust even your own knowledge?

T: Not really. Not to me anyway.

F: Why not?

T: Well for one, I’m still alive, so it’s not like knowing nothing is gonna kill me ‘cause by your logic I already know nothing and I’m not dead yet.

F: Sure but really? You’re just satisfied with that? With not knowing anything?

T: Somewhat.

F: Wow. Good for you then.

T: Yep.

(A short silence, approximately a minute)

T: I mean… now that I think about it, it’s less of ‘being satisfied with knowing nothing’ and more ‘my guesses are good enough for me’.

F: Wow really? No way! It’s almost as if most people’s guesses are good enough for themselves! How else do we make decisions?

T: Obviously they’re not good enough for you.

F: I’m pretty happy with my guesses most of the time.

T: Not just then.

F: Huh?

T: I mean like, with the clouds.

F: Yeah, most of the time I said.

T: Alright then I’ll change my statement to ‘My guesses are always good enough for me’.

F: Really? Even when they’re completely wrong?

T: Yeah, better than not guessing at all ‘cause if I didn’t my chance of being right becomes zero-percent instead of something-percent.

F: I guess.

T: Are you satisfied with that guess?

F: Shut up.

T: (laughing) I guess not.

F: Seriously, shut up.

T: Fine fine but I mean being able to guess well obviously does help. Makes you feel like you know something, and even if we can’t actually know anything then at the very least we can try to get the same outcome as if we did know something.

F: Which is why I complained about the clouds.

T: Yeah, exactly. Although to be honest, I sorta knew it wasn’t gonna rain.

F: Sure.

T: I’m serious.

F: If you say so. What gave it away then?

T: Just an intuition. I looked at the clouds and honestly, all I can say is that it just didn’t feel like it was going to rain. Same with the cat, I kinda saw it coming but I couldn’t really do much about it.

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F: That’s so stupid.

T: I know, and of course, I couldn’t possibly convince you, but I promise that’s the truth.

F: Fine. Let’s make a bet then, guess what’s gonna happen within the next hour and I’ll believe your ‘intuition’. If not, I push you into the water. Are you fine with that or do you need me to make the bet a bit broader?

T: Fine. Here’s what I reckon’s gonna happen. We’re gonna keep arguing about all this certainty stuff, it’s gonna rain again, and by the time the sun rises neither of us will be here.

F: Wow.

T: Yup.

F: That’s a little too specific. And creepy. Are you like… ok?

T: No idea, but that’s the prediction.

F: Well, great, you’ve just forced me to stay here for another hour or so ‘cause I’m not losing this bet. In fact, what’s stopping me from just choosing not to argue about that, or not say anything at all?

T: I mean I still need it to rain, and for both of us to not be here by sunrise so I reckon you’re pretty safe even if you do fulfil that first part. Besides, are we really just gonna sit here doing nothing for an hour?

F: That’s fair. You could probably just drag me away from here or something but I doubt it’s going to rain. There’s literally not a single cloud anywhere in the sky right now.

T: Exactly.

F: Fine. Then here’s a question while we wait, how are you so sure of yourself? It feels like absolutely nothing bothers you about the future when in reality, well I mean, you claim to know what happens next but that’s incredibly stupid so I’m going to ignore that, in reality literally anything could happen to you within the next hour and you couldn’t possibly guess it. Yet still you don’t even seem slightly scared of what might happen to you. In a way, it’s pretty admirable but at the same time, it makes zero sense.

T: Well, ignoring the fact that I do know what happens next, excuse me for saying this but I feel it’s less ‘you’re scared of what’s going to happen next’ and more ‘you’re scared that you won’t be able to cope with what’s going to happen next’. For example, earlier when you thought it was going to rain your first instinct was to start complaining about it, about how we’ll get completely soaked, and about how cold we’ll get. In reality, there’s nothing really bad about the rain itself, and if we didn’t want to get wet then we could just find shelter or something. The difference between our perspectives I feel is that I know that I'll be fine no matter what ‘cause I have confidence that I’ll be able to deal with what’s to come and you’re a bit less confident you could do the same. I’m not saying you can’t and I can. If a bear comes out from behind us instead of a cat this time, chances are I’m probably not going to survive, but so what? I have faith in my guess that I’ll be able to escape alive, if I’m right, then I’m alive. If I’m wrong, then I’m dead and my mistakes don’t really matter anymore. If I’m somewhere in between where I survive but pretty badly cut up then that’s just how it is. As long as I’m alive I can still make it up to myself for failing.

F: I guess, but perhaps you’re just a bit luckier than I am. You can only be wrong so many times before you lose that type of confidence.

T: Better to have that confidence than to not.

F: Obviously. The problem is I just can’t. It’s stupid to bet on a game you know you’re more likely to lose than win.

T: Well you’re not really losing anything are you? You’re just wrong and that’s fine.

F: I know that but my conscience doesn’t. There’s just something about that whole premise that I feel like I can’t accept. I need that certainty. If something difficult is going to happen in the future then I need to know what it is. I need to be prepared for it or else I can’t trust myself to be able to deal with it ‘cause I’ve failed more times than I succeeded. It just doesn’t make sense. So it really annoys me that we can’t say we know anything at all with real certainty ‘cause that means when I prepare for the future there’s a very real chance that everything I did to prepare was in vain. Then I’m left to bear the full force of the future and if that future happens to be a little less than bearable then I’m not going to be ok. That’s a problem. Obviously. I’m going to be beaten. I’m going to be broken. I’m going to lose a substantial amount of faith in everything. And I mean everything when I say everything. Reality, myself, others, the future, the past, the present, everything. You can’t call this an exaggeration either because this is what has happened, and if it’s happened already then what’s stopping it from happening again? You can only be as certain about it not happening as you are about it happening ‘cause again, you can’t be certain about anything. And if that’s the case then what’s the point of me still being here? I don’t want to go through all that again. You’re probably going to say something like ‘Just trust that it’ll be ok in the end’ and then appeal to your whole ‘intuition’ thing but that’s just dumb. Look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m supposed to believe that. It doesn’t make sense right?

(A short silence, approximately a minute)

F: I wish that you were right, that all you need to do is trust that you’re able to cope with what comes next but that’s not how it works at all. It just doesn’t. I don’t know how to explain it. I wish I could explain it. I wish I could explain any of this but none of it makes sense. Every time I try to understand anything it feels like I’m trying to interpret a text in a foreign language. I know that it means something but I don’t know what that meaning is. I recognise a few words here and there and some words look similar to ones I know, but one wrong translation and the whole sentence changes completely. What if the text is a warning? An opportunity? A genius solution? A blatant lie? It’s like the clouds from before; I thought it would rain but it didn’t, one wrong assumption changed the outcome completely. I thought we were going to be cold and wet, I was prepared to run for shelter, yet one wrong assumption and our future is vastly different to what I interpreted it to be. I knew the clouds meant something, but evidently, I could never know what they meant for sure. Fine. I’ll be honest, I’m not annoyed that I can’t trust my own knowledge, I’m scared. I’ve always been scared and it has always hurt so much. Please. Help me understand something, anything, I’ll believe that intuition of yours if it tells me anything about what any of this means. I beg you.

(A short silence, approximately a minute)

F: Rain? Seriously? But where are the clouds?

(A short silence, fifty-three seconds)

F: Oh. That’s so stupid…

F: Neither of us was real in the first place.

F: Right?