How do you change a world that doesn’t change?

The past couple of days, John had traveled further and further into the heart of the desert but he hadn’t seen the scenery change once. The desert had remained cold, uninhabited, and lifeless. It was an endless expanse of golden glowing sand and nothing else. There were no mountains, no dunes, no rivers, or oases in the desert.

At first, John thought the trial zone was boundless until he saw familiar signs of the worm's presence everywhere. He had played with the thought that there might be other sandworms hiding in the trail, then he saw the mountainous corpse and he knew he had walked all the way around the trial zone and returned to the starting point. As for the length of the trial world… Considering the amount of ration he had eaten on the way he guessed the trial was two days long at most.

John stared at the shimmering barrier covering the exit. It looked like a speck of light in the desert form atop the worm’s head.  He had been at it for a while now.

The monster worm behind him had lost one segment of its body as if something had eaten through it, but the rest of it looked pristine. It wasn’t that the worm had started rotting as John thought. Perhaps, it was the cold temperature or the lack of other life forms in the desert, or simply the hard shell that covered the worm’s body.

The reason didn’t matter because John could no longer eat the worm meat. Neither to fill his stomach nor to enhance his perception.

Though John had eaten the worm to the point of suffocation, it was the saturation of the worm’s biological energy in his body that put a full stop to his ideas. He could feel something would go bad if he kept eating the worm meat.

This was the afternoon of the third day since he had stopped eating and he knew it was time for him to leave the trial zone and face the monster of the safe zone.

His perception had improved to the point that even he didn’t know how good it had become since there was nothing to sense in the desert. The stale trial zone didn’t offer him much in terms of a test. He had wondered for a moment to try scouring some loot in the sandworm tunnels, but the thought of being buried alive had killed the thought before he could try figuring out the pros and cons of it.

He had a new weapon, but no way to check its power, which was somewhat of a letdown, to be honest.

John let out a groan. “It’s time.” He said and jumped from atop the sand worm's head. He fell feet down onto the desert sand. His knees buckled and popped, but handled the pressure without effort.

Exhaling loudly, John got to his feet and started walking toward the exit. It would be wrong to say he didn’t have his hesitations, but he was no longer as opposed to the idea of facing the darkness as he was at the start. This was the trial of courage.

The action might be forced but it wasn’t made in the heat of the moment. An adult, he had done everything he could and now he wasn’t going to be indecisive.

John’s feet momentarily paused in front of the barrier before continuing forward with conviction. He didn’t look back and exited the trial zone. He expected the darkness to have completely engulfed the safe zone and that was exactly what he saw the others die of the barrier. The room was dark, covered in pitch-black nothingness.

He entered the safe zone and couldn’t see anything, not a speck of light in sight. It was as if a thick, black blanket was draped over everything, with no cracks or holes to let any light in. It was disorienting. It was unsettling and gave John a sense that he had been cut off from the outside world. He could not discern any objects or shapes with his eyes. The problem was, he could not discern any shapes or objects with his senses either.

His perception was constrained, yet no matter how wide it spread, he sensed nothing. The safe zone was and had always been a ten or so feet high and equally wide tunnel. Yet, his senses told him he was floating in an endless space.

There were no walls, floor, or even ceiling.

John didn’t see the bonfire. He didn’t sense the altar. He didn’t think there was even an exit to this space. Yet, it wasn’t the most disturbing thing.

The disconcerting thing wasn’t the darkness, but that he couldn’t feel the ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t even discern if he was standing or floating, still or moving.

His heart was pounding and there was no way to ease it. Had he walked into his death?

John tried walking, but he didn’t receive the sensation of the opposite force that should have come with the step, pushing him forward. It reminded him of his college days when he had jumped into a swimming pool at a party. This was how he had felt then. Only, there was no water to restrict his movements this time. He was truly and utterly exposed to the darkness and the things hiding inside it, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

There is nothing hiding in the darkness.

The voice spoke in John’s head. it was calm, slow, and purposeful. He was familiar with it. He had heard it every time he had approached the altars, explaining the function of the artifacts.

Yes, it is I. The voice spoke again, sending Goosebumps up John’s arms. Even his crotch tightened.

“You-you have been watching me?”

I have been watching you through the trials, through your choices, and your actions. You have exceeded my expectations.

The voice admitted casually as if unaware of the implications behind its words.

John grew silent trying to absorb the information that the voice had revealed. It said it had been watching him, and not just as a form of entertainment. It had been looking at his actions and choices. And it never expected him to have made it this far.

“Who are you?” John’s clenched his fists tight to settle the unease raising its head inside John’s mind. The voice seemed interested in him. interest meant a chance. There is a fine line between being courageous and suicidal. John was only courageous for now. He wanted to live.

The natives of this world have called me the devourer, the emotionless, the entity, the artificial, demon, devil, god, eater of the world--

“The hole,” John’s tongue slipped. He quickly sealed his mouth shut, hoping the voice wouldn’t care about his interception. The voice continued the conversation unabated, with the emotional fluctuation of a tin box.

Yes. The natives have called me the black hole more times as an insult than with a sense of deterrence. This was the first name they gave me. Then they realized I am more than just a black hole in the ground.

John gulped, wondering whether he should ask it another question or wait for it to speak. Then his curiosity won over reason and he asked, “What are you?”

You have seen the murals. I showed them to you to tell you how I came to be.

John interrupted the voice again. “How about you tell me what you want from me instead?”

You are being very impatient John Smith of California. You weren’t this impatient when you fought the monsters. Were you not scared of them?

“You-you know me?”

I know everything about you, John smith. The voice said with a hint of enthusiasm like someone desperately waiting to be questioned. You were born on the 26th of august, 1987, at 8:47 pm, in Humboldt county general hospital, California. You were born to your mother Sarah Joseph Taylor and father Jason Smith.

You grew up in a small town surrounded by the dense forest of Willow Creek. You went to Willow creek high school. You weren’t very good at the subject of science, but showed great interest in mathematics. Your father had a hunting license and took you along whenever he went hunting. One time he asked you to kill a rabbit. You couldn’t do it. Your father didn’t say anything to you but you felt his enthusiasm toward you waning. He didn’t stop talking you to hunt, but he never let you hold the gun again. The loss of your father’s attention made you clinically depressed. That and puberty changed your mental state. Your school scores suffered. That and a sudden aggressive temper forced the school to call your parents in for a meeting, taking a further toll on your relationship with your father.

Although your father never hit you, the psychological burden caused by the increasing alienation made you rebel in your teenage years. You found friendships with other degenerates and met your first girlfriend while you were out one-night buying alcohol with a fake id. Emily was a Goth kid who didn’t fit in with the regular kids. She was the one who got you into the drugs. You loved her dearly and losing her to a drug overdose shocked you enough to make you change your life for good.

 You joined the high school rugby team, but you were never any good and didn’t get to play any games. However, it allowed you to get out of the rebellious phase of your life and become a better person. You found a new passion for knowledge and managed to learn enough to pass high school with a 3.1 GPA, which allowed you to enter California state university, Northridge, for a bachelor's in accounting.

You tried to join the college rugby team—

“Enough!” A vein had popped up on John’s forehead. How could it know so much about him? How the hell did it know about his feelings, about his relationship with his father? It was as if could read his mind!

“Fuck! What the fuck are you! What do you want from me?”

I want you to kill me.

John choked on his scream. He wasn’t ready for this answer.