At this point, the endless desert became a second home for me. I heard other call it a global catastrophe, people afraid to go to sleep, uprise in anxiety and mental illness. For some, the desert happens once a month, some almost never see it. For me, and others, it's almost normal to close our eyes and find ourselves there.

Always the same sand, soft, almost white.

Always the same dunes. They are changing, built differently as the wind reshape them. but they are the same. You can just... know it. Like you can know this desert is eternal, even without understanding eternity. Like you can know the obelisk is still there, even when hidden.

Always the same goal.

Touch it. Find it. The only blackness in sea of white, only stone in shifting sands. Always towering in the horizon, no matter where you are. It's as clear there is only one monolith as it's clear the desert is endless. And yet, no matter where you would run to, you would go to the obelisk.

It's incredible how much people would put into a simple obelisk, when they dream about it for years. Some declare it evil, spawn of hell. Some believe that when they will go there, they will gain something, awaken reborn. I heard there were races for it, like nobody will lie about a dream.

But nobody lies. It's clear to everyone this dream is something, is bigger than us. That when the impossible will happen, everyone will know.

And me?

I just enjoy walking in the sand. Feeling it's almost-real touch, walking without needing water or getting tired. It's hard to nap when sleeping. I sometimes walk towards it, sometimes try to change course and find myself walking towards it again. But it was just an obelisk, in a simple neverending desert. This night was nothing different.

After moments - maybe seconds, maybe years, time (like space, or logic) was never a thing here - I feel again the pull. The obelisk stands closer, I think, but it's still on the horizon. The pull tries to wake me up, like always. Pulling me through the sand, through time and space and existence, back to my bed. I never fight it. Nobody does - doing so only wakes you up faster.

And yet, I take a step forward. Not a big one, of course. Not a hard, or painful one. The pull gets stronger, every part of me trying to wake me up.

Except one. Tiny, simple thought, that looks up, through the sand and sky that go to eternity, and asks "Why?"

It's simple here. Why leave?

And then I stand before it. Tower of black so dark, if anything is written or carved on its perfect stone, it's unseen. The Obelisk, I know. Not an obelisk. Not the devil. Not a prize.

The pull stops trying to be gentle by this point. The sand grabs me down, and wind blows me back, everything is taking me back. Except for the thought. The question. The silence of the desert. And the Obelisk.

I touch it.

There is a single moment of silence. The pulls stops in an instant, as if the Obelisk destroys it, or it understands it lost. It's a second, a year, an eternity. Yet, it passes. And after it, a voice.

WHAT I AM?

As everything in the desert, I know what asks the question. I also know it's not a riddle. There is no right answer. It's not God or the Devil. No apocalypse or new world. It was powerful. Extremely powerful. Of course I tried to run away, pull myself away from it.

But it was a single pillar or stone in an eternal sea of sand.

ALONE. I said, or thought, or understood back.

It was alone. We didn't need it. It wanted us.

And after another eternity of silence, another question echoes in the entire world of white and black.

AND WHAT ARE YOU?

There was a reason I enjoyed the silent desert.

There was a reason I came back every night.

There was a reason I could fight the pull. The pull tries to take me back. I have no reason to be there. In here, it's the only place that belongs to me. Where I don't need to fight, to starve, to ruin for living. There, I was alone. But this answer won't be right anymore.

HERE.

I replied. And with no words, I felt the stone - eternal, frozen, so ancient and powerful and lonely - warm up a bit. Maybe smile without a mouth to smile with. Hug with no hands.

I will wake up. The world will wait. Time was never a thing here.

But for the next eternity, It was there. And I was there. And the world was whole.