A test

Once the groceries are close enough to put away for the two of them, Joe retires to his room, ostensibly to work on an essay due at the end of the week. In truth, his mind has been filled with thoughts of the Tome. What if it is real? Anything he writes could become true - he could rewrite reality itself to fit his every desire. Of course, it has to be a sham, a practical joke from some of his friends. Oliver, especially, is a bit of a jokester and loves history and nerd stuff - this seems right up his alley. That's probably it, Joe decides. Oliver decided to play a trick on him, and something's gonna happen when he writes something in the book. They're all gonna have a good laugh about it at his expense and move on.

Still, though, as Joe types away on his computer, he can't shake the feeling that he should give it a shot. After all, if it is real, then he would have basically unlimited power at his fingertips. His only limit would be his own imagination. The idea of that amount of power is too much for Joe to resist, and he pulls out the Tome from its hiding spot.

This is a bad idea, Joe thinks. There's no way this isn't gonna bite me in the ass. They're all gonna think I'm an absolute idiot, and I won't be able to tell them otherwise. I wrote something in a fucking book that claimed it would make anything true. There is literally a zero percent chance this is real.

Even as he's having this inner monologue, he picks up a pen and opens up the Tome to the first page. Now that he looks closer, he can see there are several pages ripped out, like it's been written in before. This strikes Joe as a little strange, but nothing to really write home about. He figures he'll start small, something to test the Tome's power. If it's real, he'll have plenty of time later to make bigger changes. With a deep breath, he puts pen to paper...