Wherein I Become Muad'Dib

    We were driving back toward the gates of the capital when we saw a woman riding the wind alight atop one of the towers.  People riding the wind was pretty common but there were blocks around the tops of the walls that should have stopped any normal person from going over the gates.  This woman must have been very powerful at channeling the wind god, but obviously also highly dangerous.  Adalia pulled our vehicle over and we watched, not really knowing what else to do, as a portal opened on the opposite tower and another woman stepped through.  I inhaled quickly; that was rare, someone who channeled the god of doorways well enough to port accurately.
    "Should we do something?" I asked.
    "The guards will," Adalia responded absentmindedly.
    But they didn't.  Instead, the two women waved their hands in the air unimpeded, turning various different shades as they channeled several gods at once; a feat of which is mostly unheard.  I saw the obvious ones: fire, air, earth.  But I also saw the less common crossroads goddess, the wood god, and more that I didn't even recognize.  Golden lines spread horizontally and vertically over the city and I heard a hissing sound followed by a massive choir of wails from those in the city.  The ground shook and the city promptly exploded.  It appeared that everything was engulfed in flames and destroyed except for the two towers that the women stood upon; they laughed.

No, not these ones.  Don't lie, I know this is what you were thinking of, nerds.

    Adalia put the car in reverse and once we were at a safe distance we turned around and fled.  While we're driving to the next closest city I should probably explain a few things.  Here, all the gods and goddesses of all mythologies and religions were very real and present in every day life.  There was one main god and all the rest were secondary gods; the main god does not come into this story.  Temples were a very key aspect of the world and were everywhere; especially since the nearer you are to a likeness of the god the easier it is to channel them.  Every person has a connection of some kind with at least one god to begin with and many people become connected with other gods if accepted.  Most people can channel only so much power before they become exhausted, so most powers are minimal while still making everyday life easier.  The elemental gods were the easiest to channel, so you'd see a lot of flying people, saves on gas, but all gods could be channeled, except for the main god and the god of chaos.  The chaos god wasn't necessarily good or bad, but whenever a person tried to channel chaos every fiber of their being would be ripped apart so successfully they couldn't be put back together again.  The chaos god was known to be incredibly powerful, the most powerful next to the main god.  I had just the basics of a few gods down, very average and not more useful than lighting a fire with my hands or essentially being my own gps.  

    As we got closer to the next city we felt the ground tremble violent and begin to split open around us; someone was destroying the entire road.  Adalia stopped the car and, panicked, we used wind to whip us off the road, leaving our possessions in the car.  As we landed the road collapsed, with the car, down into darkness.  

It was the world's worst pothole.

Neither of us having exceptional channeling abilities, we walked.  Many, many hours later we arrived dusty, hungry, and penniless in the closest city, which was a very large one.  We saw officials trying to figure out ways to fix the road as we passed through.  We dragged ourselves into a hotel that had a food court where we could sit indoors as twilight fell.  The walls had been windows, much like an airport, and tvs hung above them, all of which were reporting on the horrifying events at the capital and the road that led there.  We sat at some bar stools and watched the tv while casually and longingly glancing at a food stand next to us until finally the owner offered us some free food, of which we gratefully partook.  As we ate, the cityscape in the windows changed;  without any warning at all an explosive wall of fire split the city in two, knocking down buildings and setting everything nearby ablaze.  Sirens of all kinds filled the air and everyone in the room silently stared out the windows in shock. 

    "I have to go, I have to find my mom," Adalia said woodenly.  

    Without a word from me she ran out.  My family wasn't anywhere near this city, but I didn't know what to do next.  I stepped outside into the weird purple light the massive fire combined with the setting sun created.  There I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in ages; he looked haggard and dazed.  He recognized me and started talking to me as if we were still friends, but in the same hollow voice that Adalia had used just moments ago.  "I hate my wife," he said, then he pointed in the general direction of the fire.  "My dad just died.  My dad died."

   Then he stepped away and walked briskly down the street.  I moved to follow him but down an alley I saw the remnants of a beam of energy that stretched up to the sky and then spread into a golden arc like I had seen at the capital.  Next to it was a still open portal, I probably had seconds, it was either die or go through the portal, and I chose the latter.

  

    I had never gone through a portal before and it was very disorienting.  It's what I always imagined it must be like for the Flash whenever he decided to travel super fast.  So many images whipped by me until the one step that I took landed in dim room that I recognized as a temple as soon as the portal fizzled out of existence behind me.  The main area of the temple was blue hued and completely empty, which is abnormal for temples; this meant I was in the temple of chaos.  I looked around and saw the chaos statue, a massive blue oval with several other opal rings carved onto the facade, crossing wildly over each other; the stone was worked so that the rings were constantly moving and the effect was dizzying.  I channeled the wind god and used the wind to see if there was anyone else in the temple and I found that there were two people on the open balcony.  The temple was huge and I quietly made my way toward the balcony.  I peered past the water-lined opening and saw the two women I had seen before.  Why were they here?  Had they somehow harnessed the power of chaos?  I felt my stomach rise in my throat until I calmed myself by recalling that the color of chaos is blue, and all the attacks had been devoid of blue.  They must have chosen this temple for privacy.  They had used some god's power to making hearing them impossible, but this also meant they couldn't hear me unless I got a few feet closer.  I could see a map that they spread between their hands; I could see that they were taking down everything across the country, like a wall of destructive tornadoes.  And if they were destroying entire cities they meant to kill everyone.  Anger and frustration boiled inside of me until all I could see was red.
     But through the red wall of my vision I saw blue on my fingertips that were pressed against the door frame.  No no no no no.  I had heard of this before, people with strong emotions in a temple could sometimes accidentally channel the god.  My rage turned into fear as the blue spread down my arms; I shook them uselessly to no avail and soon I was covered in blue lines.  Then they just disappeared.  I felt the chaos pulling at the organization of my body, my thoughts, everything.  I could feel my cells separating and the pain was beyond anything I had ever felt before.  I screamed and tried to think of everything I had ever learned in biology, how things were supposed to be, demanding myself back to order.  I had to destroy my animal fear to do this, I used the chaos power that was overrunning me to dissipate my fear so that I could focus on everything that was me.  I took one choking breath and the pain was gone, but I could still feel the roiling of the chaos; I controlled it.  

    My fury staggeringly returned and I caught my reflection in the water basin nearest to me, my eyes blazed an unearthly blue.  

I had tasted the spice.

Now was the time to end this monstrosity.  I stepped into their sound barrier and the two women turned around, thinking of spells with which they would kill me.  I didn't stop though, I continued walking at them and raised my open hand, fingertips collecting blue from nowhere, and then brought it down again, closing my fist which became enveloped in blue flames.  Their smiles dropped and one leaped off the balcony and fled on the wind; the other woman created a portal and ran through it.  I laughed bitterly as I used the powers of chaos to keep the portal open.  "I have the power of chaos," I laughed, "there's nothing to save you now."

    I stepped through the portal.

And how can this be? For I AM the Kwisatz Haderach!

And that's when I woke up.