Seriah stood on the edge of the rock outcropping. Her dark hair whipped around in the fierce desert wind. She squinted against the red sand that blew into her eyes. She wished desperately that the sun would cease to exist, or at least stop directing the blunt of its rays on her.


“I wish there was a huge raincloud to cover up the sun.” She smiled when a shadow fell over her. A second later, heavy drops of water began splattering all around her. She lifted her face to the blissfully cold downpour.


“Seriah.” The new voice was smooth and beautiful. The sound was that of roaring waterfalls, sending chills down Seriah’s spine. “Stop. You don’t know what you are doing.”


“Who are you to tell me that I, Seriah, commander of the gods, don’t know what I am doing?” Seriah demanded without turning.


“I am Tempesta, Goddess of Storms. You must stop this storm now, Seriah. It only takes a few days of rain like this to turn a desert into an ocean!”


Seriah turned on the spot and finally viewed the woman who claimed to be the Goddess of Storms. What she saw surprised her, for the being standing before her could not be considered human. Tempesta looked strangely ethereal. her skin was tinged with the palest blue, however what really caught Seriah’s attention was her eyes. They swirled as if liquid fire burned deep within their depths.


“All the better,” She snapped, “obviously you don’t realize how hot it is here.”


“As you wish, but know this: abusing the gifts that Great Goddess Lovenia has given you is never a good idea.” With a peal of thunder, Tempesta vanished into the heavy rain.


Seriah turned away muttering under her breath. Then she suddenly stood still, for in the distance she spotted Baka, the tall, dark skinned man she had taken a fancy to. “Wind!” She cried, “Take me over there!”


She waited for the air to lift her, as it had a million times before. When nothing happened, she turned to face an old man standing in the space that Tempesta had just left. Looking closer, she realized the man had no skin, muscle, or bone. In their place was swirling mist.


As she stared, a gentle breeze lifted her soaked hair from her shoulders. She shuddered as the wind whispered in her ear, “You might not want to do that.”


She started in anger. “Who do you think you are?!” She demanded. She started in on a long rant.


“Hush!” The breeze that brought the words to her seemed to whip across her cheek; she put her hand on her face, feeling as if she had been slapped. For the first time, the misty being opened his mouth to speak. “I am Ventus, God and Master of the air and wind. You need to rethink your position, little girl.”


Seriah jumped up and yelled in anger, “I was given the power to control you, not the other way around! Now do as I say and do not just sit there and waste my time!”


“This is your second warning, Seriah. be careful or your gift will be revoked.” When he uttered those parting words, Ventus dissipated into the air around him.


“Dumb old man doesn’t know to whom he speaks. Bah! My gift will be revoked. As if! It is my god-given right, never to be taken away!” She ranted on for a few seconds, then repeated her original command to the wind to take her to Baka.


The air seemed to shift around her, driving her earlier wished-for rain into her eyes. She stood blinking and noticed how soaked everything was. The air shifted again, hard enough to knock Seriah over. She tumbled off the rock, covering herself in red mud. The airstream did not stop there, however. It continued to roll her until she slammed into a pair of muscled legs. She pushed herself up to see Baka’s worried face.


“This is strange! Rain and wind strong enough to push people? This is the desert, for the sake of the gods!”


She turned and beheld a fearsome sight. Stinging rain slapped down on the flooded ground. The wind was slinging mud on everything within reach. It was, as Baka had said, an unnatural occurrence in the middle of the desert.


“Let us go inside, and hope that we will be safe there.” Baka pushed Seriah into his mud-ravaged hut, which he shared with his fiancee, Renee.


Seriah glared at Renee as she entered. She then turned to Baka and touched his arm. Within hearing distance of Renee, she said flirtingly “Baka, that was fun.” She winked at him.


Bewildered, with no idea what Seriah was talking about, Baka dumbly said, “Huh?”


When Seriah wrapped her arms around his neck, Baka calmly removed them and told her he wasn’t interested in her like that.


Enraged, Seriah yelled at the top of her voice, “Then die!” Lightning flashed outside the hut. Renee screamed in anguish as Baka’s lifeless body crashed to the floor. Seriah gasped, realizing the depths of what she had just done.


The door of the hut flew outward, ripping the wood off the metal hinges. In It’s place stood a man garbed entirely in black, untouched by rain and mud regardless of the storm outside. He lifted his face and Seriah screamed. Instead of a head the man had a bleached skull with pieces of rotting flesh still stuck to it.


He looked at Seriah with his empty eye sockets, and said in a thick voice, “I am Addonexus, Bringer of Death and Ruler of the Underworld!” As he spoke the hut was filled with the stench of decay and death. “You had two previous warnings. You have just crossed the line.”


When the voiced the last words, Seriah fell to her knees. She felt as if her whole body was being stretched past breaking point. Then, just as suddenly, the oppression vanished, as if it had never been there.


She looked up, fearing some kind of trick, and started when she saw a beautiful face before her. “I am Lovenia, Queen of all gods and goddesses. You, Seriah, stand before me accused of taking the life of another. For this, you must now live like a normal human, with no powers to control. “With that said, Lovenia disappeared.


“W-wait,” Seriah stuttered, “I would rather be dead than live in a world that I can’t control!” She turned to find Addonexus busy doing something to Baka’s body. “Leave him alone!” She cried. Addonexus stood up and extended his bony arm towards Baka. A small white orb drifted down his arm and entered Baka’s mouth. Color immediately returned to his face and he sat up gasping.


Addonexus turned to face Seriah. “You don’t want to live here?” he inquired. “Then don’t.” With those icy words, a chill crept over Seriah. She started gasping for breath; there was no oxygen in the air around her. Tears swam in her unseeing eyes as she collapsed to the floor of the hut. Baka and Renee stared, bewildered, as Seriah turned cold and was no more.