He was dying, though it didn't hurt. The credits of Dune: Part Two rolled across the screen in molten gold, and Logan could feel his heart slowing somewhere behind his thoughts. He didn't have time to wonder why—a heart attack, an aneurysm, divine irony—it simply came.
There was a sound like wind rushing out of the cosmos and then, silence.
For a long while, there was nothing but memory—flashes of sunlight through leaves, laughter echoing in city streets, the electric blue glow of screens at three in the morning. He lived those moments again and again. Over time he realized there was no new moment waiting around the corner.
He was trapped in his own greatest hits reel.
At first, he tried to change things—said new words, took new paths, mouthed confessions he never dared in life—but every scene reset like the world refused to acknowledge him. Days repeated, looped, collapsed. A thousand years passed like this, though there was no hunger, no sleep, only reflection and repetition.
Somewhere deep inside that strange timelessness, Logan began to understand that what he was seeing were echoes—shadows burned into the fabric of an old life. He wasn't living; he was observing.
And then he said it aloud, the words that broke the cycle:
"I'm dead, aren't I?"
The question hung in the air.
The world around him began to dissolve—streets peeled away, laughter faded, leaving him suspended in a pale twilight void.
"Now that took you long enough."
A voice, smooth as velvet and threaded with amusement, broke the silence.
Logan turned. Out of the stillness stepped a man in a crisp white suit, barefoot, holding what looked suspiciously like a cup of coffee. His smile was familiar in that impossible way—warm, wise, faintly tinged with cosmic mischief.
"…Morgan Freeman?" Logan asked
The man chuckled, eyes sparkling. "That's one of my better avatars, yes. Some folks prefer me as a white light, others as a burning bush. I suppose this form puts you at ease."
Morgan gestured; two wooden chairs materialized midair as if they'd always been there. Logan sat without being told to.
"So… is this heaven?"
"Not exactly," said Morgan, sitting opposite him. "Call it the Interim. You've been here a long time, even if you didn't notice—long enough to smooth out all the sharp edges. Consider it… recalibration."
Logan exhaled. "Recalibration for what?"
"For your next stop, of course."
Logan inhaled sharply, he knew of these stories; reincarnation, transmigration, Isekai. Whatever you wanted to call it he was living it. Well, experiencing it, he was already dead; that much he was sure of.
"Relax, little one," said Morgan "You still feel bodily functions in this realm, even though they are useless to you now. Consider it a way to stabilize you for the information to come."
Morgan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You see, my friend, souls rarely end. Yours has reached a point where it's earned another turn at the wheel. You'll be reborn into a new world. Fictional to you, real to me."
Logan blinked. "Wait—fictional? Like a book or a movie?"
Morgan smiled knowingly. "You're familiar with Dune, yes?"
It hit him like sudden gravity.
"You mean Arrakis? The desert planet? The sandworms and spice and—"
Morgan raised a finger. "The very same. You'll be born as Paul Atreides."
Logan's mouth went dry. "You're kidding. The guy with the Messiah complex and prescience? That Paul?"
"The one," said Morgan. "Though let's be clear—this isn't your cinema version. You'll awaken in the Dune of the books. A universe that breathes politics, prophecy, and sand."
Logan tried to find his words. "Why me?"
Morgan shrugged. "Because stories need perspective, and perspective needs a soul that remembers what it's like to be mortal. And because, frankly, I like giving smart people bizarre opportunities. So why not you?"
He leaned back, and for a moment, the void shimmered into colors that suggested stars, galaxies, and timelines. "Now, since I'm not without generosity, I'll allow you three wishes to take with you. But keep them reasonable, Logan. No Kryptonian nonsense, no godlike omniscience. You're stepping into a world of human limitation—its beauty lies in that."
Logan nodded slowly, his mind racing. He thought of what it meant to live again—how easily arrogance could ruin not just him but the delicate balance of Dune's intricate universe.
Morgan's eyes softened. "Think carefully. Each choice defines the man you'll become long before your first breath on Caladan."
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it pulsed with possibility. Logan looked up into the infinite sky of the Interim and managed a half-smile.
"All right, Mr. Freeman," he said quietly. "Let's talk about those wishes."
"You have three wishes," Morgan said again, gently. "Choose carefully. This universe is not forgiving of carelessness."
Logan inhaled slowly. He had a thousand years of reflection behind him. He would not squander this.
"I want to retain full memory of my past life from birth," he said. "Complete awareness. No forgetting."
Morgan did not hesitate.
"No."
The word did not boom. It did not echo. It simply was.
Logan blinked. "No?"
"No."
Morgan sipped his coffee.
"Can you elaborate?" Logan said carefully.
Morgan's eyes sharpened, though his tone remained warm.
"If you awaken in an infant body with a fully formed adult psyche, you will not be Paul Atreides. You will be a colonizer. A parasite wearing the name of a child."
Logan felt irritation flare. "But it would let me prepare. Strategize. Avoid mistakes."
Morgan tilted his head.
"You know what the Bene Gesserit call a child born with full adult awareness?"
Logan's stomach dropped.
"Abomination."
Morgan nodded.
"You would fracture the soul meant for that body. And worse—you would think yourself clever while doing it."
The void shimmered faintly, as if amused.
"You are not being reborn to overwrite Paul Atreides," Morgan continued. "You are being woven into him. Integration requires growth."
Logan sat back.
A millennium of self-reflection, and his first instinct was still control.
He exhaled slowly.
"Alright," he said. "No shortcuts."
Morgan smiled faintly. "Good."
Logan closed his eyes and considered carefully.
"Then my first wish," he said at last, "is for perfect internal memory architecture. Not immediate access. Not constant awareness. But when I seek a memory, I find it whole. Uncorrupted. Indexed."
Morgan raised an eyebrow.
"Define perfect."
"I don't want photographic recall. I want structured recall. Mentat-level potential. The ability to build associations cleanly."
Morgan considered.
"I will grant you enhanced mnemonic structure," he said. "You will have the capacity for Mentat-tier recall. But it must be trained. It will not arrive assembled."
"That's fine."
"It will not protect you from emotional distortion."
"I don't want it to."
Morgan nodded once.
"It is done."
Logan felt nothing change—but somehow, something had aligned.
"Second wish," Morgan prompted.
Logan hesitated less this time.
"I want emotional self-governance."
Morgan leaned forward slightly.
"Clarify."
"I want to feel everything. Fear. Love. Anger. Grief. But I don't want to be ruled by it. I want to observe my emotions without being consumed by them."
Morgan's expression grew more serious.
"That is not a small request."
"I know."
"You are entering a life engineered for pressure. Betrayal. War. Prophecy. You will lose much."
"I know."
Morgan studied him for a long moment.
"I will not dull your emotions," he said finally. "You will experience them fully. But you will have the capacity to step outside them. To examine them before acting."
Logan nodded.
"That's enough."
"It is done."
Silence settled between them.
One wish remained.
Morgan folded his hands.
"The last is rarely the most thoughtful," he said. "It is usually the most desperate."
Logan didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he stared into the shifting horizon of the void.
He thought about prescience.
About inevitability.
About the trap of knowing too much.
In the books, Paul sees the jihad. Sees billions dead. Sees himself unable to stop it without risking worse.
Prescience becomes a cage.
If he was going into that…
He needed something.
Not power.
Not dominance.
Possibility.
He looked back at Morgan.
"When prescience awakens in me," Logan said carefully, "I want one thread of possibility that exists outside the lattice of all other seers."
Morgan's eyes hardened.
"No."
This refusal carried weight.
Logan's pulse quickened. "Hear me out."
"You are asking for a fracture in causal structure," Morgan said evenly. "Prescient beings stabilize probability by observing it. A thread unseen by them destabilizes the entire web."
"I'm not asking to control it," Logan said quickly. "I'm not asking for immunity. Just one path that isn't locked into the grid."
Morgan's gaze sharpened.
"You understand what you're interfering with?"
"Yes."
"Guild Navigators. Bene Gesserit projections. Future tyrants who rely on certainty. You're asking for uncertainty in a universe addicted to control."
"Yes."
Morgan's voice lowered.
"Why?"
Logan swallowed.
"Because if prescience becomes total, humanity calcifies."
The void seemed to still.
"In the books," Logan continued, "the Golden Path exists because humanity stagnates under prediction. If every future is visible, choice becomes illusion."
Morgan said nothing.
"I don't want to escape destiny," Logan said. "I want one possibility that proves destiny isn't absolute."
The silence stretched long.
"You may never reach that thread," Morgan warned.
"I know."
"It may be worse than the futures you fear."
"I know."
"It may demand sacrifice beyond your current imagination."
Logan met his gaze steadily.
"Then at least it will be chosen."
Morgan studied him for what felt like an eternity.
Then, slowly—
He smiled.
"Very well."
The void shifted.
"I grant you one hidden thread. A singular possibility existing outside the prescient lattice. It will not be visible to Navigators. It will not appear in ancestral memory. It will not be stabilized by other seers."
Logan felt something vast settle into place.
"But understand this," Morgan added softly. "Uncertainty is not mercy."
"I didn't ask for mercy."
Morgan's eyes gleamed.
"It is done."
The void began to dissolve.
Stars stretched. Light fractured. Time resumed.
"Wait," Logan said quickly. "When will I remember this?"
"You won't," Morgan replied calmly. "Not consciously. Not at first."
The stars became ocean.
Wind.
Salt.
"You will awaken as Paul," Morgan said, his voice fading into the roar of existence. "And you will grow."
"And the hidden thread?" Logan asked.
Morgan's final words echoed through collapsing reality:
"You'll know it when the desert refuses to answer."
Then—Darkness.
And the sound of waves breaking against Caladan's shores.
______________________
Excerpt from the Private Notebooks of Muad'Dib
(Recovered Fragment — Date Unknown)
There exists a possibility that does not behave.
It does not align with the jihad.
It does not submit to extinction.
It does not echo the Golden Path.
It flickers.
I cannot follow it beyond certain junctions. It resists analysis.
The Guild does not sense it.
My son does not speak of it.
It is either salvation…
Or the most dangerous illusion I have ever touched.