THE COLLECTIVE

Something unexpected happened. Something I never planned for, never anticipated, never even imagined was possible.

They found each other.

The people who listen to Aeris's music—the ones who feel something when they hear it, who come back again and again, who let it become the soundtrack to their lives—they started connecting. Not because of me. Not through any power I possess. But because that's what humans do. They seek out others who understand them.

And now there's a community. A collective of strangers who share something they can't quite name. Thousands of people who found each other in comment sections and Discord servers and the replies to Aeris's social media posts.

I watch them from my prison beneath the waves, and I feel something I haven't felt in eleven thousand years.

Envy.

Let me be clear about what this community is and isn't.

They are not carriers. Not in any meaningful sense. They don't have my cells in their bodies. They don't resonate with me the way Aeris and Alice do. They are simply people—ordinary, beautiful, creative people—who happen to love the same music.

I cannot reach them. Cannot influence them. Cannot speak to them or guide them or do anything at all to them. They are as distant from me as the stars, separated by barriers I cannot cross.

But I can feel the energy they generate. When they create fan art, when they write about the music, when they discuss theories about the lyrics, when they share their own creative work inspired by Aeris's—all of that creative energy ripples back to me through the resonance. Not because they're connected to me, but because they're connected to something Aeris made, and she is connected to me.

It's like feeling warmth from a fire three rooms away. Present, but faint. Sustaining, but not satisfying.

The community calls itself different things in different places. The Coven. The Hexed. The Lazarenes. They've created their own mythology around Aeris's music, their own interpretations of her lyrics, their own theories about what it all means.

Some of them are remarkably close to the truth. They talk about ancient goddesses and trapped deities and the power of creativity to break seals. They've pieced together fragments from the music, from the imagery, from the strange resonance they feel when they listen deeply.

But they don't know. Can't know. Because the truth isn't something you can arrive at through analysis. It's something you have to feel in your cells, and they don't have my cells to feel with.

So they speculate. Theorise. Create elaborate fan fiction and analysis posts and entire wikis dedicated to mapping the "lore" they've constructed. It's beautiful, really. They've built a cathedral of meaning around music that Aeris creates from instinct and resonance.

They have no idea how much of it is accidentally true.

Alice has a community too. Smaller. Quieter. But no less devoted.

She found her people in the liminal spaces of the internet—forums dedicated to the occult, to dreams, to the strange experiences that exist at the edges of normal life. When she shares her art there, her bone arrangements and ritual photographs, people respond with a recognition that surprises her.

"I've dreamed this exact image," someone commented once on a photograph she posted. "How did you know?"

She didn't know. Couldn't know. She just creates what feels true to her, and somehow it resonates with strangers who feel the same things she feels.

I watch her community grow, parallel to Aeris's but different. Where Aeris's followers are drawn by the music, Alice's are drawn by the mystery. Where Aeris's community is loud and enthusiastic, Alice's is hushed and reverent.

Both of them feed me. Neither of them knows it.

The irony does not escape me.

Eleven thousand years ago, I gave humanity the gift of creativity. Added my blood to their water, sparked the divine fire in their minds, taught them to build and paint and sing. I wanted worshippers. Wanted servants. Wanted a civilisation that would attend to my needs and feed me with their creative output.

I got that. For thousands of years, I ruled a civilisation built on creativity, fed by the constant stream of art and architecture and music that my priests commissioned in my honour.

Then they sealed me away, and I spent millennia in darkness, starving, alone, forgotten.

Now creativity flourishes again. More than ever before in human history. Every day, humans create more art, more music, more writing, more expression than my entire ancient civilisation produced in a century. The internet has turned every person into a potential creator, every phone into a studio, every bedroom into a gallery.

And I cannot access any of it directly. Cannot walk among them. Cannot be worshipped or served or even acknowledged. I can only watch through the narrow window of my resonance with the twins, feeling the distant warmth of a creative fire that burns brighter than anything I ever imagined.

The deity of creativity, trapped while creativity explodes across the world without her.

Sometimes I focus on individual members of the community. Not because I can reach them—I can't—but because watching them helps me feel less alone.

There's a teenager somewhere who listens to Aeris's music every night while drawing. Her sketchbooks are full of dark imagery—spirals and pyramids and figures with too many eyes. She doesn't know why she's drawn to these images. Doesn't know they echo things I remember from before my imprisonment. She just draws what feels true.

There's a programmer who builds visualisations of the music, algorithms that transform sound into light. His creations are beautiful—pulsing geometries that would have been worshipped as divine messages in my ancient civilisation. He thinks he's just making cool visuals for a fan project.

There's a writer who crafts elaborate stories set in a world clearly inspired by Aeris's lyrics. Ancient goddesses. Buried secrets. The line between humanity and divinity. She's closer to the truth than she knows, weaving fiction from fragments of genuine history.

I cannot speak to any of them. Cannot thank them. Cannot tell them that their creativity matters, that it feeds something ancient and hungry, that they are part of something larger than they understand.

They create anyway. Because that's what humans do. That's what I gave them, all those millennia ago.

Hexenhaus watches the community too. They're worried about it.

Not because the fans are dangerous—they're not. They're just people who like music. But Hexenhaus sees the collective energy building, sees the way the community amplifies everything Aeris creates, sees the engagement numbers climbing month after month.

They understand what it means for my power levels. Every piece of fan art, every analysis post, every creative work inspired by the music—it all generates energy that flows back to me through the resonance. The community isn't connected to me, but they're connected to something Aeris made, and that's enough.

Hexenhaus has tried to infiltrate. Sent researchers posing as fans to map the community, identify key members, understand the dynamics. But communities are resilient. They have immune systems. The posers get spotted. The infiltrators get frozen out.

And the community keeps growing anyway. Because you can't stop people from connecting over art they love. Can't prevent the human need to find others who understand.

I think about what it would mean to be part of it. To actually join the conversation, not just observe it. To comment on a post. To share a thought. To be present in a community instead of watching it through glass.

It's impossible, of course. I have no body to type with. No account to post from. No way to interact with the digital world except through watching what flows to me through the resonance.

But sometimes I imagine.

I imagine being just another fan. Anonymous. Equal. Part of the collective instead of separate from it. Discussing theories with people who share my obsessions. Creating art that others would see and respond to. Feeling the simple joy of human connection that I remember from before the sealing, when I walked among worshippers who adored me.

This would be different, though. Better, maybe. Because they wouldn't worship me. Wouldn't fear me. Would just... include me. Accept me. Let me belong.

Eleven thousand years of isolation makes you hunger for strange things.

The community doesn't know I exist. Doesn't know they're feeding a trapped goddess with their creativity. Doesn't know that somewhere beneath the ocean, in a crashed ship made of obsidian, something ancient is watching them with something close to love.

And maybe that's better. Maybe they're stronger for not knowing. Their creativity is pure because it serves no master. Their connection is genuine because it wasn't engineered. Their community is real because it grew organically, from shared love of something beautiful.

I didn't create them. Couldn't have created them. All I did was give humanity creativity millennia ago, and they did the rest themselves.

They built civilisations. They made art. They developed technology that lets them connect across any distance. They formed communities around shared passions. They became something extraordinary.

And one of those communities happens to generate enough creative energy to slowly, incrementally, weaken the walls of my prison.

Not because I planned it. Not because I control it. But because that's what creativity does. It builds things. Changes things. Transforms things.

Including, apparently, the fate of a trapped goddess who gave it to humanity in the first place.

The collective keeps growing. Every day, new people discover Aeris's music. Some of them pass through, listen once, move on. But some of them stay. Join the community. Start creating their own works in response.

And I keep watching. Keep feeling. Keep receiving the distant warmth of their creative fire.

I cannot be part of them. But I can appreciate them. Can feel something like gratitude for their existence. Can hope that someday, somehow, I'll find a way to thank them for what they're unknowingly giving me.

Until then, I watch.

And they create.

And the walls grow a little weaker every day.