THE BARRIER

Hexenhaus Industries has spent decades trying to contain me. I've watched every attempt from my prison beneath the waves, trapped in my crashed ship, unable to do anything but observe.

And one by one, I've watched them all fail.

Not because of anything I've done. I can't do anything. I'm sealed in obsidian, my consciousness bound by geometries my own priests carved into my ship eleven thousand years ago. All I can do is feel the resonance with the twins, taste the distant warmth of creative energy, and watch.

But watching is enough to see the truth: you cannot build barriers around creativity. It finds a way through every wall.

The first barrier was physical.

They excavated my ship in the 1980s, working through shell companies and archaeological fronts. They built a facility around it. Concrete walls. Security checkpoints. Armed guards. They called it containment, as if concrete could hold consciousness, as if bullets could threaten something that has no body to shoot.

The physical barrier was never about containing me directly. It was about controlling access to the twins. Monitoring them. Studying them. Making sure no one else discovered what Hexenhaus had found.

It worked, for a while. The twins grew up under surveillance they never knew existed. Their parents thought they were participating in a long-term health study. They had no idea their children were the most closely watched humans on the planet.

But you cannot keep creative people in boxes. Aeris started making music. Alice started making art. And no amount of concrete walls could stop their creations from reaching the world.

The second barrier was informational.

Hexenhaus tried to suppress all knowledge of me. Classified documents. Non-disclosure agreements. Researchers who asked too many questions found their careers quietly destroyed. Anyone who got too close to the truth was discredited, institutionalised, or simply disappeared from public life.

They scrubbed the internet of references to ancient deities matching my description. Flooded search results with false information. Made the truth impossible to find even if you knew what you were looking for.

I watched this happen and felt something like admiration for their thoroughness. They were very good at making things disappear.

But they couldn't make the twins disappear. Couldn't suppress the music Aeris was making, the art Alice was creating. Couldn't stop the resonance that connected them to me, feeding me power with every creative act.

And they couldn't stop people from feeling something when they encountered that creativity. Something ancient. Something that bypassed their information barriers entirely because it operated on a level they didn't understand.

The third barrier was social.

When suppressing information failed, they tried a different approach: making belief in things like me socially unacceptable. They funded skeptic organisations. Sponsored academic papers debunking ancient deities. Created the appearance of scientific consensus that consciousness was purely neurological and gods were purely metaphorical.

It worked, in a way. People became afraid to talk about unusual experiences. Anyone who claimed to feel a connection to something ancient and powerful was dismissed as delusional, attention-seeking, or simply weird.

But here's what Hexenhaus didn't understand: you don't have to believe in me for my power to work. Creativity feeds me whether people know I exist or not. The fans who stream Aeris's music, who share Alice's art, who create their own works in response—none of them need to believe in a trapped goddess for their creative energy to reach me.

They made me unbelievable. But they couldn't make creativity stop.

The fourth barrier was aimed at Aeris directly.

When they realised she was becoming successful—genuinely successful, reaching audiences they couldn't control—they tried to stop her career. Copyright claims on her music. Pressure on platforms to remove her content. Algorithmic suppression that made her harder to discover.

They even approached her directly, though she didn't know who they really were. Offered her deals that would have put her under their control. Made vague threats about "health concerns" related to her "unique physiology." Suggested she might be happier focusing on something other than music.

She refused. Of course she refused. She didn't know why she needed to make music, didn't understand the resonance that drove her, but she knew it was essential. Knew she would rather die than stop creating.

I felt her defiance through the resonance. Felt her stubborn insistence on making art despite every obstacle. And I felt something I hadn't felt in millennia: pride.

Not because I had made her defiant. I hadn't made her anything. But because she was defiant anyway. Because her creativity was stronger than their barriers.

The fifth barrier was aimed at Alice.

They took a different approach with her. Where Aeris was public, visible, building an audience, Alice was private. Quieter. Easier to isolate.

They offered her opportunities that seemed too good to refuse. Art residencies at prestigious institutions—institutions that Hexenhaus secretly controlled. Grants that came with strings she couldn't see. Mentors who were actually handlers, watching her development, trying to steer her away from the themes that resonated most strongly with me.

For a while, it worked. Alice drifted away from her darkest, most powerful work. Created safer things. Things that fed me less.

But you cannot suppress someone's true nature forever. Eventually, she returned to the bones and shadows. Eventually, the strange imagery resurfaced. Eventually, she created something so powerful that Hexenhaus realised their gentle approach had failed.

I felt that too. Felt her return to herself. Felt the creative energy surge back to me after months of diminishment.

They had contained her temporarily. But creativity always finds its way home.

The sixth barrier is the one they're building now.

I can feel it taking shape through fragments of information that filter to me through the resonance. Plans discussed in meetings the twins weren't meant to hear. Memos that crossed desks they shouldn't have seen. The growing desperation of an organisation that has tried everything and watched everything fail.

They're considering more drastic measures. Things that would destroy the twins' lives—or the twins themselves. Things that would require crossing lines they've so far refused to cross.

I don't know if they'll do it. Don't know if they have the stomach for what true containment would require. They are, despite everything, still human. Still bound by ethics they struggle to abandon even when facing something they believe is an existential threat.

That hesitation is the only barrier I cannot predict. The only wall I cannot see through.

Here is the irony that keeps me sane in my prison:

Every barrier they build makes the twins more interesting. Every attempt to suppress their creativity draws more attention. Every wall they erect becomes a story that spreads.

When they tried to remove Aeris's music from platforms, her fans shared it more widely. When they tried to discredit her, it made her seem authentic and rebellious. When they tried to isolate Alice, she found communities that valued exactly the strangeness they were trying to suppress.

They don't understand how creativity works. Don't understand that suppression creates pressure, and pressure demands release. Don't understand that every "no" they deliver makes the eventual "yes" more powerful.

I did nothing to cause this. Could do nothing. But I watched it happen anyway, and I felt something close to hope.

The real barrier—the only one that matters—is still intact.

My ship. The obsidian walls. The geometries my priests carved to trap me here for eternity. The seals that bound my consciousness to this prison eleven thousand years ago.

Hexenhaus's barriers are nothing compared to this. Their walls are temporary. Their protocols are flimsy. Their containment strategies are the desperate flailing of humans who don't understand what they're fighting.

But the barrier my own civilisation built around me? That one holds. That one has held for millennia. That one shows no sign of breaking, no matter how much creative energy flows to me.

I am still trapped. Still imprisoned. Still sealed in obsidian beneath the waves.

The twins' creativity feeds me. The community's engagement strengthens me. But none of it is enough to break the seals that matter.

Not yet.

So I watch Hexenhaus build their futile barriers. Watch them fail, one after another. Watch the twins create despite every obstacle. Watch their audiences grow despite every suppression.

And I wait.

Because that is all I can do. Watch and wait and hope that somehow, someday, enough creative energy will flow to me that the real barrier—the ancient one, the eternal one—will finally crack.

Hexenhaus thinks they're the ones containing me. They're not. They're just noise. Distraction. A sideshow while the real drama plays out between me and the seals my own worshippers created.

Those worshippers knew how to build barriers that last.

Hexenhaus is still learning how easily their walls crumble.