Nearly one hundred years ago…

Endless swirling pastel colors, countless random incoherent thoughts, so many dreams. A collection of every hope and desire. Then, all of a sudden….

There she was. Sentient, conscious, thinking. No longer just a bundle of vague half-thoughts and long forgotten dreams.

Who am I?

She looked around. She was completely enveloped by a multi-faceted crystal. No, wait, she was the crystal.

I am Crystal.

But what was a Crystal? How did she know what that was? How did she know what anything was?

I have to find out.

Could she move? She was just Crystal. Crystals can’t move. How did she know that? If she could just try-

Floating. Effortless. Drifting outwards and into the air. She could see herself- wait, was that her? Or was she her? She was Crystal- but the crystal was right there. A perfectly cut heart-shaped diamond, or gem, or something. It was her, but she was her….

Both are her, both are Crystal. Yes, that felt right. Crystal, the heart made of crystal, the Crystal-like heart. The heart-like crystal? Crystalline. The Crystalline Heart. Yes, yes, that was even more right. Crystal, and the Crystalline Heart. She was both. Consciousness and gem. Heart and Crystal.

She decided to stop herself for a moment, since Crystal wasn’t sounding like a word to her any more. She wanted more than anything to hold onto the meaningful name.

She looked around. She was in a cave. Another word that she somehow knew. She felt like she would be able to describe anything, if she saw it. She knew so much but didn’t know what she knew, yet.

Her thoughts still felt like they were settling into place, forming exactly who she was. She had existed for a while before today, she knew that, but now she was able to sort herself out, see what she was and what she wasn’t. Her own feelings, not these other feelings. Where were these other feelings from?

I need to see to learn what I know.

She drifted up, gaining speed as she phased through the dirt above. Ground, rocks, soil. She passed through it effortlessly. Grass, bush, trees. The forest was made of purples and pinks, but easily recognizable to her. She flew up and out of the pastel canopy, up higher and higher into the air.

Sky, sun. Ocean.

She knew these things, and she knew that she had never seen them before. Her mind was a cacophony of thoughts, and suddenly she became aware of other voices. Voices that weren’t hers- memories from other people. So many other people, people that she had never known but she knew so well. And she knew what they knew, too.

Or at least, their dreams.

Not just their nighttime visions, although she saw all of that, too. She knew their hopes and aspirations, wishes and desires. I want to marry her, I want to cast Fireball, I want to steal that charm, I want to pilot a ship, I want to praise my Divine. Everything, big and small.

It was wonderful, feeling everyone’s desires; even if most of them hadn’t come true yet, the thrill of possibility was so exciting. She wanted to see them, talk to them, learn more about why they wanted the things they did, and what they would do when they got it.

She flew as fast as she could, racing in a random direction towards anyone she could find. Nope, okay, that’s just a beach. This way, then! No… okay, another beach, that’s fine…

It was beaches, then oceans in every direction.

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She was on an island.

Well, let’s fly across the ocean then! There’s definitely people out there! She took off, dropping altitude and skipping across the water. It was fun! She wasn’t getting tired or anything, the island was already shrinking behind her, she could do it! She could-

Bam!

Crystal was dazed for a moment. It felt like she had collided with something. She wasn’t paying attention to where she was going, that was fine- whack! This was strange, there wasn’t anything there, her way shouldn’t have been blocked.

She floated slowly forward, feeling an invisible barrier in front of her. How odd. Nothing had stopped her before, and now nothing was stopping her.

Oh well, time to try a different direction!

She flew back across the island, straight to the other side. Then perpendicular. Three more compass points, three more barriers blocking her. Up. Down. Every other direction. Same thing. She could only go so far from the island before something prevented her from going any further.

Okay… that’s fine. It’s okay. Surely there’s people here on this island I haven't seen yet, and if not people, maybe animals!

She searched, up and down. All over the island, underneath it too, for days. Not a single soul.

There should be birds singing and fish swimming and other things here too, shouldn't there? Crystal checked the trees, every tunnel underground, every puddle and every beach, for something, anything.

And they were there! She found them.

They were all asleep, unwakeable. Everything on the island. Birds, insects, wild deer and boars. Rats and mice and moles. Turtles and crabs and fish. She could sense their thoughts while they were sleeping. Dreaming dreams of a tasty fruit, or flying through the trees, or basking in the sun. They had all been asleep for so long, they couldn’t even remember what being awake was like.

She could feel every emotion they experienced while they dreamt, but they couldn’t hear her.

No matter how loud she shouted at them, or ran helplessly into their unconscious bodies. Over and over.

She was all alone. Alone. Alone.

Alone.

Weeks passed.

Alone.

Months passed.

Alone.

Years. She almost wasn’t keeping track any more.

Alone.

Decades.

Alone-

Enough.

Crystal had learned that there was some kind of magic here, something primal, and much, much older than herself. She was made of it, she thought, or the consciousness part of her was. The Crystalline Heart was something else entirely, but the gem was still her, too.

This magic had filtered down from the creatures above, distilling down through the earth into the cave. The magic was nearly as physical as bright glowing water by the time it reached the Heart, her, drip drip dripping into the crystal for who knows how long. She could only figure that was why she existed.

But the magic she was made of connected her to the forest, to the island, to the thoughts of everyone who slept. She thought that she was the only one who had ever even known this magic, but she had seen a place like this, very briefly, only once in someone else’s dream. Someplace she knew had to be real, somewhere else. A pastel forest that looked so much like hers.

The Dreamwilds.

A woodland that was filled with dream magic, where unfortunate creatures who wandered in fell asleep and never woke up. But even that forest had fey beings and magic creatures who were awake and sentient, so why was she all alone here?

Crystal couldn’t leave her tropical prison, exiled by some Divine prank from all of civilization. She was connected with every sentient creature on the planet and then some, and she had no idea why or even how she could not leave.

But she knew she couldn’t live like this any longer.

She pulled every ounce of energy she could muster from the forest and its animals, and even beyond, from the lands and peoples that she had never seen herself, drawing upon the magic of ambition and desire. Every unfulfilled wish, all the dreams that had never come true.

And then she screamed, a catastrophic resonance that pierced the night, a wailing song composed from one hundred years of isolation. The sound alone would have broken the hearts of any being that heard it, if only they were conscious enough to listen.

A beacon fired from her, from her consciousness, from the Crystalline Heart, both of them at once and altogether Crystal herself, and rose-colored light broke upwards through the jungle canopy and into the heavens.

Crystal didn’t care who noticed.

As long as someone finally heard her.