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I can hardly stand to write what happened next. The sea people stared at the dead usurper for a long time. I felt as if my whole mind was steeped in a confused agony of rage, then realized it was the collective feeling of the sea-people. I didn't know what I felt myself, or even if I felt anything at all. I was one with the group-mind, yet...somehow, I was shut out.
After a while, I let go of the usurper's body. I still couldn't take my eyes off the bizarre smile on his face. What finally made me look up was something brushing my head. I tore my eyes away from that smile, and looked up into the expressionless face of a sea-man...who was holding my crown in his hands! He must have taken it off my head, but why? The sea-man held out the crown, looking at me. I tried to reach for his thoughts, but they seemed to be behind a wall of ice. Not knowing what to do, I took the crown from him.
WHAM! I was flung back through the water against one of the pillars. I could feel everyone's thoughts now, and they were, "GO AWAY!"
"What?" I thought stupidly.
The crowd answered as one, and it felt as if the whole group-mind was answering. "You are not of us," it answered. "You killed one of your subjects, yet you reached for the crown while his life still flows through our gills. No ruler of ours does that, and you are as twisted and ugly as your body."
I felt as if the universe had come crashing down around my ears. How could I know that was a test? "No..."I thought, but they went on.
"You have chosen the crown," the group-mind replied, "so take it and leave us. We have no use for the crown any more. You are last of our line of rulers, and you are not of us. It is no matter, for we will be our own rulers." For one moment, the sea-people seemed to be more individuals again. "We were ready generations ago, but we waited until the time was right. Now it is." Suddenly all the individuality went out of their eyes and thoughts, and their next thoughts felt as if they were coming from one source, scattered over the area they occupied. "We have made the change, and we are one. There is no need for you."
I expected them to attack me, but they didn't. Instead, the wall of ice rose up between us, and they went about their business as if nothing had happened. I watched as they brought seaweed and wrapped the usurper's body in it. All my thoughts hit the wall of ice and couldn't get through. As I watched them tow my enemy's body from the room, I realized what they had done: The group-mind, driven to insanity by the political turmoil my absence had caused, had finally matured into a mind of its own. The sea-people were, in an odd way, one consciousness now...and I wasn't one of them.
I left. What else could I do? I came ashore on the Isle, on the beach by the Gambino mansion. Edmund was there again, but I didn't tell him anything. I wasn't going to doom my people's new consciousness by making Gambino angry at it. I just told Edmund, "Take me back to Cindy's."
In the end, he did, since I wouldn't say anything else. I didn't say anything to Cindy either, just went to bed, still damp and salty. I hid my crown, which I'd clutched all the time, in the drawer of my bedside table, and let the pain of my rejection sink in. I've been here since, barely eating what Cindy brings me, not talking to her or Edmund, and writing these two entries.
The loneliness feels like the seaweed that blistered my gills, but it's healing. Unlike my governor or the usurper, I won't die of it. I'll just have to learn to be human.