“My powerful voice was reduced to a whisper, but I am still a vessel through which passion emerges. Take my voice, my hair, my mobility, my memory… but if you want my fire, you will have to kill me.”
“Erosian Exile!” Erica sprung up from the floor. “That’s it!”
Erica grew up on stage, with an early music career. Sadly, she was exiled from her passion when an illness ravaged her vocal cords. She would fight for her life indefinitely, and never sing again. The tragedy left her unhinged, until the vision struck her: Erosian Exile.
Though she spoke in a whisper, songs wrote themselves through her, and the ghost of her voice rose from the ashes. The sound was broken and raw, but her passion boiled and music erupted.
At first, Erosian Exile was nothing more than a band name. Yet Erosia had a will of its own.
As Erica battled the throes of trauma, visions of Erosia rushed forth in a cathartic fury. Through various mediums, she unleashed them into the arts. Fellow Erosians were magnetized to her work. Some recalled rituals they had done in Erosia to ensure their souls would reunite in other lives. Erica came to see Erosia as a past life shared with friends. The most controversial among them was Prince Ruby Valentine.
Back in Erosia, Queen Onyx insisted the creators should not be worshipped. They were once mortals who embraced their own power, setting the example for others to do the same. After Prince Ruby killed her in childbirth, he took up her mantle, and determined to demonstrate personal power by becoming a God himself. He fell in love with Anavir, a wildling from the outer islands. To fight the corrupt message of their day, they burned temples and caused chaos. The royal family rejected the prince, which ultimately led to his exile. Anavir asked the guardians to send her after Ruby, and thus, she was reborn in Dystopia as Erica Xenne.
After pursuing music in childhood, Erica fell ill, and her voice was reduced to a whisper. When she found Ruby, he was heartbroken, intoxicating himself to oblivion. Pining for his devotion and feeling out of place in this bizarre industrial hell, Erica unleashed her heartache in a storm of music, and the ghost of her voice rose from the ashes. The sound was elusive, broken and raw, but she fought to capture any shred of potency.
Tell me the odds
I’ll beat them senseless
Summon the Gods
They’ll be defenseless!
She branded her project Erosian Exile and recorded Slave to Freedom, a musical conversation between her and Ruby through vocals and guitar. The album combined their ethereal passion with her brother Jon Brand’s robust drumming. Erica wrote two more albums, Fire Castle and The Vampire and the Void, but her whispery singing voice evaded her before she could record them.
The project inspired the two Erosians to turn their lives around. While Ruby enjoys photography and pens his history, Erica immerses herself in the Night Gem series. Her saga follows the Erosian Gods when they were still mortals living on the planet Oreni, and culminates in the creation of Erosia.
