What Intrigues Me Most About Writing Fiction?

Today I was responding to author interview questions. One of the prompts was:
"The question no one asks, the one you’re itching to answer is…"

Interesting prompt. I didn't feel I had a question I was itching to answer but evidently my fingertips poised over the keyboard wanted to respond to this:

Lynn's question to Lynn: "What Intrigues Me Most About Writing Fiction?"

I’m intrigued by the creative imagination process—the magic that allows us to create characters and events that didn’t previously exist and capture them on the page for others to experience.

What exactly happens when we travel the elusive ink-on-paper-bridge between the blank page beginnings of the author’s imagination and the readers’ imagination process on the other side? As readers decode bits of ink on paper, what makes characters, emotions, stories and books come alive? What causes a lasting connection between author and reader even as we are separated in time and space? And while we may never meet in real life, how does this dual creative imagination process between author and reader change us?
Do I have answers to all that?
Not exactly.

My answer appears to be series of more questions.
Imaginary readers, please tell me your thoughts on this topic as a writer, or a reader, or both.

When authors and readers make a connection through books, what exactly is happening? Have you had such an experience? Are you changed in some way? How? Why?

Forecast: More questions for sure, but I'm hoping for some thought-provoking musings and questionable answers, too.