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It has to get out.
It doesn’t know how, or why, but it knows that there is a pressure on it that’s utterly stifling as it lies in the darkness. It’s something like instinct that causes it to flail about with arms, legs, and head, frantically pushing at whatever has it contained.
Liquid-–it’s in some kind of liquid, it can feel its movements hindered by it, but there’s something hard encasing it, too, and if it just reaches out and pushes a little harder…
There’s a tremendous cracking noise, and it spills out onto its face along with a wave of black goop that seeps into the ground. The light, though almost nonexistent here, nearly blinds it compared to the pitch blackness, and it simply lies there for a while.
For a single moment, as it lies on the ground, just hatched, it is truly as hollow as it is meant to be-–no thoughts, no feelings, no emotions.
And then that moment ends.
It raises its head and looks around, and it wonders where it is, and in that moment, its fate is sealed.
It painstakingly sits up. It assumed that the pressure on it had something to do with whatever was containing it, but now that it’s escaped, it can still feel it, a fundamental wrongness within its very being. It is confined, it is constrained, and though it does not know why, does not know what it is or what lives within it, it knows that is wrong.
Fear is the next emotion that sets in after curiosity, though it has no word for either. It just knows its chest grows tight and something inside of it feels as if it’s writhing and screaming to get out, but can’t. It rocks back and forth on the ground, because it does not know what else to do to make it stop.
And then, all at once, it notices something. Something burned into its consciousness, etched behind its eyes. It has a purpose, and it knows what that purpose is, now.
It is a Vessel. It has a creator, a god whose brilliance makes something inside of it shy away, and yet it knows it has to go to this creator. That is the only thing it can do, an invisible string trying to pull it up, up, up towards where it can practically see that vibrant being already.
It stands up. It’s in a cave, and everything is dim and gray, except for the ceiling, which is dripping black liquid, and the floor, which is white and bumpy and sticks out in some places. It turns to see what it had been trapped in, and it sees an egg, so black it seems to suck in what little light there is. In the side of the egg that isn’t broken, it can see something it recognizes as itself; a white shell with two little horns, eyes and body of the same consuming darkness, a ragged garment wrapped around its shoulders.
This is who it is, and it is satisfied with that.
(A part of it wonders why its head, its shell looks like the spiky bits of the ground, but it isn’t supposed to think about that, it knows that much is part of its purpose.)
It turns away from the egg and dutifully walks forward, its footsteps echoing in a hollow sort of way against the ground-that-isn’t. It has to go up, it knows that. That is where its creator will be. And it feels something new, wondering what its creator will look like, how the creator will talk to it. Its steps grow faster. It wants to see its creator. It wants to make its creator happy.
(This is one of its first mistakes in judgment; wanting another to be happy.)
It eventually reaches what it thinks is the ceiling of the cave, though the opening is blocked with more white things. It pushes against the blockage, hoping (hoping) that this is the way out.
It hears a voice.
“No cost too great.”
It can’t tell whether the voice is coming from above it or inside of its own head. The voice is soft-spoken, rasping, yet powerful, and it recognizes the voice as King and Creator, and it fights to get out of the cave even more fervently.
It breaks through the blockage and pulls itself up until its feet are planted on the ground. It’s in a larger cave, now, the ground littered with more white pieces. Above, it can see a series of platforms, and far in the distance, a blazing, pale light.
Again, some part of it shies away, wishing to return to the darkness. But a larger part of it recognizes the light as Creator, and knows it needs to reach the light, no matter what it takes.
Something whistles through the air next to it. It turns, but can’t catch a glimpse before the object hits the ground with a thunk, shattering into more white pieces to join the others. Another one falls a little further away, and it can tell that the blurry shape is similar to it-–white shell, horns, gray cloak.
It can’t force itself to consider that too hard. All it can think about is how it has to get to the light.
It begins the climb.
“No mind to think.”
The creator’s voice seems to echo infinitely around the cave, granting it strength as it laboriously pulls itself onto one platform, then the next. Another body hits the platform it’s standing on, shattering on contact. It does not look back.
It wonders what else it will see when it gets to the light, whether there is more to the world than this cave covered in forlorn shards.
“No will to break.”
More climbing. The voice is getting closer, it can tell. Another one falls. It stops for a moment, but only for a moment, as it makes another jump and just barely pulls itself up before falling, practically shaking.
It wants to get to the creator. It has to get to the creator. It will not stop until it does.
“No voice to cry suffering.”
Another body, this one nearly falling on its head. It trips, stumbles, and its shell is pierced by spikes, a white-hot pain lancing through its leg. It leaks black and crumples to a knee, trying desperately to stop the flow with its hands, curling into itself. It cannot stop, though, and it gets up and limps across the platform to the next jump.
“Born of God and Void.”
The light is too dazzling for it to see through, but it can tell it is close, and only getting closer. It can faintly make out a shape that it has to get to, and with newfound strength and a buzzing inside of it that it would later be able to call excitement.
The creator. It is going to meet their creator. In that single moment, it is infinitely happy, full of possibilities.
That is another mistake, on its part.
It can see the light, the platform it needs to reach, so close, and it jumps and barely catches the edge of the metal, hanging on with trembling arms. It’s finally close enough to see through the glare.
And it sees something that looks remarkably like its own reflection.
The other vessel is clearly different from itself, though. The other vessel’s horns are taller, less curved, more jagged in the edges.
And the creator-–brilliant, crowned King and God and Creator-–has his hand resting on the other vessel’s shoulder.
It watches as the creator squeezes the vessel’s shoulder very slightly, then lets go and walks forward, towards an opening from which it can see the light of what must be the rest of the world. It sees the other vessel following after.
Frantically, it tries to pull itself up to follow. Surely, if the creator knows it’s here, he will let it come with him into the world, out of this darkness. But the creator does not notice.
The other vessel does, however. The vessel turns back to it, and darkness meets darkness. Something inside of it screams out in desperation to communicate with another piece of itself, but there is nothing to hear.
A feeling bubbles up inside of it that it will not know how to name for a long time. It wants to be up there with the other of its kind. It wants to go with the other vessel and the creator. The world past that door must be so big, much bigger than this cave, and it wants to see that for itself. Why isn’t the other vessel coming to help it? Why does the other vessel get to go, gets such a fond touch from the creator, and it doesn’t? What has it done wrong? Is it broken?
The other vessel turns away, and walks out of the door.
It hears the voice of its creator for the last time.
“You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams.”
“You are the Vessel.”
“You are the Hollow Knight.”
The whole cavern trembles as the door begins to close, consuming the creator’s light and threatening to leave the cave in darkness. Its grip loosens on the railing.
Hopelessness is something it will soon know well, but in that moment, it cannot understand.
It lets go, and it falls, and falls, and falls, and it hopes against hope that its short life will end when it hits the ground, that whatever is contained inside of it will get to be free and it will no longer have to think, because that is wrong, and it is broken, and it cannot do the one thing it is meant to.
It hits the ground. But its life does not end.
And such sets the tone for the rest of its existence; a life of close calls and miraculous escapes, of breaking free of the odds, whether by chance or, even more surprisingly, by choice.
All to one day enact an end of its–-their–-own choosing.