Chapter Text
It’s dark... Very dark... And... warm?
No, not warm... But it's not cold either...
It's... comfortable.
Was she dreaming...? Maybe... Her mind was foggy. But she was thinking about dreams, and she'd never done that in her dreams before. Maybe she was half awake, in that sort of mental superposition where the brain wakes up before the body.
She really liked when that happened to her. It was very rare for her that she got to truly relax. Not that her life was particularly fast-paced or strenuous. Kind of the opposite, actually.
Still living with her parents at 'home' despite being old enough to drink, totally lacking in social skills, and with no real ability to make it on her own in the real world. That wouldn't have been bad, lots of people still lived with their parents as adults or struggled with a disability. The problem wasn't those things, it was her parents.
God, her parents. How late was it? Her sense of time was fucky on a good day, but she had a strong intuition that she'd been asleep far longer than she usually was on a weekday. Had her alarms not gone off? Ugh, she must have forgotten to plug her phone in and it died while she was sleeping.
Swinging her arm over she blindly searched the nightstand with her fingers. Something was nagging at the back of her mind still. There was the faintest hint of recollection at the back of her mind. Pain... Agonizing pain, and a voice. But not really a voice so much as... thoughts. Like a scent carried on the wind from some far off place. Trying to tell her something...
Her brain was severely jetlagged, so it took her a long time for the sensations to catch up to her. Or rather, a total lack of sensation. Despite reaching over herself to find her nightstand, her arm had never met with the dragging resistance of gravity, nor had her fingers ever found the wooden surface next to her. It was like she hadn't moved her arm at all.
Weird, she must have dreamed doing it. How friggin' late did she stay up last night to be this tired? She knew she couldn't have accidentally woken up early. When that happened, she always woke suddenly, and was immediately alert. It was only when she overslept that she'd be in such a fugue.
Once again she lifted her arm, a little more awake now and able to focus on her body. But once again, nothing. She knew she moved her arm – she felt the muscles contract, she felt her joints bend and yet it was like she was floating in midair, totally weightless, completely deprived of her senses save for an odd pressure all over her body.
Fear crept in. She opened her eyes expecting to find the comforting sight of her room but was instead met with an impenetrable wall of darkness. She instinctively tried to sit up but she wasn't laying on anything.
The sudden realization that she was weightless and separated from any surface was utterly disorientating. She couldn't even tell what direction was up anymore. Panic set in and she began to flail. All she found was a sort of resistance against her limbs, as if she were dragging her hands through water.
Was she under water!? Her brain went into overdrive as adrenaline flooded her system. With her mental fog momentarily cleared she was able to remember some small snippets of what had led up to her current situation. She hadn't just been in pain, but cold. So, so very cold. Like her bones had frozen solid and broke into a million shards.
Weightless, no sensation, was cold before but now wasn't? There was only one conclusion she could come to: somehow she'd fallen through thin ice on a river or lake or something and now these were her last moments. That was how her brain tried to rationalize the situation at least.
The revelation didn't do much to help her so much as make her freak the hell out even more. But in her wild thrashing she managed to find some kind of hard surface with her foot and without even thinking she kicked off from it as hard as she could, propelling herself through the water.
Crack!
Ow!
A jolt went through her skull and down her back as her head struck something hard above her. Her hands found a smooth and glass-like surface. She tried to pull back from it but somehow she'd had become stuck. She shoved off it to get free, floating back down to what must have been the bottom. After all what could it have been that she'd felt above her but ice?
All she cared about was breaking through it. She launched herself off the bottom again, carefully feeling the ice for the crack she'd made with her head. Her fingers located a small hole in the surface. Not very big, but she could work with that.
Hope mingled with panic, and she began furiously punching above herself with no care in the world but to smash through. A broken wrist was well worth her life.
After what felt like an eternity, she felt it give just a little, and the faintest sound of muffled cracking reached her ears.
Yes!
She tore at the sharp edges animalistically, breaking away piece after piece until the hole had been widened enough for her to get through. Latching onto the edge she pulled herself up so hard that the ice under her hands broke away, making her slip back down a bit until she managed to find her grip again in the dark.
Finally she was able to thrust her head above water, feeling it run down her face like tears of relief. It was quickly replaced once more with fear as her head struck something else. It was still dark, but she could just barely make out the faintest outlines of something above her. Many rounded shapes all piled on top of each other. She was lucky to have the little air pocket she did, it looked like whatever she was buried under could collapse at any moment.
Carefully, she pulled the rest of her body out of the numbing water. It was surprisingly easy, given how small the gap above the ice was. She should have felt utterly squeezed balancing precariously on the edge of the hole in the ice like she was, and yet aside from not being able to raise her head, which felt strangely heavy all of a sudden, the space wasn't even that cramped.
So many questions were racing through her mind at that moment, but they would have to wait. She was still trapped under something and had no clue how deep. How likely was it that she would be rescued before she completely froze to death? She'd already lost all feeling, which she knew from tv shows meant very serious hypothermia. She couldn't remember if anyone had been with her when she fell in the water, so there was a chance no one even knew she was out here at all.
If she let herself be frozen by indecision now, she was going to be frozen forever. Steadying herself on the edge, she lifted a hand to the solid mass above. It was some kind of smooth, round thing about the same size as her head. It was bizarrely lightweight too, like it was just a hollow shell.
She had no time to waste thinking about it right now, so she put it aside and shoved hard as she could on the thing above her. Kicking off the ice and grabbing some kind of branch she managed to crawl up through whatever it was that she was in. What felt like more branches scraped her body as she clawed her way upwards.
She kicked off the objects sliding down around her as they fell into the water below and at the same time shoved the ones above her out of the way. It felt like she would never escape this nightmare and her hope dwindled until her hand shot up and found nothing but air. She could feel it brushing against her skin in the chill dancing across her skin.
Soon the rest of her broke through as well as she clawed her way out, writhing against the pile trying to reclaim her. The ground beneath her was unstable and shifted with every movement so she let herself collapse flat on her back once she was fully free.
With adrenaline slowly fading, she was finally able to take full stock of her physical condition.
Her chest seized. She wasn't breathing, she hadn't been this whole time, she realized.
She sat bolt upright, forgetting the unstable nature of the ground beneath her. She nearly toppled over from the increased weight of her head. She tried to suck in a breath and promptly choked, her lungs still filled with water. She retched and coughed painfully until enough liquid had been expelled for her to take her first breath since waking up. The air was stale and dusty and filled with an indescribably weird smell, but nothing could have been sweeter in that moment.
Once she'd brought herself to a relatively calm state of mind she focused on the rest of her body, making sure there was no pain. The weird thing was, she felt cold now, but only mildly so. Not the bone-rattling deathly chill she should have been feeling.
And something felt off about her breathing. She was taking in air just fine yet she couldn't feel it passing through her mouth or nose, not even her throat. Her hands shot to her face. Her fingernails scrabbled on some kind of smooth, hard material that was covering her face. How was she breathing right now?!
She tried to calm down, reassuring herself that there must be some kind of hole for air in the mask, and that her face was just still numb. To prove it to herself she focused on her breathing, trying to feel the air pass through her throat as she took deep breaths. But the more she focused on it, the more it felt like... like...
Like she was breathing through her sides.
Bringing her hands to her body, she traced a series of small holes running down each side of her torso that expanded and contracted with each breath. Opening her eyes she looked down at her body to confirm what she was feeling with her hands.
Indeed she found three pairs of small holes running down each side of her torso, all opening and closing in time with her now hurried breathing. Holding out her hands in front of her, she was able to make them out now that her eyes had adjusted to the gloom. They were far too small with just three small fingers and one thumb per hand, each tipped with small claws as pitch-black as the rest of her weirdly small and chubby body.
She slowly raised her hands to her face. A hard, smooth surface where her mouth should be, two massive, hollow eye holes, and two horns sticking up from the top of her head. What the hell was happening? Where was she. What was she?
She tried looking around at her surroundings for answers but what she saw chilled her. The round hollow things all around her, making up the walls, the ceiling, even the ground beneath her, they were all skulls with large empty eye sockets all staring back at her.
They were all about the same size as her head, but they were weirdly smooth and featureless. All of them lacked mouths, the only openings the two wide, backless eye holes on the front, and a single hole on the bottom. But most telling of all were the horns. Every skull had some variation of horns adorning their tops.
She awkwardly got on her feet, having to contend with the weight of her head combined with her weird legs and feet. They seemed to have an extra joint and instead of flat feet, she just had two small toes tipped with claws to balance on.
Her head spun. She too spun in a slow circle to take in the full environment. A tunnel of empty shells shrouded in darkness and fog, at the end of which sat a massive globe. Its surface was glossy black, sullied by a jagged crack that split the thing in two. It must have been twice her height and had weird strands attaching it to multiple places in the wall and ceiling.
Revelation dawned on her slowly. This place was familiar. She recognized it, she knew what it was! She was looking at it from a completely different angle than what she was used to but one by one every detail clicked.
Stumbling over uneven and unnervingly crunchy ground, she approached the giant egg, her reflection gradually coming into focus on the curved surface. Two empty, black holes met her gaze, set in a round face devoid of features and stark white. Four horns adorned her head. Two large pointed ones on either side that curved inward toward each other, and two smaller ones between those, set slightly further back and much smaller and more curved.
This is the birthplace from Hollow Knight. And I'm... Holy shit.
The acceptance of what she was seeing before her opened the floodgates of her memories. She stumbled back and had to steady herself against the wall, sliding down until she was sitting eyes locked on her reflection.
There was never a frozen lake, only the icy grip of death as the blood drained from from her broken form, taking all her warmth with it.
She'd been run over by a speeding driver and laid there in the street dying and the last thing she ever saw was a great big smirk as if the universe was taunting her.
Dead. She died. She died and now she was in a video game. She probably should have broken down crying, but she was too dumbstruck by the insane circumstances she'd been thrust into to do so.
She'd been killed and whisked away to some video game world and in the most cliche way imaginable. And by an amazon truck of all things! God fucking damn it! She couldn't even growl in frustration about it, just make this weird huffy hiss with her spiracles.
Usually when someone gets reincarnated into a fantasy world, they don’t have to claw their way out of an egg and the world’s most evil ball pit. Thanks, universe.
Come to think of it, characters in these kinds of situations don't really get to know anything about the world they end up in. They just tend to have extremely convenient video game-esque skill and level-up systems. It was weird that she'd been chucked into a world she knew about in her past life as a video game.
Maybe she was taking this too in stride... After all how would she know this wasn't just a very vivid dream? It certainly felt real... After a moment of hesitation she tried pinching herself, hissing loudly as her surprisingly sharp claws easily pricked the soft skin of her bare arm. A tiny bead of void welled up on the wound. She gently rubbed at the injury to ease the pain a little and tried to steady herself mentally.
So, not a dream. Which meant this was real. Which meant... frankly a lot for her situation. Part of her just wanted to lay down and wallow in misery, but she knew it wouldn't do her any good. Judging by all the baby skulls (which she really, really wished she could stop thinking about already) the pale piece of shit had already chosen the Hollow Knight, or was maybe still in the process of doing so.
Maybe she could still save some of the vessels! If she could just warn them before they ever tried to make the climb maybe the Pale King would just assume they all failed and leave them alone in the Abyss. Her motivation was only half selfish – while she did need a distraction from having to think about what was happening to her, she did genuinely also want to save the vessels if she could.
Shooting to her feet, she took off running through the tunnels. Her head felt way oversized and unwieldy, but she did her best to adjust quickly. She couldn't jump nearly as high as Ghost could, maybe because she was still newly hatched, so she had to climb the steeper inclines using the horns of her slain siblings.
Every crunch and crack sent a sting through her heart. She just kept reassuring herself that it would all be worth it if she could save just one of them. And that she would beat the everloving fuck out of the Pale King as soon as she had the chance.
The tunnels were a maze, leading her into dead end after dead end, or to a passage that was lined with spikes and just a little too long to jump over. She didn't know if game rules applied, but she wasn't going to gamble her new life on that. And even if she could respawn, how would she get her shade back? Wring it by the neck?
Unfortunately there were just as many vertical shafts as there were spike pits, so she was repeatedly brought to a halt as she had to slowly crawl up a high wall like the one she was on now. As she crested the top, she came face to face with a shadowed figure. She flinched on reflex, barely managing to cling on to the edge.
The shade stared at her and she stared back, frozen. When she noticed it wasn't coming closer she remembered that the shades would only be aggressive if she had the King's Crest or whatever it was called. A wave of relief washed over her, then guilt. She'd already known there would be shades around, but actually seeing the ghost of a dead baby in person made it much more... real.
She carefully pulled herself over the edge and onto flat ground, avoiding touching the shade. She wasn't sure if contact with them would still hurt her or not, and she didn't want to disturb them anyway. They watched her silently, like a disembodied shadow freed from the wall it was cast on. It felt callous to just brush past them like this but she had to hurry. She didn't know how much time was left before all of her siblings would be doomed to the same fate.
Finally she reached what her usually shoddy sense of direction told her was the highest she'd gotten, and found nothing but a tall shaft. If she had to dig the rest of the way out so be it. She wasted no time in climbing up the sheer wall until she reached the top, where she once again burrowed her way through the empty remains of her siblings.
It took no time at all for her to reach the top, crawling her way out of the macabre pit and into the main cavern of the Abyss. As soon as she was free of the pile of remains she rushed to the first step of the ascent and climbed atop it, looking around for any signs of life. She waited and waited, turning in circles until she felt dizzy. Despair crept in slowly, drawing out the last of her adrenaline and making her limbs feel heavy.
She began to wander the cavern floor, trying to spot even the slightest hint of movement. But only skulls remained, abandoned and forgotten in the dark.
Her patrol route gradually went from frantic back and forth searching to slow circling until she had no choice but to enter the tunnel in the far wall. As the lighthouse came into view, her heart sank. Thousands of tiny, shadowy forms drifted through the air, moving in slow but erratic patterns. The cavern was silent save for the low rumble that permeated the atmosphere.
The shades that dared to get near the blinding beam of light seemed to fade away, nearly dissipating completely until they hurried out of its path and re-solidified.
The sight was a blow to her already unpleasant mental state. She'd been too late to do anything. Before she had the chance to berate herself, a sea of wispy black forms began to descend down upon her. The shades swarmed on all sides, nearly blocking out her vision entirely.
There was a buzz in the air around her, inaudible but she could feel it resonating through her whole body. Some base instinct compelled her to reach out her mind toward the noise. The buzz slowly became more distinct, like someone was turning the knob of a radio inside her head from static to a station. Indistinct humming transformed into thoughts and feelings and it was utterly overwhelming; a million voices all talking at the same time.
Surprise, excitement, confusion. The feelings weren't her own but they were in her head as if they were. All those thousands of overlapping voices was like a cacophony and it was making her feel nauseous. She stumbled back, clutching the sides of her head where she used to have ears. Obviously it did nothing, but her head was aching too badly to think at all. The shades seemed to realize her suffering and quieted down.
She let go of her head and stood back up. One of the shades floated close to her, reaching out a shadowy tendril.
[Curious awe (sibling-still-has-shell?) (you-returned?)]
She reached out her hand as well, letting the shade wrap its formless limb around it. It was like passing her hand through mist.
There were thousands of quiet murmurs running through whatever this psychic link thing was, all overlapping and impossible to make out. She tried to speak out loud out of habit, forgetting that she didn't even have a mouth anymore.
God, right...
[Unsure reply (no-i-) (i-just-hatched)]
The shades surged forward, making her heart skip a beat. She was overwhelmed with thousands of jumbled thoughts all directed at her. There were so many all at once that she was only able to make out a single shared thought in the sea of voices.
[Joyful Exclamation (new-born-sibling-hello!)]
A couple of voices scolded the group and made them quiet down again. There was still a buzz and murmur of excitement throughout as well as curiosity and joy and dozens of other feelings she was struggling to parse.
The shades were still surrounding her on all sides, though they'd backed off a little at the direction of the handful of shades who seemed to act as the older siblings of the group. They seemed to have a million questions for her, but managed to settle on just a few popular ones.
[Excited query (did-you-really-only-just-hatch?) (we-all-hatched-a-long-time-ago-sibling)]
One of the shades in front asked. It was barely any condolence to know she would have been too late no matter what.
[Sad reply (yes) (i-came-here-almost-immediately-after-i-hatched) (i'm-sorry-i-wasn't-here-sooner-to-save-you-all)]
Confusion washed over her.
[Reassuring statement (not-your-fault-sibling-you-couldn't-have-known)]
Except she did know, she'd just been too late to do anything with the knowledge.
Not wanting to think about it any further, she decided to jump to introductions instead.
[Awkward greeting (well-um-anyway) (i'm-)]
Wait, what was her name!? She couldn't remember her name! Her skin crawled, panic setting in again. No matter how hard she racked her brain she could only barely remember the vague notion of what her name sounded like.
Her siblings swarmed in close, surrounding her all on sides like a heavy blanket of fog. Sensation seemed to fade away in their embrace and it was oddly comforting. It made her tear up that they cared so much despite only just meeting.
Once they were sure she was okay they pulled away again to give her space. She took a few deep breathes through her sides, focusing on the soft huffy noise her vents made when she exhaled. It was just about the only sound she could still make in this new body.
No voice to cry suffering indeed you bastard...
The most she could do to voice her anger at the Pale dickhead was an especially sharp huff. It was actually kind of satisfying to do, her own little act of defiance. She did it again and again, until an idea became to sprout in her mind.
Hhthhh.. Hethhh.. Hsthhh...
Her siblings looked on with fascination. She might have felt silly and embarrassed, but she could feel through the link with her siblings that they were genuinely interested in her ability to make noise.
With some effort and concentration, she was able to figure out how to shape her vents and get the sounds she wanted. It took a few minutes of iterating but she managed to shape her sharp huff into what could almost be described as a word.
Ethhh, Ethhhhh. Hthh, Ithhhhh.
The shades were imitating her sounds inside the sorta-hivemind, repeating it back and forth to each other like a game. She kept refining the sound until it was just right. It was made up, and very simple, but she'd managed to form a word, an act of rebellion, rejecting the shitty hand she'd been dealt. And no one could take it from her.
It was hers and hers alone.
Ythe.
She hissed it quietly to herself over and over. It sounded right.
[Resolute assertion (my-name-is-Ythe) (and-as-your-sister-i-promise-i'll-avenge-you-all)]
The shades went into a flurry of excitement, repeating her name and "sister" over and over. They had even begun excitedly talking back and forth with each other about their own names, choosing ones for themselves and each other. They seemed to have totally occupied themselves with it, so she decided to give them space.
She – Ythe – left her siblings behind as she wandered off to explore the area surrounding the lighthouse. While she did know a good amount of Hollow Knight's lore, she hadn't seen everything. For example she only knew the directly story-relevant parts of the Abyss, so exploring around seemed like a good idea in case there was something that might help her.
It was also a convenient distraction from that nagging feeling which had returned. Thoughts like distant smells stirred from her memories, but she didn't want to think about anything from before she woke up here. Not now at least.