Change comes quickly, though not without warning. Though the days are as lively as ever, the night brings with it a chill. A promise that things will only get colder. It has lived in this world for over a year now, and the change of seasons is familiar.
I’m sorry. It’s not what I was meant for.
Under the watch of the Ophiuchus tree, the city’s residents have gathered at the river to pay their respects: to those they’ve lost, to those who have left the city, to another summer gone by. The Hollow Knight sits at the bank now, alone in a darkness lit only by the stars above...
...And hundreds of candles below. The water’s surface crowds with them; as the festivities were ending, the locals had heeded its request to use every candle they had left. They understood it meant a lot. Though even this glittering sea of candle-light only represents a small fraction of the lives it wished to honour. Lives never lived. Hundreds of thousands of empty shells, abandoned in the dark forever.
It still recalls the sound of breaking shells, the cracking of bodies as it climbed over them. It grew strong, fed on grief, armed in desperation—never hollow. Why was it chosen, out of all of them? Why was it the one to carry all their burdens?
It looked back once, to see a near-identical form struggling close behind, reaching up for its help.
It never looked back again.
A world unchanging, where time did not pass and life did not decay. That was its ideal. That was Father’s ideal... is there a difference? A kingdom held in stasis could not fall, even as its inhabitants slowly sank into dreams, as history moved on and forgot.
Here, the sun rises and sets; there is no force holding back the dawn from breaking. The world ends each day, and then it begins again. Such a cycle seems natural... though it is beyond the comprehension of a creature who has been dead from the moment it was born.
I cannot change it. I cannot... I must not...
To those countless discarded vessels, lives snuffed out before they began, all in pursuit of an impossible goal... nothing will ever change again. To the ruins of Hallownest which it had failed to keep from crumbling all around it, nothing will ever be the same. There is no way to go back.
All that can be done is to watch as the candles slowly drift away. This is an empty gesture. But not a meaningless one: if no one else will remember, at the very least it does.
My only wish is that I could see you again... my siblings.
