The night sky feels eternal in this world. Never-ending darkness swallows the dusty wasteland of the spiritual world called Hueco Mundo.
Regularly, souls are absorbed by the predators of the land - their own kind. There are many names for the different kinds of souls in each realm, but this one is home to the animals of the spirit world. Hollows. Even in death, monsters linger in the shadows; predating the concept of death itself, presumably.
Sand flows away as a hill erect from beneath the ground, another creation born from the sands of Hueco Mundo.
Innocent life rises, bringing its feet from beneath the sand. The form of this Hollow is nothing amazing, it is actually quite underwhelming. Ridiculously small in size, the size of a puppy even, the Hollow's mask engulfs its entire head. Black holes are where its eyes should be, easily confusing someone into believing those to be its Hollow holes if it were one's first time gazing upon them. Instead, it carried the same hole in its chest that most hollows had. It was not lucky enough to have its hole located in some other place.
Contrary to what was thought before, the Hollow possessed a unique feature that most didn't have. A cloak of sorts, made from all of its arms. Tentacle-like arms form a cloak around its body, arming it. Lightly, the Hollow makes attempts at moving its body consciously. The movements become natural, instinctively understanding how to move the dozens of tentacles on either side of its body.
On its left side, a sharp bone protrudes from one of its tentacles. Imbued into the body of the Hollow is a weapon constructed of bones. Fit to be shaped as a lance, anyone who sees the small creature must acknowledge the potential threat that this natural weapon poses to its foes. That is to say that this minute creature is brazen enough to search for foes only moments after being born into the world.
Its body is completely black, something else that is unique. Yes, to call this creature "underwhelming" again would be incorrect. It is incredibly unique, but nonetheless, a Hollow. Not a Menos.
Here's a reference image. The appearance I went for is largely based on the Hollow Knight design. It might be an immersion breaker, but I think that it's pretty cool! I hope that you can continue your reading even with this!
This is official Hollow Knight Artwork. (I've not touched the game myself as of yet, but I plan to in the future.) It is the property of TeamCherryGames and was done by Ari Gibson!
Horns protrude from both sides of its head. The small creature slowly twists its massive head around, innocently looking for... anything. Thoughts aren't exactly the first thing that comes to its mind. By definition, you'd think that was the case, but no. Instincts are the very first thing that comes to the mind of the creature. Signals are being sent to what it can only assume is its brain, telling it what it must do.
"Eat." A soft, quiet voice echoes from its mouth. Naturally reverbing across the air, the Hollow feels an unsettling sensation in its abdomen. Hunger swells within the creature's vast bowels. It feels the urge to consume and automatically knows what it desires on the menu.
Its small nub of a leg moves forward, taking its first step in this life. The sound of crunching sand beneath its step is satisfying in the eerie silence of the desolate desert. As the sounds soothe its ear, the Hollow takes another step ahead. It keeps going, its head nodding to the sound of the sand rhythmically. Hypnotized by the sound of its own footsteps, the Hollow would've felt itself losing track of time—if time were even a concern in this eternal night.
There is a feeling in the air that makes its head perk up suddenly. Walking for only a short amount of time, it becomes alerted by something that it does not know how to describe. Limited in the words it can use, the Hollow speaks again. "Hunt." A living creature is in its vicinity, something with an aura that's saturated the ambiance around it.
Generating a shocking burst of speed, the Hollow darts in the direction of the palpable aura. With each step, it covers a fair bit of ground before its other foot goes to follow up. Swiftly, it understood the fundamentals of walking and running, something programmed into its brain only a minute ago—at the moment it was born.
After running for a few minutes, the miniature Hollow ascends up a minor slope, unhindered by the uphill sprint. It appears that speed is one of its strongest attributes.
Stopping on top of the slope, it has a clear view over an even greater portion of the wasteland, revealing the presence that it'd felt before.
In the crosshairs of the small Hollow lies a large hunk of malice. Composing its face is a white skull mask, likely making up the entirety of its head. It is on four legs but remains standing up with an abdomen that is definitively humanoid, despite its enormous proportions. At its sides are syringes, clearly its own unique take on arms. Its legs are like razors, puncturing the ground, presumably granting it the ability to crawl on walls if it were ever in a predicament where it needed to.
"Strong." Identifying the threat before its eyes as a potential meal, the small Hollow doesn't need more time to think. It acts on its primal instincts, darting down the slope with the same speed it'd used to get here. Shortly, it has closed the distance with the four-legged Hollow, but not without drawing its attention on the way down.
As it approached, the small Hollow had been attacked by the syringe-like arms of its prey. Twisting its body to thrust the limb out, the towering Hollow strikes at its attacker before it even has the chance to properly strike! Unlike the smaller Hollow, it has two weapons it can use for battle. The bone lance at the small thing's left side can only go so far.
Evasively, the small Hollow pushes its foot off of the ground, throwing itself out of the way of the incoming syringe. Consequently, this also throws it off of the offensive. Its frontward assault is foiled before it can even be sprung.
Avoiding the syringe felt natural to it, like another instinct that it was born with. If it is dangerous, then it must naturally stay away from it. Contrary to this instinct, it has come face-to-face with a very dangerous foe. Furthermore, approaching this opponent was of its own volition!
"Phah!" Unexpectedly, the larger Hollow releases an annoyed sound from its mask. "I've never seen a Hollow as small as you, rodent!" Readying both of its syringes as it speaks, the larger Hollow's words are strangely understood by the smaller Hollow to a minor extent. "I won't even grow a step closer to ascending by eating you, but no matter! Come on, tootsie-roll! You'll make a perfect meal for Numb-A!"
Numb-A's statements feel offensive to the smaller Hollow. It might not have a great understanding of all of its words, but it has a basic understanding of its intentions. The larger Hollow is insulting it, referring to it as a "rodent" and "tootsie-roll" without even trying to anger it. These are the genuine thoughts of Numb-A, who has apparently consumed other Hollows before this point.
Unknowingly, the unfamiliar emotion of anger that brewed within the creature hampered its instincts.
Dashing forward again, it became clear to Numb-A that the miniature Hollow's speed was superior to its own. Its small size would normally make it much harder to hit if it weren't for its syringes that it could use to easily skewer the nimble pebble. As the smaller Hollow moves in for a straightforward attack, Numb-A's legs rapidly puncture the sand as it performs a sidestep.
The small Hollow's lance, which was aimed at the mask of Numb-A, misses its mark completely. Its hampered instincts barely manage to warn it of the danger that comes with being caught in an airborne position. Twisting its head, it finds a syringe being jabbed at its head with more precision and accuracy than it'd attacked with before.
After only performing two offensive moves against Numb-A, the Hollow finds itself basking in the feeling of approaching oblivion.
As a desperate maneuver, the small Hollow turns its body with the hope of clashing with the syringe using its own lance. Shockingly, it is successful in doing so. Perhaps due to Numb-A's own momentarily lapse after seeing the small Hollow move, but with their weapons clashing, the small Hollow successfully pushes itself to the ground, granting it room to dart away from the powerful opponent.
"Gah! I didn't expect you to move that way, mouse! Next time, I won't make the same mistake again!" Justifying the arrogance behind Numb-A's words, the small Hollow understands the danger that would come if it tried to attack again. Numb-A's next counterattack would undoubtedly land and be fatal, ending its short life.
Before their battle can continue, the ground starts to violently shake. "T-This pressure!" Both Numb-A and the smaller Hollow become dangerously aware of something approaching from underneath them. As it'd appear, the small Hollow was not the only one who'd been attracted by Numb-A's aura.
The small creature turns away from Numb-A—an action that'd usually be frowned upon—and uses all of its speed to sprint in the direction of the slope.
While the small Hollow manages to get close, it does not succeed in reaching the slope before the approaching predator arrives at the scene. Exploding from the ground like the lava from an erupting volcano, a massive centipede creature unloads a maelstrom of dust across the area.
Like an alarm bell blaring in its mind, the small Hollow can only think of one thing. "End." The end of its own existence will come if it remains here.
Without turning back to see the fate that awaited Numb-A, the small Hollow darts away from the scene of a titan-sized predator's appearance. Should it remain there, it'd meet an unfortunate end.
That is how this world works. The world of Hueco Mundo is anything but forgiving, even for newborns who are birthed with the instinct to fight and feed. Thwarted in its first attempt at hunting, the Hollow feels the same sensation as before.
One of the words used by Numb-A popped into its mind. As it continues its run through the desert of Hueco Mundo, the Hollow knows what it wants to do. It must do this for survival, a frightening thought. "Eat." To live, it must eat. To grow, it must eat. As it stands now, that feels like a ludicrous fantasy. Yet, in this world of fantasy, such a thing should be more than possible. It'd be daring to confidently claim that anything is truly impossible.
This optimistic outlook on things doesn't fit the small Hollow now. To hunt something of that magnitude is impossible. Even when faced with a more mature Hollow, it'd nearly died. It needs experience, otherwise, it may not be able to escape death's embrace a second time.
"Live." Its goals are clear: Eat and Live. The question now is what lengths will it have to go to do such?
If the little hollow had a shield he could get the job class Knight. Then he could be referred to as a "Hollow Knight".
Your genius will never cease to amaze me.
Will Hollow knight one day become arrancar?
Who knows? Survival comes first.