Hollow City (A Hollow Knight OC AU)

Wired and Afraid (Intro)

(Art by @/flame-shadow on Tumblr)

Wyre slowly blinked his hollow eyes, utterly confused by his surroundings. A searing pain was shooting through his head.

He was still in The Abyss. The bottomless pit that the Pale King sent so many of his siblings into. 'What... happened?' he thought to himself.

Gritting his teeth against the throbbing ache, Wyre pushed himself upright, his limbs shaking with alarming weakness. His legs almost gave out underneath him.

'Why am I so weak right now?' he wondered. 'It's not like I was out for too long.'

At least, he didn't think he had been unconscious for too long. His memories were a muddied haze, obscured by a disorienting fog. All he could definitively recall was being sent to find an artifact in The Abyss.

Steeling his resolve, Wyre hauled himself to his feet, stubbornly pushing past the unnatural lethargy weighing him down. He needed to return to the palace and report to the Pale King, then he'll have another day of shadowing Grimm. His path would take him through the forgotten crossroads village of Dirtmouth.

But as Wyre made his way through the winding caverns, his step gradually slowed to a halt. The path he knew by memory was...gone. There were many strange structures along where the path once was.

What was more alarming were the figures scurrying about this strange landscape. At first, he mistook them for husks mindlessly patrolling the roads. But a second look revealed the unmistakable forms of vessels - hundreds of them, walking along the polished pathways in numbers that should have been impossibly high.

They were his kin, crafted from the same void essence as himself. Yet everything about their appearances and behaviors seemed utterly foreign. Rather than the cloaks Wyre was accustomed to, these vessels adorned themselves in unknown colored fabrics and strange accessories he didn't recognize.

His baffled gaze traced their movements, the casual way they seemed to mill about and converse - a shocking departure from the silent, solemn vessels he knew before.

The distant roar of some approaching metal behemoth snapped Wyre from his thoughts. He turned around and saw some sort of towering monster hurtling straight towards him.

"GET OUT OF THE ROAD DUMBASS!!"

Something slammed into Wyre's side, tackling him out of the way before the thundering metal carriage roared past with a deafening blast of sound. He hit the ground hard, dazed from the impact as his nail skittered from his grip.

When his mind momentarily cleared, Wyre found himself on the ground next to another vessel - distinctly feminine in form compared to his own. She pushed herself upright, brushing back her vibrant pink cloak as her hollow eyes met his own.

"Holy shit," she said under her breath. "What the hell is wrong with you?! You could've..."

The vessel's voice faded out of Wyre's mind, as he had many questions. Why are there other vessels? What are those clothes they wear? What was that thing that sped by? What happened to Dirtmouth? "Hello? Hello?! Are you even listening to me?!"

"Not at all." She snapped me out of my thoughts. "You saved my life, and I am grateful for that. However, you do not have the right to reprimand me as if I am a child!" Wyre hissed at her.

"Well, maybe I wouldn't "reprimand" you if you had some COMMON F**KING SENSE!" Silk shouted, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "What kind of psychopathic dumbass pulls out their nail at the sight of a truck coming at them head-on?!"

I blinked slowly, still reeling from the near-collision and her surprisingly crass manner of speaking for a vessel. "A...truck? Is what that thing was?" The word felt alien on my tongue. 'A truck? What in Hollownest is a truck?'

Silk's heated glare was replaced with a look of confusion as she studied my bewildered reaction. "Y-Yeah? You've...never seen a truck before?"

"No. Nothing even remotely like it." My empty gaze drifted over the strange metal behemoth that had nearly flattened me, a low rumbling echoing from its smoke-belching underbelly as it continued on down the polished path.

Where...where was I? This bizarre landscape surrounding us bore no resemblance to the familiar caverns and ruins of the underground kingdom I called home.

Silk seemed to pick up on my mounting confusion and disorientation. "Huh." She paused, tilting her head inquisitively. "Introduce yourself for me."

"Ah, yes, of course." I dipped into a reflexive bow, the motion calming the frantic writhing of my void essence. "My name is Wyre, a former Pale Knight under the rule of the Pale King. A sworn protector and traveler of Hollownest."

A flicker of bewilderment crossed Silk's feminine features. "Pale King? The Pale King died thousands of years ago. Where are you from??"

Her words felt like a physical blow, sending a tremor of denial rippling through me. "Pardon? Pale King Era? Thousands of years? No, no. That...that can't be right," I protested, shaking my head vehemently.

There had to be some other, more plausible explanation for the shocking changes all around us. My memories may have been fragmented, but I was certain I had been on a mission mere moments ago, not...not whatever cataclysmic event had reshaped our world into this alien, unsettling reality.

"Wyre-" Silk tried again, her tone a touch gentler.

"NO!" I snapped, cutting her off sharply as agitation flared within me. I took a calming breath to regain my composure "You do not know what you are talking about. I was not unconscious for long."

And yet...those few scant moments appeared to have irrevocably altered everything I knew. My surroundings, the bizarre vessels wandering about, the incomprehensible metal beasts roaming the streets. There could be no other reasonable explanations.

Silk seemed to read the naked confusion and denial warring across my blank face. "Wyre, look at it logically-"

"NO!" I lashed out again before I could stop myself. I clenched my hands into fists as humiliation burned through me at my unbecoming outburst. "Just...do not say it. Wrong! You are wrong!"

I could not - would not - accept the only conclusion that made sense, no matter how much evidence surrounded me. My mind rebelled violently against the notion. There had to be another answer, one that did not force me to confront how much the kingdom had apparently changed in my absence.

An uncomfortable silence stretched between us. Silk seemed to study me carefully before slowly offering her hand to him. It was an offer for him to stay with her.

"Do you... have anywhere to stay?"

Wyre swatted her hand away with force. "I do not need your sympathy," he growled, "I was once a Knight that traveled through Hollownest for years. I do not need you or anyone el-"  At that moment, Wyre almost got hit by a speeding car. He only survived because the vessel grabbed his wrist. He quickly wrenched himself out of her grip.

Wyre groaned, as asking for help was against everything he had been taught as a knight. After a tense moment, he reluctantly agreed to Silk's offer. "Great! Luckily, I have a spare bedroom," she smiled, hoping to defuse the tension.

As they started walking through the strange new city, Wyre became lost in thought. Everything and everyone he knew from his former life in Hollownest was long gone, with no chance of returning. A burning question gnawed at him that would not leave him alone - what force was it that had knocked him out for a thousand years?

One thing made its way through Wyre's thoughts.

"Welcome to Hollow City, Wyre."