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After a long session of adventuring through the ruins of Hallownest, the Knight decided it was time to temporarily return to Dirtmouth. The Knight always liked coming back to the small town, it made it feel at ease being near other bugs in a safe area. Plus, while it was almost entirely abandoned and fairly run-down, the town had a beauty to it, one that the Knight revelled in. It couldn’t wait to be back. Without realizing it, the Knight had already made its way to the well that led back out to the surface. It leapt up and used its mantis claws to dig into the side of the well and bounced off the sides until it latched onto the edge of the well, and looked at the town ahead.
Something was off. The usual harsh winds that surrounded Dirtmouth were completely absent, causing the dreary town to entirely silent. Not even the sound of Zote’s incessant ramblings was present. Nor Nymm’s accordion playing. The town was truly and entirely silent. The Knight was immediately on edge at this. Peering out at the town from the well revealed none of the sights that the Knight had expected, as there appeared to be no one in the town square. It hoisted itself up from the well, and made its way to the centre of town. True to its assumptions, no one was there. Elderbug was not standing in the spot he always was, Nymm was not here playing the accordion, and Zote was not here babbling to Bretta about his “precepts”. Taking a peek inside the mapping shop revealed that Iselda and Cornifer were not at home, and Sly was not present in his store either. Entering the stag station and ringing the bell, the Knight waited to see if the Last Stag would show up, but it wasn’t present either. It appeared that Dirtmouth was absent of any life whatsoever. The Knight sat down on the iron bench that stood at the centre of the town and reasoned with itself. Surely everyone was just gathered somewhere else, perhaps in some other area of Dirtmouth?
Wandering through the streets of the ghost town revealed no sign of the missing bugs. The town seemed oddly dark, before the Knight realized that even the lumaflies that formerly occupied the lampposts were gone too. All that the Knight had to reassure itself was the sound of its own footsteps, lightly pattering on the stone streets. The Knight checked every single house it came across, but to no avail, only destroyed furniture and forgotten memories resided in these homes any more. Despite not finding anyone, the Knight felt as though it was being watched from somewhere as it wandered the streets of Dirtmouth for what felt like hours. Rounding back around at the centre of town, the Knight sat down on their favourite bench and began to worry at the disappearance of its friends. Where had everyone gone? Why had they left? Despite being a vessel, its mind was awash with questions. It couldn’t help but worry, it had grown to care so much for all of these bugs, even Zote, so to see that they’ve all disappeared without a trace unnerved it greatly. Maybe Confessor Jiji knew where they had gone?
Departing the town square and making its way past the well, the Knight arrived at the graveyard and eventually reached the cave the Jiji lived in. Peering into the cave, the Knight took tentative steps forward into the hollow. Its steps reverberated throughout, breaking the deathly silence that had gripped the Knight’s mind since it left the well. It stepped right in front of the hole that Confessor Jiji hid in and waited for her to reveal herself to the Knight. A moment passed. Then a few moments passed. Then more, and more, and more. Jiji had not revealed herself. The Knight peered into the hole she usually walked out of, but could see no sign of her in there. It appeared that much like the others in Dirtmouth, Jiji had disappeared too. The Knight was in a full-blown panic now. It was truly all alone. A sudden sound shook it from its panic, the sound of scraping coming from outside of the cave. This was the first noise the Knight had heard that wasn’t caused by itself, and it was immediately on edge. Unsheathing its nail, it stalked forward. Upon reaching the exit of the cave, the Knight hid behind the edge of the exit and gazed out into the outside. Not a soul was out there. Deeply afraid, the Knight made its way outside. It looked all around itself in hopes of finding the source of the noise, but nothing was there. The Knight decided to go back into the well to explore and try to find anyone else in the ruins of Hallownest. It stood in front of the well, then leapt down into the ruined kingdom below.
Only to land on the ground hidden by the edges of the well.
For some reason, the entrance to Hallownest was completely blocked, as if an entrance had never even existed there in the first place. The ground was as firm as anywhere else, and despite a few attempts of bashing the ground in with its nail, the Knight eventually gave up. The elevator that led to Crystal Peak was gone too, which the Knight had only now just noticed. With its main entrance to Hallownest blocked, the Knight ran back into town and over to the stag station in a vain attempt to see if it could get the stag to show up. Unluckily for it, the door to the stag station had been mysteriously locked. If the Knight wasn’t panicked before, it certainly was now. All exits from Dirtmouth had disappeared, and the Knight was trapped. It went into a manic sprint, dashing through the streets of Dirtmouth. If it could scream, it would do so right now, and very loud. However, it couldn’t, and the only noise that it could hear was the sound of its own footsteps. It was running around the town, hoping to find any sort of exit it could use, but it could find none. The streets of Dirtmouth seemed to go on forever, and the Knight quickly found itself lost. All the while being stuck in near-total silence. The silence was crushing, the Knight’s anxiety going through the roof and causing it to stagger and stumble as it dashed throughout the now labyrinthian streets of Dirtmouth. All logic had left it, instead replaced by pure, unbridled terror.
To the Knight, it felt as if it was stuck sprinting through the streets for hours, maybe even days. After a while, the terror that it felt slowly turned into desperation, having been trapped wandering for far longer than it would’ve liked. It was mind-numbing, the Knight hadn’t seen anyone in ages, it was scared and alone and it just wanted to see its friends again. The sound of its footsteps was the only thing keeping it company anymore, breaking the insanity-inducing silence. But suddenly, something gleaming in the dark night caught the Knight’s attention. The bench. Nearly diving over towards the familiar sight, the Knight sat on the bench then lied down on it, finally having found some solace in the living nightmare it was going through. It took a while of lying down and regaining its composure before the Knight noticed that the elevator that led to Crystal Peak had returned. A way out had finally shown up.
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Navigating Crystal Peak was almost second nature to the Knight, much like any other area in Hallownest. For some reason, even though it had only really gone through this area once or twice, it knew the place like the back of its claw. Almost as if it had lived a life before this one. None of the infected miners and other monsters that usually populated Crystal Peak were there, which while convenient for traversing didn’t do any favours for the Knight’s growing sense of loneliness. Despite the fact that it could’ve gone anywhere it wanted, it found itself drawn to the path that led to the Hallownest’s Crown. Dodging through the deadly crystals that lined the path to the peak of the kingdom was certainly a challenge, but the Knight, being determined to find something, anything to save it from the nightmare that it was in was completely willing to take on that challenge.
It took a while, but the Knight eventually made its way to Hallownest’s Crown. The winds were just as absent up here as they were down in Dirtmouth, but the Knight didn’t pay any attention to that as something much more pressing drew its attention. Hornet was stood right at the edge of the peak underneath a giant statue, back facing the Knight. The statue itself was of some kind of moth, but it was heavily damaged, the wings of it crumbled off. For some reason, the Knight had the inclination that that wasn’t how it usually was. It didn’t care about the statue though, as its sister was right there, the first bug they had seen in ages. It couldn’t help but run over to her immediately, breaking the silence at the kingdom’s peak with its footsteps. Reaching the spider, the Knight laid its claw upon her back, ecstatic to see its sister after such a scary experience. At that moment, the Knight felt at ease, however as Hornet turned around the Knight suddenly had a bad feeling rise inside of it. What it saw made it release its grip on Hornet immediately, and back away from her.
Her face was not as it normally was, it was completely blank. Her face wasn’t made of the same material either, and a closer look revealed what it was. It was almost akin to melting maggot flesh, an oozing and dripping viscous material with strange growths all over it that made the Knight internally gag at the sight. Her red dress wasn’t pure red anymore, but instead a mix of red and black spirals that both hypnotized and revolted the Knight. This wasn’t Hornet, this was some kind of monster. The Knight immediately drew its nail, but the weapon dissipated in its claws, turning into a fine dust that scattered on the ground. It was now defenseless. Looking back behind itself, the Knight saw that the cave entrance it came through had now been blocked up. Its exit was gone too. All the Knight could do was stand there as “Hornet” approached. Suddenly, “Hornet” stood upright. The flesh on her face twisted and pulsated until the outline of a twisted grin and wide-open eyes formed on top of it.
“Huhuhuhu…” the thing laughed.
The Knight had fallen down on its back at some point, and was staring up at the creature that dared to take the figure of its sister.
“Oh, how it is wonderful to see you squirm…” the thing spoke, although despite speaking it didn’t make a noise, instead filling the Knight’s mind with the creature’s words. As a result, it didn’t break the silence that persisted.
“Do you feel it? The feeling of losing all power that you have?” the thing asked.
The Knight couldn’t move.
“I could not help but poke and prod at your mind, and oh... what gorgeous results followed.”
The Knight couldn’t cry.
“Driven to pure madness… how I love to see you suffer.”
The Knight couldn’t think.
“You have made yourself a target… such is the nature of godhood.”
The Knight couldn’t scream. It couldn’t break the maddening silence that crushed its soul.
“You will lose much in the forthcoming battle. I will see to that.”
Suddenly, all of the Knight’s friends appeared behind the creature. Elderbug, Zote, Bretta, Iselda and Cornifer, Sly, Jiji, Nymm, and so many other bugs stood behind the monster. Their stares were frozen in pure terror. Mustering any will it had left, the Knight attempted to reach out to them, but it was too late, as they all keeled over and fell backwards over the cliff, to their presumed death. The Knight still couldn’t scream.
“Time is ticking. I shall reign once again, and you shall be my conduit. The bugs of the world will know my name again.”
The creature suddenly grew in size, shedding Hornet’s body and turning into a mass of chitin and flesh wrapped in a red and black swirling vortex. The Knight, released from its paralysis, rushed over to Hornet’s corpse and shook it, but got no response.
“I will be seeing you soon.” the creature spoke, and then the silence ended.
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The void cried out in despair. Then anger.