I was walking down the streets of a bustling city at night. The bright neon signs of stores blaring, causing me to keep my own eyes half Lidded.
"Man, that shift was way too long. Gotta love people staying past store close." I mutter to myself while walking past a corner store.
As people walking past me my eyes were starting to get heavier and heavier. I had a slowly building tightness in my chest. My pace slowed even further as the tightness built higher and higher, till I could no longer walk; and had to grab onto a wall to stay up right.
I cluch at my chest, my breathing becoming rapid. A yell building in my throat only to die at the tip of my tongue as I lose the fight to stay upright. My eyes closing as I fell my final thoughts as I was passing out completely reverberating in my mind.
'This...hurts. sorry mom...dad...looks like I am not seeing you...this last time.'
My world goes black before my head slams against the concrete of the sidewalk.
I wake to the feeling of some liquid surrounding me completely. My body refusing to move despite any of my own efforts. It was pitch black and sight was impossible.
After feeling like this for a what felt like a eternity. Which in reality was 5 minutes. I felt my body lurch downwards, and I suddenly had light blinding my eyes, and fresh air hitting my lungs for what this body felt for the first time. And it reacted on insticts. It cried and wailed.
After what I could vaugely make out was a man handing me to another person, I figured out what the hell happened. I was just reincarnated. And I was just born.
'Man...my sight is utter shit. Cant see anything too well.' I think to my idly biting back feelings of utter horror, fear, and a very tiny amount of excitement at the thought of being reincarnated.
4 years later.
It was now years after my birth, and I learned many things. Most of all. Having memories of a past life made being a baby, and a toddler utter hell. I couldn't control my baby body very well, my coordination was terrible, and trying to force it was utterly exhausting. Ontop of that fact, I was born in japen, thus I had to start learning the language. Which, was a blessing in a way. Atleast I didnt have to pretend to learn a 'new' language.
Another thing I learned was i was in the world of MHA. That...was better then many of the other horrific places I could of ended up. How I found out? Embarrassingly to me but cute to most others was when I was merely 1 years old, my parents took me outside, and I was utterly dumb struck to see a person with a heavy bat mutation qurik. They were ugly by any means. But seeing very big. And very fluffy bat ears and fur, on a person was...shocking.
Oh yeah, I also learned my new name. It was Kara, Kara Taira. Oh I was also a girl now. I wasnt against it or anything. I actually so far preferred it. My new parents werent bad either, stricter then my parents in my last life, but also not as present as they both worked. I had proved to be very independent over time. But thats not to say I didnt love them dearly. It was hard not to. They took care of me, they never did anything to make me believe they didn't care.
It was a week before my birthday, my forth to be exact. The excitement was building in me, but over the days, my body was starting to ache, for the first couple days I just ignored it. But the night before my actual birthday something happened. I woke up in excruciating pain. Worse then the pain I felt as I died the first time, a scream of pain tore through my vocal cords, in both the literal and metaphoric sense. Causing the scream to die to merely a harsh and sporadic. Raspy coughs shake my small frame, as I cough up blood, not a small amount but a decent amount, the more I coughed up. The more black appeared in the blood; not only that but as the black liquid replaced the red, the less of it I coughed up. My body finally slumps forward, too over stimulated by the fire that was running throughout my body at this second.
As I pass out, I see a tall, thin framed person burst through my door. And my final thoughts ring in my head like a reverberating bell.
'No...I dont...I dont want to die. Not again. Please...'
After what felt like merely minutes to me, I wake up dizzy. Looking around sluggishly, my surroundings being of a stereotypical hospital room. A private one i noted to myself in a daze. I try and move, and notice it was slightly harder, and alot of things felt dulled? Farther away.
I lift up a hand to hold my head, only to freeze. My arm was different. It was slimer, but not by much, but the more startling thing was it was covered in hard black substance.
'Chitin?' I think to myself still shocked.
I look over myself more, and see my entire body was now covered in this chitin. I start to breathe more heaviky, more panic setting in. I try to yell for a doctor or really anyone. But nothing comes out, no sound. Which sets my panic off even worse. I grab at my face, only to find it touching a different kind of material. It wasnt like the chitin. It was harder, and smoother. But I couldnt focus on that truely. Not feeling my actual face, pushes me further into distress. Some black liquid leaking from the two holes that where my eyes.
I try and force myself to get up, to look for someone to help. I manage to get up barely, looking down at my feet, which where more like a birds you could say. Well if birds feet where covered in black chitin. I stumble my way to the rooms bathroom and look in the mirror and freeze.
I suddenly recognized what I was now. A Vessel. A container for the void from Hollow knight.
Now in my previous life. I fully completed both games, which took much longer then I would care to admit. I slowly calm down more and more as I actually thought. This must of been my quirk. To be a vessel. Which was actually much more powerful then I was honestly expecting. I start to look more appraising at my new form. I was the same height as I was before the transformation. The black chitin was rough, but also very flexible. I could easily still move freely. My face, or shall I say mask now was similar to the knight from the game. But my horns where different, they curved upwards both sides curving in before seemingly switching to curving outward and ending a point.
I flex my fingers a couple times, and then wipe away the liquid coming from my eye holes. Which I figured was Void. Now that I was calm, I felt how odd it felt, how distant most things currently felt. Like feeling through armor.
I slowly bring a hand up to one of the eye holes of my mask, and putting a finger gently into the hole, before quickly pulling back at the feeling of sudden and such intense contact. That little experiment confirmed something for me. I was the shade, and my current form was just my 'vessel'
'Heh, no wonder the Pale King called us that' I think to myself amused by that simple thought.