Hollow Knight isn’t exactly a horror game, but it has its share of creepy encounters and lore nonetheless. While there are others in the game that should probably rank higher, the one that’s stuck with is the encounter with No Eyes. She’s the shade of a warrior bug found in the Stone Sanctuary within Greenpath. It’s a quiet place of total darkness, and its here that the former warrior was laid to rest after succumbing to the Infection. Except…she didn’t rest. She continued her attempts to protect others from the infection the only way she knew how: by stripping their eyes out.

Precious little is known about No Eyes. We know she was a warrior and that she had children under her care at some point. We also know that she was basically driven insane by her fear of the infection spreading throughout Hallownest. According to the Hollow Knight wiki, No Eyes somehow learned that the infection spread through dreams and stopped sleeping in the hope that she wouldn’t be affected. This seemingly worked for a little while, but one can only go without sleep for so long before they start losing their grip on reality. Such was the case for No Eyes, sadly. In her sleep deprived and half-maddened state, she concluded that the only way to save herself and her children from the infection was to make them all blind. You can still see the evidence of this extreme action on No Eyes’ shade and the corpses of the bugs in her tomb (possibly some of her children?).

It’s unknown how long No Eyes and her children lasted after she took their eyes, but it probably wasn’t very long. They all died quickly enough for a tomb to be constructed and their bodies interred before the infection took the rest of Hallownest. She also seems very confused, thinking that the Knight is another one of her children in need of “salvation.” Now that they’re all dead (she’s at least aware that her children are dead) she’s obsessed with finally giving them the rest they were denied in life. This is why she attacks the Knight while singing her haunting lullaby (her’s is the only fight that sounds like this by the way), she’s trying to give it the only kind of piece she knows.

The story of No Eyes isn’t exactly scary; if anything it’s tragically ironic. She successfully avoided the madness of the infection only to succumb to another kind of madness. Still I can’t helped but find the story a little chilling. This bug did terrible things to herself and her family in the name of protection, and she’d still be lingering on in Hallownest if it weren’t for the Knight. Make sure you don’t listen to her song for too long by the way; your own dreams might just wind up haunted too.

---

Have you played Hollow Knight? What do you think of the No Eyes encounter? Does this remind of of anything from another game?

Image edited by Hatmonster