Ever since my climb out of the basin I’ve always felt a sense of emptiness. Even under the guide of Hallownest’s most successful king I felt like I was missing something. He loved me, and that might have helped a little, but life was hard. I lived day by day, listening to his orders and never thinking of anything greater. I figured he wanted to help me overcome my state. He fed me well and taught me to fight and I grew, but the nothingness inside grew with me. One day the king ordered me to enter an egg, a dark and desolate prison, and slay a being named the Radiance.

In the darkness, my emptiness grew and nearly consumed me. I wanted out, through escape of this prison (although I thought there was no escape), or through death. I became hopeless as the darkness stretched on for an eternity and infinite it seemed. For a long time it was as if the whole world was nothing but void. What use was living in such a place? Life cannot exist in a void and life made of it has no will to continue living.

Just as I lost my last shred of hope, I saw a brilliant light. As I moved toward it, I felt lighter and happier than I ever had. I was compelled to keep moving forward. The light inspired me for the first time in my life, and gave me the confidence to go on. As I moved forward, its radiance grew and soon the light surrounded and engulfed me. It pierced and entered me and I consumed it happily. The irremovable hollowness which once seemed like a core flaw of my being evaporated under its brilliance.

In the end, the Radiance, a being whom I was created explicitly to kill, was my only savior. Her light freed me from the chains of my creation, and gave me a completeness I sought out. The light did not blind me but helped me see more. Like the breaking of a spell, I could see past the darkness of the egg as the Radiance revealed all of Hallownest to me. I saw a dark and desolate world tyrannized by the king’s rule. But I felt no sorrow or despair, for I had seen the light, and I knew that soon, so would the rest of the bugs.