Hollows



"She can see it all. The Void breaking and spreading through all the cracks, like seawater sinking an old ship."

- The Outsider's comment at the first hollow

Hollows are small holes in the world where the Void is leaking through. Thanks to the Sliver of the Eye, Billie Lurk can see these gaps, giving her glimpses of what is and what could be. The Black Shard Arm can interact with the hollows, prompting a comment from the Outsider. Because of the Eye of the Dead God, the Cult of the Outsider can also see the hollows, and have made a study of them. However, they cannot interact with them like Billie can.

Visually, hollows appear as a certain object, usually a poster, flickering and jumping around, being replaced with different versions of itself or with other objects entirely. These different versions or objects come from alternate timelines.

Death of the Outsider
Breanna Ashworth theorized that the ritual that brought back Delilah Copperspoon from the Void had damaged reality, allowing the phenomenon to occur. Some members of the Cult of the Outsider also came to the same conclusion, lamenting that she had done enough damage and come close to undoing what they had done.

Follow the Ink

 * The galley of the Dreadful Wale: "She can see it all. The Void breaking and spreading through all the cracks, like seawater sinking an old ship."
 * Inside the gate to Upper Cyria: "We carry what was done to us through the rest of our endless days. No one asked if we wanted it."
 * Corner of Duchess Lisandra Avenue and Canal Passage: "I've seen the bones these places are built on. I've seen them under the mud in the riverbanks, under the stones in the streets. It will all shudder and writhe."
 * Next to the Spector Club entrance: "All the old boundaries are falling apart. Between the living and the dead, the real and the forgotten. She watches them crumbling."
 * Across the street from Dolores Michaels Deposit & Loan Bank: "The waves break against the shore, and threaten everything they have built. They cower, fearful, and try to halt the tides."
 * Near the crashed rail car on Ferella Way: "A thousand lives, a thousand choices, all converged on one wounded body, one wounded mind."

The Bank Job

 * Inside the gate to Upper Cyria : "These people lay their thoughts, their petty wants, their murderous desires in front of me to witness. I cannot turn away."
 * Ferella Way: "There is death in their dark eyes. These creatures, burned alive to light the world."
 * Next to the Spector Club entrance: "Whales carry harpoons in their backs, and chains caught in their bloody teeth. They kill, and dive deep to escape the slaughter."
 * Boiler room in the bank: "They scramble to find meaning while each day cuts deeper into their throats. Some want revenge, others just want peace."
 * Security and Administration office in the bank: "There is freedom in being hated. There is license in being cast out. Some learn this lesson a little too well."
 * Vault Maintenance room in the bank: "They carve my mark into the old bones bleached by the sun. They carve my mark into their skin. They learn true hunger in the Void."

The Stolen Archive

 * Below the apartment being raided by Overseers: "The Void tempts mysteries and craves answers. But all it gives is a form to the world's fears, a hole in the world."
 * Outside the Royal Conservatory: "All these charms, these runes and fetid offerings on shrines made for me, will be nothing more than objects worn of meaning. Bones and dead things, thrown into the dirt."
 * In the curator's office of the Royal Conservatory: "They scream against indifference and whisper questions. All their hate, their loneliness, their terror. They break against the rocks, one wave after another."

A Hole in the World

 * Near the beginning of the mission: "I died because they demanded it. But soon there won't be any more demands."
 * Just past the area guarded by wolfhounds: "The ones who made me have watched the Void for centuries with a dead eye, rotting from the inside. But they won't meet my gaze."
 * The statue just outside Shindaerey North Quarry: "She will peel back all the lies and symbols. For some, a catastrophe. For others, a revelation. And for some, my death will be a promise."
 * At the top of the elevator: "What will it be like, to finally experience an ending? I see forever, and even I can't see that future."
 * In the area outside Malchiodi's room: "When I died, this world was remade. And when I die again..."
 * The Envisioned drawing near the start of the library: "She has seen me through dark waters. Soon she will see me unobscured."
 * On the ledge overlooking the main yard of the quarry: "This will be the last of all the old rituals. The age closes around us all like rows of black teeth."

Trivia

 * After using the Eye of the Dead God during the mission A Hole in the World, all the hollows in the mission will reset, allowing Billie to interact with them again.
 * During the mission A Crack in the Slab, while performing certain actions in the past which change the present, the protagonist can look at affected objects through the shards of the Timepiece, and observe the objects flicker in and out of existence, in similar fashion to the hollows.
 * There are also many hollow-like anomalies inside Stilon's study, hinting at timelines being overlapped.
 * The ability that allows Billie to see Hollows is called Glimpse Hollows, according to the Dishonored Roleplaying Game.