Miss Knives

**Miss Knives** is a character in chapter 1 of *Paper Lily*, serving as the game's boss.

## Story

**WARNING: Contains spoilers for Chapter 1: Miss Knives' Home. Trigger warnings for child neglect, death, bullying, and suicide.**

### Human past

By handing each uncovered special item to *the painting with two protuding hands, expecting something* located in the locked room in the library in the correct order, it's possible to uncover Miss Knives' backstory.

### **The First Blessing - The Mirror**

By placing the Mirror on the painting, it's possible to know that Miss Knives was born blind, and because of that, her parents had thought of abandoning her, due to a blind girl not being able to help the family. Despite that, her mother says that they loved her so much that they gave her a chance to live with them. Miss Knives says that her life was just below average, managing through her life just fine; doing her chores, going to the market, and helping with the vegetable garden of her parents, which was good, since her mother got sick during that time and became bed-bound and was expected to stay like that for the rest of her life.

Miss Knives even managed to make a friend, named Iris, whom she would meet at the riverbank every day. Miss Knives talks about Iris as a cheerful girl, always talking excitedly about everything in the village they lived in, making "the world sound bright", as Miss Knives says. They are implied to be very close, even making a deal of running away together once they turn 14 years old, despite Miss Knives being okay with the simple life she lived, being enough as long as she has Iris by her side. This becomes more apparent as Miss Knives says *"my only wish... it was just to be able to see her."*

This is when it's implied for her to receive the first blessing, which grants her the ability to see. She wakes up one day and was able to see her surrounding:; shapes, colors, her parents, the broken dining table, the weeds in the garden, the chipped cup she would drink from, and her wrinkled, probably poor-quality clothing. But, despite being in this situation, she was happy seeing it, calling them *"the most beautiful things I laid my eyes on."* But, despite feeling so positive about her surroundings, she didn't feel the same about her own appearance.

Due to the sudden "blessing", Miss Knives' parents slowly became distant from her, and even the people from her village became suspicious of her, staring at her and whispering behind her back. From what the dialogue says, they all seemed scared of her after that sudden blessing that gave back her vision. Even Iris seemed nervous of staying around Miss Knives, but was still happy that she recovered her eyesight, calling it a miracle.

The more time passed, the more Miss Knives' parents began avoiding her, brushing her away whenever she tried speaking to them, and seeming to hate her, as Miss Knives speaks about the hatred in their eyes when they looked at her.

### **The Second Blessing - The Sketchbook**

By placing the sketchbook on the painting, Miss Knives begins speaking about the second blessing, and what came before it. On the beforehand mentioned riverbank, Iris would talk about the things Miss Knives wasn't able to see, but now, since she was actually able to, it was fairly different. Even though, Miss Knives still appreciated Iris and her company.

To celebrate the "miracle", Iris steals a sketchbook and watercolors from her family, to give as a gift to Miss Knives, which were told that were very expensive. Iris says that the gift was given since Miss Knives always wanted to paint, so then she could achieve her dreams.

After getting the gift, Miss Knives started the habit of showing her mother the paintings she'd do, since she was bed-bound. The paintings began as simple things like trees and objects, but she also started liking to paint portraits of people, due to how she saw people as beautiful and distinct. Although mostly making innocent and normal paintings, something else started showing up on the paper; twisted and scary creatures only painted in black. Miss Knives doesn't recall painting them. Every morning after she discovered the creepy paintings, more started showing up, Miss Knives still not recalling painting them.

### **The Third Blessing - The Cold Compress**

Before the third blessing took place, Miss Knives' mother started getting worse in her illness, her father expecting her death afterwards. Although, Miss Knives feared the possibility, not wanting her mom to die. To lower the fever, Miss Knives offered her a cold compress to lower the fever, due to her mom always saying that water provided the best healing, and during the night she said a prayer to help her, wishing for her mom to get better.

Upon wishing this, the third blessing came. And it was a surprise to everyone; the village and Miss Knives herself. Her mother was as good as ever, out of bed and cooking, saying she was feeling so much better (even the best she's ever felt in years), and could even go to the market by herself.

But that was a terrible choice. After two days of the blessing, the people of the village knocked on her door, taking Miss Knives' mother under the accusation of witchcraft, claiming she "used her powers go get cured of a deadly illness", killing her by burning her at the stake so the village would be "cleansed".

### **The Fourth Blessing - The Foot**

Miss Knives starts talking about the fourth blessing in a very negative light, saying she "would never wish for (the blessing)".

The memory begins with Miss Knives, as a child, being bullied and having her sketchbook and watercolors taken away by the boys in (presumably) the school she'd go to. One of the boys (Boy 1) opens the notebook and sees the twisted creature paintings that began appearing in Miss Knives' sketchbook, those that she didn't even paint herself. The boy then claims she is a witch, calling the paintings "curse-casting". The boy then breaks the watercolor set and rips apart the notebook given to Miss Knives, continuing on accusing her to be a witch and threatening to reporting her. He mentions the time she was blind, saying she was "only supposed to see darkness anyway" and calling her a "blind freak". Suddenly, an unnatural force twists the boy's right leg in "almost 360 degrees", and then immediately twisting again, breaking it.

Along with this, Iris comes to Miss Knives, telling her that she couldn't see her anymore, due to her parents' demands. That makes Miss Knives even more upset.

### **The Fifth Blessing - The Knife**

After the incident of the fourth blessing, the people of the village, along with authorities, came to Miss Knives' house once again, claiming that she was a witch and accusing both her and her father of witchcraft, saying that the whole family; mother, father and daughter would need to be "cleansed". Out of panic, Miss Knives' father says that she isn't his daughter, and that he found her on the streets, further claiming she did not share his blood. He tries to escape after the authorities don't believe in his story, which leads to him being killed with a gun. After she was found, Miss Knives was taken to a prison cell, waiting for the trial. The only company she had were rats, to which she appreciated at the moment. Her execution would have been the morning after that day.

And that stayed until Iris shows up on the other side of the cell, bearing a knife and crying. Iris then confesses that she had told her dad about what happened, thinking that he would protect Miss Knives if she was really a witch, with that being quickly being proven wrong. Iris offers the knife to Miss Knives, implying to her that she should kill herself before the authorities do, since her father told her that "burning is slow and painful" and Miss Knives would be "better off doing it this way". To what's implied, Miss Knives does stab herself with the knife, committing suicide before her execution.

### Demon Past

After dying and turned into a demon, it's shown in the books inside the library that Miss Knives was taken to the facility as a subject and tested on by Glen and another unnamed demon, but being regarded as useless, since she would always fail the tests she was given. Because of that, she had her tests discontinued and left alone inside her cell. She was pretty much constantly verbally abused by the people using her as a subject, being called pitiful, useless, and probably many other names. And, perhaps after many days alone by herself, she created her own illusion world, which is the cozy house that *Lacie* and *Sai* enter when going deep into the facility.

## Lilith

Lilith is an occasionally mentioned character, told by Miss Knives to be the one that gave her all of those blessings. She holds hatred for her, promptly attacking Lacie after the "smell" of her reminding Miss Knives of Lilith. It's also implied that Lilith is the same kind of creature that cursed Lacie, since Miss Knives thought Lacie was Lilith due to their similar smell.

## Battle

    The battle begins when Miss Knives appears after Lacie burns all five blessings in the fireplace, prompting her to attack. During the battle, Lacie must skillfully avoid the knives thrown by Miss Knives within one minute. Miss Knives mainly attacks by continuously hurling numerous knives while aiming to slay her. Lacie will have three lives if she drinks the rainbow potion (the one you obtained from *Little Kat)* and releases Sai from the cage. If Lacie successfully dodges all the knives, Miss Knives will freak out, repeatedly screaming "get out" before everything goes white, shattering the illusion. Alternatively, there is the option to skip the battle if desired.

## Trivia

* Miss Knives was originally created by *ShotaDeer* as an adoptable and was sold by *Kaiyakii* for the game.
* In 2021, Leef 6010 posted a contest on Twitter in which participants must draw their interpretation of Miss Knives' head under her veil. The contest ran until October 31st, and the 10 winners will have their drawings will be recreated as paintings to hang in Miss Knives House. Additionally, their names will be featured in the credits.