#JMC space logs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

spookybunnybabe · 20 days ago

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the whispering space station

Summary:

When the crew of the Red Dwarf encounters an abandoned space station drifting at the edge of a mysterious void, they have to board in order to stop their ship from being eaten up by the void. But as they board the station, they find themselves facing an ancient cosmic horror lurking within its depths. Separated and hunted by an entity that feeds on their deepest fears, each crew member must confront their worst nightmares. With reality warping around them, they must push through madness-inducing horrors to shut down the core before the abyss consumes them all.

first entry to my lovecraft x red dwarf anthology series called Fear of the Unknown.

link to ao3

warnings for: body horror and disturbing/unsettling themes.

The Red Dwarf drifted through the vast emptiness of deep space, its hulking shape lost in the cold, starless void. The only sounds in the control room were the gentle hum of the engines and the occasional flip of Lister’s magazine as he lounged, feet propped up on the console. Cat, immaculate as ever, was busy polishing his already flawless nails, while Rimmer paced, muttering about “protocols” and “proper procedures.”

“Honestly, Rimmer,” Lister said, not even glancing up from an article titled ‘The Top 10 Deep Space Curries You Must Try’, “if I have to hear one more word about protocols, I’ll bash my head against this console.”

“You don’t understand, Lister,” Rimmer snapped, his eyes darting nervously. “We’ve gone off course. Holly’s lost the coordinates again. For all we know, we’re drifting straight into a supernova or a black hole. We need diagnostics!”

“Or we could run a ‘shut up and relax’ program,” Cat quipped, inspecting his reflection. “I’m not stressing over space hazards; they’re bad for my skin.”

Before Rimmer could retort, Holly’s face flickered onto the screen, her expression unusually solemn. “Boys don’t know if this’ll be of interest, but I’m picking up an abandoned station. JMC origin, but it’s not on any current records. Looks like it’s been drifting for decades.”

“An abandoned station?” Kryten’s voice chimed in as he entered the room, his eyes locked on the screen. “In my experience, anything abandoned in space usually means disaster—or worse, ghosts.”

Rimmer rolled his eyes. “Oh, marvelous. Another relic from JMC’s glory days. What does the readout say, Hol?”

Holly’s face glitched, flickering between static and her usual deadpan expression. “Well, no life signs, no power, nothing really. But... it’s orbiting a big, gaping hole in space.”

Lister finally put his magazine down. “A gaping hole? How big we talking’, Hols?”

“Big enough to give you the heebie-jeebies,” Holly replied. “And I do mean big. It’s absorbing everything—light, radiation, signals—like it’s... hungry.”

Rimmer paled, his voice rising an octave. “Oh, brilliant! An invisible death trap. Why are we even thinking about going near it? It’s the classic horror setup; next thing you’ll be telling me the walls are bleeding, and people went mad.”

Lister threw his magazine at Rimmer’s head. “What’s wrong, Rimmer? Afraid of a little cosmic hole?”

“I’m not afraid, Lister,” Rimmer retorted, straightening his uniform. “I just don’t want to get sucked into a void and turned into space dust.”

“Holly, anything on the station logs?” Lister asked, ignoring Rimmer’s grumbling.

Holly’s screen flickered again. “Logs are... vague. The crew seemed to be researching something inside the station—something about the void’s energy. But in their last entry... well, they mentioned people disappearing. One by one.”

Kryten’s eyes narrowed. “Disappearing? In my experience, sir, people don’t tend to leave voluntarily when they vanish one by one.”

“Maybe they found a better spot,” Lister shrugged. “Nice beaches and all that?”

“Or,” Rimmer said, his voice edged with panic, “they got consumed by whatever’s inside that void! I don’t know why we’re even considering docking there—it’s clearly suicide.”

Cat, closing his mirror with a dramatic snap, shook his head. “If it’s eating light and everything else, I’m not going anywhere near it. I don’t do pale and ghoulish.”

“It’s not a vampire, Cat; it’s a void,” Lister laughed. “A really big void.”

“Bigger than that, Dave,” Holly said, her voice taking on a darker tone. “It’s moving.”

The crew fell silent, their eyes fixed on the screen.

“Moving?” Rimmer’s voice was tight with fear. “What do you mean, moving?”

“It’s expanding,” Holly replied. “And not in a slow, ‘oh isn’t this interesting’ way. It’s pulling everything into it—station included. We’re caught in its gravity. If we don’t act fast, we’ll be next.”

“Fantastic,” Rimmer scoffed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And our first thought is to investigate it?”

Kryten was already busy pulling up schematics. “It’s worse than that, sirs. The station seems to be at the very center of this... anomaly. Whatever’s inside isn’t behaving like any black hole I’ve seen. It’s emitting energy—unlike anything recorded.”

Lister leaned forward, a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. “What kind of energy?”

“By the sound of these logs... malevolent energy,” Kryten said, frowning. “The entries become more erratic—almost frantic. Mentions of shadows moving in the corridors, whispers, and... something ‘waking up.’”

“Waking up?” Cat shivered, his usual bravado faltering. “Yeah, that’s my cue to stay put. Anything that ‘wakes up’ in deep space is never good.”

Lister smirked. “Well, it’s that or sit here and get sucked in anyway.”

Rimmer threw up his hands. “Those are our options? Fly into an abyss and get torn apart or board a ghost ship full of malevolent energy? Fantastic!”

“Sirs,” Kryten said, scrolling through the last of the logs, “if we want to avoid becoming cosmic debris, we need to board the station. The central power core appears to be the source. If we can shut it down, we might stand a chance.”

Lister grinned. “Well then, guess we’re suiting up.”

As they approached the station, its jagged silhouette loomed larger, the darkness of the void swallowing what little light remained. The surface of the station looked scarred, as if twisted by unseen forces. Shadows seemed to dance along the metal exterior, and the air inside the ship grew colder.

“Holy, plot the safest landing spot,” Lister ordered, pulling on his suit. “And keep the engines running—just in case.”

“Engines are already at max, Dave, but that void’s got a grip like a giant squid. It’s not letting go easy.”

Rimmer’s eyes darted nervously. “I’m telling you; this isn’t a weekend trip. We’re flying into the belly of some cosmic beast.”

“Or we’re about to find some real treasure,” Lister shot back. “Think about it, Rimmer—who knows what’s inside?”

Kryten looked up from his console. “Logs show the power core might be connected to whatever’s warping the gravity. If we can disable it, we might disrupt the field.”

“Alright, boys,” Lister said, his grin faltering. “Time to find out what’s really in the dark.”

As the Red Dwarf docked on the derelict station, the ships metal hull scraping against the rusted exterior with an unsettling screech of metal on metal. The airlock hissed as it opened; a thick breeze of stale air carried through the scent of something metallic and something that smelt rotten. As they stepped out, Lister took a deep breath in as the first one to taste the unpleasant air.

“Smells like someone’s been storing corpses,”

“Not funny, Lister,” Rimmer muttered as they all stepped out into the eerie dense air, “I’m telling you; this is how it starts. Cold air, eerie silence and then bam, aliens,”

Cat pulled at his suit feeling the nippiness of the air around him, “This air is bad for the skin and the lighting? Does nothing for my complexion. I do not like this one bit,”

Kryten’s sensors whirred as he adjusted his scanners trying to make sense of this nonsensical area, “I’m detecting minimal atmospheric pressure, but the radiation levels are...inconsistent. It’s as if the stations systems are trying to stabilize and something is stopping them. I’d recommend that we all stay alert,”

The crew stepped onto the docking bay where their footsteps echoed in the cavernous empty space. The walls were like a patchwork of different bits of metal of varying degrees of stability and exposed electrics. The lights were barely on, flickering in a fight to stay alive. Shadows stretched long twisting tendril like features across the hallway.

No one spoke. Who knew what was lurking beneath the darkness? However, the sound of Holly’s voice crackled through the communication device as if the signal in this space station wasn’t very good.

“I’m having a hard time keeping up with you boys,” Holly’s voice crackled through static, “The void’s pull is getting stronger too. Don’t take too long,”

“Noted, Hol,” Lister said gripping his flashlight more as he scanned the area of the corridor, “Right, Kryten. Where’s the power core?”

Kryten’s eyes darted between the station’s schematics, “It should be approximately four levels down, through the central corridor and past the engineering bay. I recommend caution,”

“Four levels?” Rimmer’s voice quivered through the dark halls, the lights dancing on the walls as if they were alive with monstrous shadows, “I suggest we cut our losses before this thing eats us whole,”

“And get slowly sucked into the void? Fat chance,” Lister shot back, “I would rather die trying to turn it off than risk being sucked in by doing nothing,”

Cat’s eyes flickered nervously between the shadows and his reflection in a cracked metal panel. He gave it one curious glance before turning back to the others, “Well, I don’t see anything worth staying for. There better be an all you can eat buffet at the end of this or I’m out,”

Kryten continued to lead the way as they moved deeper into the station. The air felt heavy, like wading through the fog of a dark day. With each step they took, it echoed for far longer than it should have as the sound stretched as far as the shadow until it was swallowed whole by the silence. The lights cast pale, sickly beams that barely cut through the murk which left long pools of darkness between the dim light. Every few feet, the lights would flicker leaving beats of darkness between those moments before spluttering back to life as if the station was gasping for air.

Rust streaked down from the seams like dried blood, here and there, pipes jutting out at odd angles. The temperature kept dropping the more and more they delved into the uninviting corridors. The walls wept with condensation, droplets running down like cold sweat.

Lister shone his light along the walls when his beam caught something; unfamiliar symbols that etched deep into the metal. It was jagged, angular and seemed to be writing of some kind but of what language, it was hard to say.

Kryten’s eyes caught on and scanned it, “It’s not JMC standard. Looks almost...ritualistic,”

Cat shivered, “Whatever it is, it’s bad for my vibes,”

“Agreed,”

The crew moved deeper and deeper into the winding corridors as the air grew colder and the shadows lengthened along the walls. Each step sounded heavier with the creaking beneath their boots. The station started subtly shifting around them, as if it were alive and breathing, a low insistent murmur. As they moved along, Lister kept darting his flashlights to the unknown writing on the wall as if trying to decipher it even though the language was completely alien to them. Due to this, he started to lag behind, he frowned almost frustrated by the lack of understanding of what happened here.

That was when he heard it.

The whispering.

It wasn’t obvious at first. Soft, like distant echoes. He turned around to try and pinpoint it before looking forward and seeing the rest had gotten further than him. Lister caught up with them, trying to process the barely audible terror.

“Do you hear that?” He asked them.

“Hear what?” Cat replied, “All I hear is this place trying to ruin my mood,”

But then it became clearer. Sharper and clearer which made Lister stop and turn around. It was no longer a distant echo, but it sounded like it came from the bottom of the hallway and instead of it sounding like a jumble of a mix of different people talking, it was one voice, and he recognized it.

He dropped his flashlight.

“What is going on Lister?” Rimmer asked, annoyance clear in his voice which was probably exacerbated by the nervousness. Lister didn’t say anything as he strained his ears so he could hear it again. He knew the voice. He knew it so well and it just couldn’t be possible...

“...Kochanski?”

He stared into the dark recesses of the corridor. The more he stared into the voice, the more his eyes dared to stare into the black void of despair, the more he felt himself lost in the whispering. It was her.

Dave...why did you leave me?

Lister’s heart was pounding in his chest. He swept his flashlight into his hands and shunned it down the hallway. He felt something touch his shoulder but when he turned around, no one was behind him. The rest of the crew were ahead of him, and he looked over towards them.

“Guys. It’s Kochanski. She’s alive...I don’t know how but...” Lister didn’t know where to begin. He moved his torch to look down into the corridor as if he was ready to dive headfirst into the abyss. Uncertainty twisted his gut.

The crew exchanged glances, and Kryten’s sensor’s beeped, “Sir, there are no signs of life beyond this point. Whatever you are hearing...”

“Lister, it’s messing with your head,” Rimmer’s voice was surprisingly soft, but it did nothing to mask that he was terrified, “We need to stick together. The last thing that we need is to be separated,”

But Lister simply could not tear his eyes away from the void for two minutes. The whispers in the dark, each word climbing and burying deep within his skin like a parasite digging and digging into his skull. His breath hitched as he took a step towards the voice.

“Dave, why did you leave me?”

“Lister!” Rimmer’s voice rang out, but Lister didn’t hear it as his steps kept carrying him towards the voice. It was closer now, like it was beyond the veil of a shadow.

Why didn’t you come back?

He shone the light deeper and deeper. He ignored the sound of his crew calling on him as he walked into the void, almost as if he was being pulled by a magnet. The shadowy tendrils of the dark pulling him in deeper and deeper within its grasp. As he continued to shine his light, he wasn’t hitting anything, and it seemed as if it were to go on forever and then he saw her.

Kochanski. Her silhouette bathed in the weak flickering light. Relief flooded over him. Years of loneliness and missing her crashed down on him and suddenly, she was there.

“Krissy,” He called out, his voice cracking a touch as his steps quickened up, “Is that really you?”

Dave.

The relief was gone.

Something about her was off.

Her body twitched slightly, unnatural as if she were a puppet on strings. Hope drained from his face as he stared at her. Her head movement jerky. When her eyes met his, they were dull and glassy as if dolls eyes were forcibly shoved into her sockets. Her mouth twitched into a smile, but it was far too wide as the corners of her mouth were stretched unnaturally ear to ear.

Don’t you recognize me, Dave?

Lister took a step back. His eyes widened as he watched her step into the light. Her skin, pale and waxy, seemed too tight for her skull which made it look like a mask. The longer he looked at her, the more he noticed small details such as her hair hanging limp and plastic looking, far too perfect. Her hands and fingers stretched unnaturally towards him.

It looked like a mockery of the human form.

I’m so cold Dave.

The sound didn’t even sound like it was coming from her as the sound was out of sync with the moment of her lips which revealed oddly shaped teeth.

Lister’s breath came in ragged gasps as she continued to move closer to him. Her limbs twisted in horrible ways that no human body could naturally. Her arms began bending at grotesque angles with the sound of bones snapping and cracking with each moment.

He stumbled back, against a cold wall, “You are not Krissy,”

But she kept advancing, her head jerking to the side. Her body began to look more like a costume for what was inside of it. Her neck peeled like a mask revealing the raw, wet grotesque flesh underneath.

Don’t you recognize me, Dave?

Lister stumbled back, his flashlight beam catching her arm as it split apart, sinews unraveling into a mass of writhing tendrils. He felt a cold, clammy hand grip his arm—her hand, or what was left of it. The flesh was too soft, too pliable, and it squeezed, pulling him toward her.

With a yell, he wrenched himself free, falling back. The flashlight rolled from his hand, its beam casting erratic shadows that twisted into monstrous shapes. He scrambled to his feet as she lunged, her body elongating, joints popping audibly as they twisted to impossible angles. Her skin split open as she smiled, revealing something dark and writhing beneath.

Lister dropped his flashlight. The beam rolled and spun wildly as it cast nightmarish shadows that twisted and turned, merging with the darkness. He yelled, his voice echoing in the darkness and then...silence.

The silence was broken by the sound of frantic footsteps as Rimmer, Kryten and Cat came sprinting down the corridor. The walls seemed to close in on them.

“Lister!” Rimmer shouted as he scanned the darkness, “Where are you?”

Kryten’s sensors beeped erratically, struggling to get a clear reading, “I’m picking up faint traces of his life signs, but there’s something interfering and I can’t pinpoint his location,”

Cat’s eyes darted from side to side, “This place is bad for my mood and worse, my style,”

They rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt. The beam from Rimmer’s flashlight caught the edge of something lying on the floor, spinning around slowly. It was the flashlight Lister had, and its beam dim and flickering, casting weak rays that barely pierced the shadows.

Kryten leaned down, his hand grabbing the flashlight, “This...This is where the signal stops. There is a high concentration of neurological activity in this area...as if something has tampered with the atmosphere,”

Rimmer’s flashlight swept over the walls, catching glimpses of those jagged angular symbols etched into the metal.

“Lister!! This isn’t funny!” Rimmer snapped in the silence, “Where are you?”

Kryten leaned back up and looked at the other two, “My theory is that the station is reacting to us and is...targeting us,”

“Then we need to keep moving,” Cat said, voice urgent, “We can’t let this thing pick us off one by one,”

Rimmer looked at the other two and then shone his flashlight back in the darkness. And just before they rounded the corner, Rimmer swore he saw movement—a flash of Lister’s face in the shadows, but it was wrong. His eyes were too dark, his smile too wide.

He shuddered, forcing himself to move faster. The station wasn’t just playing with them—it was hunting.

The crew climbed the staircase to the next floor. The metal steps were creaking under their boots. The walls felt much closer there as if the station itself was beginning to squeeze in on them. Each breath was visible in the cold dark air, leaving a metalic taste in the back of their throats.

Kryten continued to lead the way, following his scanner as his flashlight bounced erratically as he moved throughout the walls.

“I’m telling you, when this is all over, I am going to need a serious spa day,” Cat said, “This place is giving me stress lines,”

“Let’s just keep moving,” Rimmer muttered as his eyes darted nervously between the shadows, “The sooner we find out what’s causing this, the sooner we can leave,”

Kryten’s scanner beeped as they reached the next corridor, a narrow hallway lined with twisted, rusted pipes, “The energy levels are increasing. We’re getting closer to the source,”

As they moved forward, they kept close together but then Cat began to hear something. He stopped, his ears twitching as he looked around and then his ears twitched. That sound was very familiar.

“Ugh, not all this again,” Cat grumbled, shining his flashlight down the hall, “Do you guys hear that?”

Kryten and Rimmer paused, before looking at Cat, “Hear what?” Kryten asked.

Cat’s eyes narrowed, his flashlight beam searching the corridor, “It’s me...I hear... me,”

The whispering grew louder, taking on a distorted tone. Cat’s eyes darted nervously looking around frantically, “It’s like, someone is trying to do a really bad impression of me,”

“Cat, it’s the station messing with your head,” Rimmer said, his voice betraying his own fear. “We need to stick together—don’t fall for it.”

But Cat’s flashlight beam swept over a figure at the far end of the corridor. He stopped, narrowing his eyes. “Hey, what... what is that?”

“Cat!”

But it was too late as Cat’s frantic steps lead him down the hallway. Rimmer and Kryten yelled after him as Cat searched the hallway frantically for the voice. The flashlight bounced off the walls, trying to find the source of the whispering but it wasn’t long until the light source landed on the source, and it was...

Cat’s eyes locked onto the figure at the end of the hall. At the end of the corridor stood what looked like a distorted mirror. As it stepped forward, the Cat’s signature outfit style stood out, but it clung to the doppelganger’s distorted body to its frame like a wet paper towel and fused to the skin in hideous patches. Its face sagged, as if it had melted in places and then hardened and burned in other places with clumps of hair hanging like matted lumps of hair.

Cat’s lips curling in disgust, his voice wavered, “You’re not me,”

The figure’s head twitched, a sickening crack of bones was heard as it did. A crack split down the center of its face that looked like it was opening like a zipper. From the gap, black, oozing fluid spilled out, dripping into the floor in thick, tar-like drops. The figure’s mouth opened wide as its jaw broke off from its hinges at a crooked angle as it grinned at Cat.

But I am.

And I know what you really are.

Cat stumbled backwards as the creature’s skin began to bubble and began to peel. The flesh underneath was unnatural, full of scales and patches of fur as if it was transforming between different and unrecognizable. Its hands split down the middle and its bones protruding outward like talons.

Perfection is just an illusion.

Underneath.

We are all rotting inside.

Cat’s flashlight trembled as he pointed it at the doppelganger, catching sight of its eyes. They were sunken and uneven, one larger than the other and bulging grotesquely out of its sockets. With the light on it, the skin bubbled and rippled, shifting and rearranging itself as if someone was alive underneath the skin and trying to escape the bone and flesh underneath.

“No... this isn’t real,”

The body contorted further. The arms began to snap and bend at unnatural angles and bend in different ways. The chest split open, revealing rows of jagged broken teeth underneath the flesh. The skin stretched tight with veins that pulsed with dark liquid.

Cat turned, panic surging through him as he sprinted back down the corridor, his footsteps echoing wildly. The whispers followed, growing louder, mocking, overlapping with his own voice.

You’ll never be perfect... you’ll never be real...

He stumbled, and the flashlight slipped from his grasp, clattering to the floor. The beam rolled, spinning wildly before finally settling on the deformed Cat’s grinning face. The thing lunged, and Cat’s scream echoed through the hall.

Rimmer and Kryten heard the scream as they bolted down the corridor.

“Cat!” Rimmer shouted, his voice tinged with fear, “Cat, where are you?”

Kryten’s scanner beeped frantically, “I’m not picking up his life signs,”

Once they got to the spot where Cat had been, all that remained was his flashlight, its beam pointing at the far wall. Kryten knelt down, his hand hovering over the light, “He was here...”

Rimmer’s face paled as the reality of the situation sank in further, “It’s real. It’s taken us one by one,”

Kryten sighed, standing back up, “We need to get to the core. We need to stick together now...”

The second floor felt colder than the last, the air heavy and damp as Rimmer and Kryten moved cautiously through the narrow hallway. The lights overhead flickered erratically, casting twisted shadows that stretched and recoiled as if alive. The whispers that had followed them since they entered the station grew louder, slithering through the walls and creeping into their ears.

Kryten’s scanner beeped steadily, the readout erratic. “The energy readings are stronger here. We must be getting closer to the source.”

Rimmer glanced around, his flashlight beam trembling as it passed over the corroded metal walls. “And what’s the plan when we find it, Kryten? Because so far, all we’ve found is a haunted house of horrors.”

However, before Kryten could answer that, Rimmer stopped dead in his tracks and whipped around frantically in the direction behind them.

“Sir...”

Rimmer’s breath caught in his throat as he looked forward into the darkness, his eyes widening as he froze. Eyes were darting from shadow to shadow, “No... not here...no not now,”

Kryten turned, concern etched on his face. He reached out a mechanical hand to place on Rimmer’s shoulder with the attempt of trying to ground the other man, “Sir, stay focused stay focused it’s the station, it’s trying to-”

Rimmer’s face contorted. He looked as if he was staring down the worst nightmare of his life. A nightmare that Kryten couldn’t see and couldn’t understand.

“They’re here...”

Then, without warning, Rimmer turned and bolted, his footsteps echoing frantically down the corridor.

“Rimmer! Wait” Kryten shouted, but Rimmer was already gone. Swallowed by the darkness. Kryten’s sensors began to flare up with interference, the readings began to jump wildly as he tried to find Rimmer’s life signs, “Oh smeg...”

For a moment, Kryten was left alone in the oppressive silence, his only companion the faint, distorted whispers that seeped from the walls.

The whispers shifted, morphing into a familiar voice that made Rimmer’s heart stop.

Arnold...still a useless failure.

Rimmer’s breath caught in his throat as he continued to run, “No... not here...”

The shadows around him began to shift, bulging like tendrils out of the walls as if they were alive. Figures began to emerge, their bodies twisting and writhing like snakes. Rimmer’s flashlight beam trembled as he swept it over the shapes forming before his eyes.

His parents’ and brothers’ face. Their features are pale and distorted. They all stared back at him.

You’ll always be a failure.

Rimmer stumbled backwards, his heart pounding. “No, you’re not real. You’re no real!”

But the figures grew clearer, stepping out of the walls. His father’s face split open down the middle, revealing a gaping maw filled with rows of jagged teeth that twisted and snapped. His arms elongated, the skin splitting as bony claws protruded from his fingers, dripping with dark fluid.

You’ll never amount to anything.

His mother’s face warped, eyes stretching into black voids. Her hands became skeletal. Her fingers grew into talons that scraped against the walls, leaving deep scars along the body of the ship. Her neck stretched out, the skin tearing to reveal there was something inside trying to escape. His brother’s faces on her body but their mouths too wide, splitting open as their jaws unhinged from her body. Long, snake-like tongues slithered out, withering in the air as they laughed.

Why are you running?

The shadows that surrounded them took on physical shapes, hands sprouting from the walls, fingers with nails like claws, scraping and reaching for him.

The walls pulsed as limbs jutted out, splitting the wall open with wet, tearing sounds. The fingers dragged along the floor, some dripping with black, tar-like blood. Some twitched and clawed at the air. Rimmer backed up as he felt the cold of one grotesque hand grab his arm.

“Leave me alone!” He shouted but the figures pressed closer. His mother’s face loomed, her mouth opening wider and wider until it split down the sides, the skin tore as she revealed rows of sharpened, jagged teeth. Her eyes bulged, the pupils dissolving into the black voids seemed to draw him in.

Why don’t you give up?

The arms that reached out for him. Their arms were elongated, skeletal with claws instead of hands. One hand grabbed his leg, and he felt the ice-cold grip, the claws digging into his uniform, ripping through the fabric and into his skin. The pain was sharp, like needles being driven into his skin.

The pain was real. Rimmer tried to pull himself free, but another hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. It was his father’s long thin fingers wrapping tightly around his arm, the skin flayed open to reveal the muscles and writhing underneath like worms.

You’ll always be a failure.

His father’s face hissed, the mouth splitting wider until the head was barely attached, hanging by strips of flesh.

“Help!”

Rimmer screamed but his voice was drowned out by the cacophony of laughter and hissing whispers. The floor beneath him felt like it was shifting, softening. He looked down and saw that the metal was dissolving into a mass of writhing tendrils that wrapped around his boots, pulling him down. The tendrils coiled tighter, climbing up his legs. His mother’s face leaned in close, her head twisting at an unnatural angle, eyes now replaced by open, gaping wounds.

Why don’t you accept what you are?

Rimmer struggled, feeling the tendrils wrap around his arms, the fingers of the shadows tearing into his skin, “No....I won’t”

But the shadows surged. The walls closed in, and Rimmer’s scream echoed through the dark as he pulled into the depths.

Kryten sensors went wild at this moment as he scanned the darkness, but all he could see was the narrow beam of his own flashlight reflecting off the rusted walls, “Rimmer? Sir, where are you?”

The whispers faded, replaced by an oppressive silence. Kryten moved cautiously forward, his eyes scanning the floor. He spotted the flashlight lying abandoned, its beam pointed at the wall. He knelt, picking it up and shining it around, but Rimmer was nowhere to be seen.

He frowned, his sensors beeping. “Life signs...disrupted...Something interfered...”

The corridor was far too quiet. Kryten’s eyes darted nervously into the shadows.

“Sir...respond if you can hear me,”

But there was no answer. Only the echo of his own voice. He scanned the area again; it was completely empty.

“Rimmer...Lister...Cat...”

But all that responded was the hum of the station’s failing systems and the distant dip of water echoing from somewhere deep in darkness. The whispering had gone silent, and then all of that remained was ominous nothingness.

Kryten looked at the wall, his eyes narrowing, “It’s picking us off, one by one.”

As he turned back, he could almost swear he saw movement – a flicker of something running off in the distance but when he turned to fully take it in, it was gone.

He glanced down at the flashlight on the floor, “I must stay in control. It’s feeding on us and...”

With one last look at the empty hallway, Kryten turned and made his way to the staircase.

Kryten’s sensors beeped as he approached the floor where the core was located. The air felt almost oily as he pushed open the rusted metal door. At first, it was the stench that hit him. A putrid smell that was a mix of rot and decay that made his very circuits shudder. The hallway beyond was a nightmare of filth. Trash and debris littered the floor. A thick layer of grime clinging to every inch of the metal beneath him. A dark, tarlike substance streaked down the walls, oozing from the cracks and pooling out of the broken pipes. Cockroaches scattered as he advanced, their slick bodies skittering over the identifiable refuse. A sickly green mold overed large patches of the floor, releasing nightmarish spores with each step he took, creating a fine mist of decay that hung in the air.

Kryten grimaced, his eyes darting around the hallway, “Oh dear...this...this is beyond cleaning,” he murmured, his voice trembling.

Further down, the lights barely flickered, casting twisted, half-formed shadows that slithered along the walls like snakes. He could hear the faint, rhythmic drip of something vious, dripping from the ceiling and forming puddles of rancid liquid that seemed to pulse with a life of their own. Kryten’s sensors flared, and he stepped around one of the pools, shuddering as a rat’s carcass floated to the surface, its fur matted and skin bloated.

Despite all of this, Kryten had to force himself onward, but his eyes widened as his flashlight caught something lying just ahead. His servos stuttered as he approached, a beam revealing something sprawled across the floor. It was Lister...or at least... that’s what it once was.

His skin had taken on a greyish hue and stretched unnaturally of the bone and muscle. His eyes were wide open, unseeing, but his mouth was twisted into a grimace, as if he had died screaming.

“No... not you, sir,”

As Kryten looked closer, the horror deepened over what he saw. Lister’s limbs were bent in unusual angles. His skin split open to reveal sinew and bone. His fingers were wrapped and swollen.

Kryten staggered backwards, nearly slipping on a path of black tar like sludge. His flashlight beam shifted to the wall. Hanging limply was Cat. His normally immaculate hair was matted with thick black ooze that dripped from his body. His clothes, torn and fused to his skin in patches and his face was horribly distorted. His jaw hung slack, unhinged and stretched unnaturally. His eyes were empty black pits.

“This...this isn’t real...” Kryten tried to reassure himself. Reassure himself that it was the ships attempt of driving him mad. But his words felt...hollow.

He turned, only to find Rimmer lying against the far wall, his body barely recognizable. His skin was molted and blotching, almost melting places. His mouth frozen in a scream. Tendrils of slime had wormed their way into his wounds, filling the splits in his skin and oozing from his mouth and eyes.

“Oh...Oh sir...”

The hallway stretched on, each step revealing more horrors. Shattered bones and strips of skin lay scattered across the floor. The whispers grew louder, mocking and crawling into his mind.

The lights flickered again, and in the darkness, Kryten saw movement – a writhing mass of tendrils that slithered across the ceiling. It took him a moment to realize that the tendrils were emerging from the bodies that were emerging from the walls, coiling and twisting as if they were searching for him.

Kryten stepped into the core chamber, the door creaking shut behind him. The air was freezing, and the walls pulsed with a sickly green light that seemed to pulse from the metal. At the core lay int he centers, an enormous, pulsating mass of cables and machinery – but something else was there too.

Something maddening. Something that defied all comprehension.

An entity.

It loomed over the core in an unnamable mass that writhed and shifted stretching into shapes that were impossible to describe. It was as if darkness had taken form, filling the room with a presence that was so alien, so ancient, so malevolent and... alive. The thing had no clear shape is description. It was shifting into a nightmare, a tapestry of grotesque forms that morphed and twisted before his eyes. One moment, it was all eyes, a million eyes staring at him with all the hatred in the world. But then it would shift and dissolve into a mass of tendrils that writhed and groped through the air.

Kryten didn’t understand what he saw.

“What...What in silicone hell are you?”

The entity didn’t respond in words. A low pulsating hum filled the room, vibrating through the walls and cut right through his circuitry. The sound was a lot more than a hum though; it was a voice speaking an ancient language that bypassed his processing systems and went straight to his mind filling it with images that made no sense. Alien landscapes, colors that could not be described, places where laws of physics are twisted and shattered, where stars are devoured by the dark.

Kryten clutched his head as his sensors blared at him in protest of the onslaught of images of worlds that no mere thing could ever understand. But the entity’s presence only grew stronger. He glanced back, hoping to see an escape but there was nothing there. The walls were replaced by a flesh like material that throbbed in time with the entity. Kryten’s internal systems were beginning to fail as his vision flickered to process the images he was seeing.

The entities form shifted again. Tendrils retracted from his mouth with razor sharp teeth. Millions of mouths formed and whispered to Kryten in a language he couldn’t understand. A pair of eyes blinked into existence, massive and lidless, staring directly at him. Each eye was a swirling void, filled with galaxies that spun and dissolved, consumed by an endless hunger. The longer he looked into them, the more he felt his own sense of self being pulled apart, torn down to his core programming. Fragments of his memories surfaced, mingling with the alien visions, merging into something new, something that wasn’t entirely his own.

“You’re....just a malfunction...a nightmare,”

But the entities gazed only intensified, its many eyes narrowing as they focused on him, boring into his mind with intelligence so vast and ancient that that it defined understanding. The mouths began to speak

Then in plain English.

You are nothing.

Your existence is an illusion.

Kryten stumbled at the weight of his words. The room seemed to pulse with the entity’s power, warping around him as though reality itself were bending to its will. He fell to his knees, his vision blurring as his mind fractured, each memory shattering and reassembling into twisted versions of themselves.

“No...” Kryten whispered, clutching as the images assaulted him, “I am... real... I have a purpose,”

The entity laughed, it’s voices merging into a single mocking tone.

You are insignificant.

He focused his gaze back to the core, tearing it away from the maddening sight of the entity. The control panel was within reach, but it was covered in symbols – twisted alien markings that didn’t make sense in his mind. The entity’s eyes blinked, and for a moment, Kryten saw himself reflected in their depths—broken, torn apart, lost. His circuits sparked, and he felt his systems start to shut down. But he fought back, gripping the control panel, forcing himself to push past the hallucinations and the fear. But then, Kryten slammed his fist on the control panel.

“This ends...now,”

A scream, an unearthly soul rending scream, filled the chamber, reverberating through Kryten’s circuits shaking him to his very core. The entities eyes blinked erratically looking around as its eyes stretched wide in agony as it thrashed, its form breaking apart piece by piece. The walls around Kryten began to break apart in brilliant flashing light.

You are...you are... Nothing.

Kryten’s vision flickered. The room shifted from nightmare to reality. The entities shape distorted on itself and disappeared into a pinpoint. The silence that followed was deafening.

The core’s control panel blinked with a final surge of power, then the lights stabilized, illuminating the chamber in a cold sterile glow. The darkness was gone. Kryten’s circuits, though sparkling and damaged, had held long enough. He turned slowly, seeing the room as if it truly was silent, empty, and devoid of any trace of the creature that had nearly consumed him.

“Kryten, are you there?” Holly’s voice crackled through his communicator, sharp and clear.

Kryten’s voice trembled though he forced a faint smile, “Yes, Holly... I am here. The entity... it’s been neutralized,” He stood up, straightening as he took in the quietness of the chamber. For the first time since entering the station, he felt a strange sense of peace – the absence of all malice.

He looked up and saw Lister, Cat and Rimmer all stepping into the chamber, looking as though they had awoken from some deep, horrific nightmare.

“Kryten!” Lister’s face looked revealed, “Smeg, am I glad to see you!”

Kryten’s shoulders relaxed, and he gave a cut nod, “Sirs...it’s over... The entity, whatever it was...has been neutralized,”

Rimmer’s eyes continued to dart around the room as his face looked like a mixture of disbelief and lingering dread, “Neutralized... Are you sure it’s not lurking somewhere?”

Kryten managed a shaky laugh, “Quite sure, sir. The core had been shut down and the entity...well, it vanished,”

“I swear, I’m getting wrinkles from just standing here,” Cat said, sniffing the air.

Lister placed a hand on Kryten’s shoulder,” You did it, Kryten,” His voice was low and sincere, “You saved all of us,”

Kryten looked at him, a faint and genuine smile crossing his face, “Thank you, sir. But I couldn't have done it without the crew,”

They began to make their way back through the station, the corridor now brightly lit, revealing the rusty abandoned structure as it truly was...empty but no longer monstrous.

The shadows were now gone, and the walls no longer pulsed with that unnatural life.

They boarded the Red Dwarf and made their way to the cockpit, the familiar surroundings a balm after the nightmarish station. Holly’s face appeared on the screen, her usual cheerful oblivion a strange comfort.

“Ready to leave the station?” She asked.

“Please,” Cat said, collapsing into a chair, “I need a spa day just to feel alive again,”

Lister looked back at the viewing screen where the station’s eerie outline was barely visible against the vast, dark cosmos. The familiar hum of the Red Dwarf engines vibrated beneath their feed, and for a moment, everything felt safe.

Holly’s voice cut through the silence; her tone uncharacteristically thoughtful. “You know, that void out there... it’s strange. Like it’s... watching us.”

Lister laughed, “Don’t go getting philosophical on us, Holly,”

The stars drifted by in silent witness, the memory of the entity a whisper in the void, a reminder that the darkness was still out there...still waiting.

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