Welcome to Grimmerspace
Story by psion42 on SoFurry
Rated Adult for violence, horror themes and one really messed up critter
Grimmerspace setting is © Iron GM Games
Psion, Anna "Goldie" Grimm, and the Insatiable Curiosity are all © Psion 2020
So, over on the Grimmerspace Facebook page, the creators are having a special event called "Monster March" where on the 11th of March they started showing one monster from the book every day until the 31st. Every day there is a contest with a chance to win a print of the cover art for the player's guide (an amazing pic of four of the five iconic characters laying the smackdown on a horde of cyber-zombies.) Entry seven was for a creature called the Mish (it's not clear if the name is supposed to be an acronym or not) and was a short 300 words writing contest. So I submitted my initial entry (it starts with "The gloomy corridors" and ends before the perspective shifts,) got an honorable mention, then expanded upon it to create what you see here. So enjoy and be sure to check out the Grimmerspace Facebook Page.
Welcome to Grimmerspace
By Stephen Landis
Grimmerspace belongs to Iron GM Games
All Rights Reserved
The gloomy corridors of the abandoned space station were silent as Cpl Anna “Goldie" Grimm gripped her SMG firmly. For a month now she had been trapped in this “Gliding Rim" galaxy with the crew of the Insatiable Curiosity, meeting one horror after another as they tried to get enough stellar cartography data to find the anomaly that would send them home.
The whispers echoed softly through the abandoned, trash-strewn corridor. “I love you." “I know."
Anna stopped. She was supposed to be the only one on the orbital habitat. The rest of the Curiosity's crew had stayed behind when she volunteered to go alone on what was supposed to be a quick assignment. Life scans picked up nothing, she was supposed to have the station to herself.
“Oooh, it tingles!" Came a third, higher-pitched voice from the same direction. Closer this time. Much closer...
Raising her SMG against her shoulder, she turned to face the approaching sound as it crept closer and closer to the intersection just ahead of her. And that's when It appeared.
Everything she had encountered in the Gliding Rim up until this point had made a certain sort of sense that was as wondrous as it was horrifying. This… thing made no such sense. A string of severed heads knotted together by long locks of hair looked back at her with white, dead eyes. Tufts of hair dug into the walls and floor to propel it along.
“Oooh, it tingles!" A blond head from the top of the macabre creature repeated in that same high-pitched voice.
The creature charged. Goldie reflexively switched her SMG to automatic and squeezed the trigger. The formerly quiet corridors echoed with the roar of an automatic weapon…
I was on the bridge of the Curiosity when I heard Anna call on my communicator. “Psion, I have it! I'm coming back right now. Are we ready to leave?" She announced suddenly, the report of her plasma submachinegun audible in the background.
I knew there was only one answer to that question, fortunately we had been ready to leave ever since we arrived on this desolate station. “Yes, I'll start launch procedures. What happened?"
“Entire station's crawling with these… things that the ship's sensors some how missed." She reported before turning her attention to something on her side of the conversation. “EAT PLASMA YOU UNHOLY FREAKS OF NATURE!" The Nova Marine screamed.
My gloved hands went through the practiced motions of priming the engines and disengaging the docking clamps. Then I turned on the ship's exterior cameras and promptly wished I didn't. Anna had broken out into a full run, shield arm cradling the station's data storage backup and firing blindly behind her at a horde of… things. My hand slammed the remote control to open the airlock door and slam it shut behind Grimm after she slid aboard.
With everyone immediately aboard, I took the_ Insatiable Curiosity_ a safe distance from the abandoned station and left the bridge to find Anna in the ship's common room, sitting at the table with her face in her hands. In front of her was the cylindrical data storage unit and what looked like a severed human head. Grimm had sent her combat knife through the decayed humanoid head, staring daggers at it through her fingers.
“I hate this galaxy. Come on you over-sized paperweight, say something I dare you!" She shouted, her nerves still frayed.
Looking back at both of us with unseeing eyes, the head smiled. “Oooh, it tingles!"
Insatiable Curiosity's Ship's Logs
Creature Entry #007
Lifeform Designate: "MISH"
Biopsy Report: As obvious by its blatantly unnatural appearance, the MISH is an artificial creature. In addition to confirming that the head is of a human of Emanant Spectrality descent, analysis of the recovered biological sample reveals it has been augmented by a combination of biological and nanotech modifications that require further investigation. Review of the research files recovered along with the navigation data Cpl Goldie retrieved further confirm that the MISH is an engineered being, a failed Spectrality experiment in achieving immortality. One of many, many experiments that have failed in horrific ways judging by the personal notes attached to the files.
Threat Analysis (Submitted by Security Specialist "Goldie"): Entry unavailable.