Written for The Rooms The Cold October WriReReview-athon

Prompt:

Once upon a cold October,

did a girl who couldn't slumber,

die of fright one evil night,

which made the evening rather somber.

Arnold woke with a start. He was cold and damp and the wind had a chill to it. He shivered as he opened his eyes trying to find out why he was so cold and damp. He squeezed his eyes shut when he didn't recognise his surroundings. This wasn't his shared dorm room at Io house. This wasn't his small bedroom at his parents' house and this wasn't a Space Scouts camp. He didn't know where he was but he knew that opening his eyes was more terrifying then sitting in a place he didn't know.

Io wasn't meant to be this cold or dark. The glow of Jupiter in the sky meant that at this time of year there was always the glow in the sky and not full darkness. The artificial environment was always set to a nice temperature.

"Little boy," he heard someone call out. He opened his eyes looking for the adult that had just spoken. He came face to face with a glowing lady. "Children aren't supposed to be down here, especially in the middle of the night. You should be at home in your bed."

"Sorry ma'am. I go to boarding school, I don't sleep at home unless it is holidays," he said to the lady wondering what made her glow. He'd never seen a person glow like her before. He looked down realising that he'd been starring and starring was rude.

"Did you come here as a dare from your friends. I have little boys and girls come here all the time for dares," She asked.

"I woke up here. I fell asleep in my bed. I don't know how I got here." He didn't even know where here was.

He suspected that one of the boys had their older brother or sister who could drive pick him up and abandon him here. Then he'd get blamed for wandering off at night when he hadn't. They'd done that to him so many times before, all because he was a heavy sleeper and the teachers didn't believe him every single time.

He looked around trying to work out where he was and why it was so dark. Maybe he was in the basement of the school again. That was cold, damp and dark like it was here. The glow from the lady he could make out shapes that terrified him. The shadows were looming over him making it look like people were ready to jump out from the corners.

His eyes widened as he finally understood what the shapes were and then he quickly closed his eyes with a whimper, holding his head and covering his ears.

"What are you hiding from?" The woman asked.

"They put me in a grave," Arnold whimpered. "I thought I was in the schools basement."

"It's actually a crypt," The woman replied.

"A crypt?" Arnold asked looking around with fright.

"A family crypt, for the Neutron family," The woman replied explaining his location.

"Oh, my family has a crypt but it's back on Earth." Arnold replied when he realised exactly where he was. He'd been put on top of one of the tombs. This is the most terrifying place he'd been so far. "How do I get out?"

"The entrance is over here," The woman said pointing to a staircase he hadn't seen earlier.

He looked at the floor and tried to put a foot over the edge but couldn't. He was too scared to walk the short distance.

"What are you doing?" The woman asked when he stopped moving.

"I'm scared," Arnold said pulling the blanket he'd been left with over his head.

"What is there to be scared of?" She asked in a soft tone.

"Zombies and ghosts, what happens if one of them gets me?"

"Zombies aren't real and as for ghosts they can't touch you so what can they do to you?" The woman said.

"They won't?"

"I'm a ghost and I haven't hurt you or tried to scare you have I?" The woman said with a smile still on her face.

"You're a gh-gh-o-ost," Arnold stuttered looking at her with wide eyes.

"Not like in the old stories. Paranormal ghosts don't exist. I'm a hologram," the woman replied with a grin plastering her face.

"Why are you here if you're a hologram? Don't holograms normally stay at work places or mansions?"

"Ones in active service do. My family felt uncomfortable keeping me around and it's illegal to turn off a hologram without their consent so instead they sent my projection unit to the family crypt. I can't leave the cemetery."

"Who are you?" Arnold asked looking wide eyed at the hologram. He'd seen holograms from a distance before at a parade where they were marching for holographic rights. He'd been sitting on his brother's shoulder's and he'd called them all deadies and other horrible derogatory names from a distance. It had been fun at the time but actually sitting there and talking to her she had seemed like a regular person except for her glow, that should have been his giveaway that she was a hologram. "How come you don't have a H on your forehead? I thought all holograms had to have one."

"That only came in after I'd been turned on. Because of when I was turned on I don't need to wear a H like other holograms. There are a few more here that don't have the H but most of them do. As for who I am, I am Penny Neutron."

Arnold's eyes went big. "This is your family crypt."

"In fact you are sitting on my tomb." Penny confirmed. "It's a comfort to be next to my physical body in some way."

"You look really pretty for a lady who has been dead a long time. You'd have to be one of the first people that died on Io."

"I'll take that as a complement. I was the first person to die on Io."

"Is it rude if I ask you how you died and if you remember?" Arnold asked still making no move for the exit. He was actually feeling at peace talking to the hologram who haunted the grave yard.

"It was a cold night in October, much like tonight." Penny reminisced. "The heating system that the settlement has now wasn't working smoothly back then. The surface of the moon outside the dome is very hot and they ended up making things far to cool in the dome just to keep it liveable since they had an overheating issue when they tried to raise the temperature."

Arnold's eyes went big as he realised how hard it was to keep them alive in the dome and that it would only cause one malfunction to kill them all whether it be with the air filtration system or the heating system or a crack exposing the outside elements.

"I couldn't sleep and the dome didn't yet have the imitation sky that imitates what it is like on Earth. I'd gone for a walk to the edge of the dome to look out at the surface of the planet. It was beautiful. Have you ever seen it with the volcano's erupting."

"Once when I was on a Space Scouts camp, I thought it was a little bit scary."

"I thought it was wonderful. I was entranced by the view, I don't know how long I stood there. I didn't know I was being watched as I was standing on the edge of the dome and when a young man spoke to me, it gave me a fright and that is the last thing I remembered from my life."

"You can die of fright?" Arnold asked wide eyed.

"Normally you can't. I had an undiagnosed heart condition which is what really killed me. If my heart condition had been captured early enough I would've been fitted with a pacemaker and would not have died that night or at least in that way. Don't worry young man, I don't think you will die of fright."

"Arnold, my name is Arnold Rimmer."

"It's nice to make your acquaintance young Arnold. You know your family name is familiar. Are you related to Harold Rimmer he was a friend of my fathers. I was supposed to marry him."

"He's my grandfather. He was always proud of being one of the founding families of Io. I didn't know he was supposed to marry anyone else. I wish you were my grandmother. My grandmother was a very cranky lady before she died. I can't remember her maiden name but her first name is Heather."

"I believe I know your grandmother, I did know they got married. If they didn't get married you wouldn't exist, I for one am glad you exist."

Arnold wasn't so sure about that. He was sure that he would still be his mother's son no matter who his father was.

"My family didn't think much of it when they didn't find me in my room the next morning. By evening when I still hadn't turned up they went looking and soon found me. My family had my hologram turned on after I passed away. My father could not bear losing his only daughter. I was at his side every day. For all I could do was spent time in the house. I could no longer go far from the boundaries that were set up for me. I'd always been adventurous. I longed to feel the cold on my skin like on the night when I passed."

"How do you remember dying?" Arnold asked.

"If they get to you soon enough after death the medical staff can do a new scan of the brain so that all your memories are intact and up to date."

"You died being frightened. Do you really want to remember something that frightened you to death?" He asked the questions that other would think were in not appropriate. Unlike his parents and the teachers at his school she was answering his question and giving him her full attention.

"I'd rather know what I went through then to sit around wondering what happened. Being dead wasn't so bad. I was surrounded by a family who loved me and got to appreciate what I'd had in life."

"But you still ended up here?"

"After my father died I went to my brother. It was awkward to have me around when he'd moved on with life. He had a wife, he had children who were grown up and I was an unchanging relic of the past that was long gone. It's hard to change as a hologram. It's almost impossible to grow. Eventually my brother and his wife tried to have me turned off, but the laws didn't allow for that so in the end they and several other prominent families arranged to have us moved to the cemetery in our family crypts since it was only the rich who could have personal holograms in the first place. This is where we were moved. To be forgotten by our families. My brother would visit me, feeling guilty about placing me here. But he eventually stopped visiting as well."

"If you were my grandmother I would keep visiting you. You're really nice. I like listening to your stories. You're lucky to have a father that loved you so much that he kept you around even after you died. My father would never do that for me. He probably wouldn't even notice if I didn't return from school holidays."

"I'm sure that someone will notice that you're gone," Penny said in a tone that was meant to be soothing. "In fact I see someone coming now."

The door to the crypt opened up and one of his teachers stormed in. "There you are. Don't you know you shouldn't go wandering off like that?" The teacher scolded. "What made you come here in the first place? I don't know how many times I have to tell you to not wander off." He didn't let Arnold explain that the other boys had dragged him here when he slept. Even if he did he never believed Arnold.

Arnold sent a smile at Penny before he was dragged out by the teacher. He waved to the hologram no longer frightened of the dead like he once was.

- Red Dwarf-

Arnold looked around the crypt wondering if he'd dreamt the hologram all those years ago. "Penny, are you here? Or should I say Miss Neutron?" How long did holograms last for? She'd already been an old hologram when he'd been a child.

"I'm sorry but how do I know you?" She appeared from her tomb which frightened Arnold. he thought he'd got over his fear of the dead.

"I'm Arnold Rimmer. We met when I was a child." Arnold said after he'd recovered. "I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving Io, but I promise to visit whenever I'm here. I wasn't allowed to visit as a child but now I am officially an adult, I can visit."

He sat on the tomb noticing his discarded blanket was still where he'd left it all those years ago. Did the Neutrons have any family left on Io?

Penny beamed with recognition. "My word you've grown up. Has it really been that long?"

Arnold nodded and sat down to tell the hologram his own stories and what he hoped to accomplish with the Jupiter Mining Corporation who he was soon to start working for.