This story is still a work in progress/draft.

Adrian Kane grumbled under his breath as he crawled through the dusty ventilation shaft of the abandoned sector of his space station. After months alone performing maintenance checks and working to get the area back in working order, the solitude was starting to wear on him. Adrian didn't mind the isolation per se, he could do without his crew. Just thinking about his old teammates made him scowl - especially Nadia Volkov, with her incessant questions. What the Captain didn't know wouldn't kill her. At least most of the time.
As Adrian shuffled through the dark shaft, his knees aching against the cold metal, he fantasized about returning to Lamneth. No more stale recycled air, no more tedium, no more annoying crew to deal with.
Lost in thought, Adrian almost missed the faint whispers drifting through the shaft. He froze. The whispers were barely audible, more like stray thoughts than words. But they crackled with an energy that made the hairs on Adrian’s neck stand up. Heart pounding, he stayed completely still, straining to decipher any meaning in the hushed voices.
Then, as quickly as they came, the whispers faded away. Adrian shuddered but continued crawling forward through the cramped metal tunnel. What were those voices? Some odd machine noise or radio interference? Or was it all in his head? But he couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that the whispers held a sinister intelligence just outside of his comprehension.
Over the next few days, Adrian became obsessed with locating the source of the whispers. He explored every corner of the abandoned space station, ears pricked for the slightest sound. The whispers remained frustratingly elusive, flickering at the edge of perception. But Adrian could feel their strange power growing stronger.
At night, vivid dreams filled his mind. Dreams of breathtaking cosmic vistas, of strange creatures murmuring just beyond his grasp. He awoke each morning with a profound sense of revelation, but the details grew hazy.

Adrian started recording his uncanny experiences in the station log, describing the whispers in vivid detail. He wrote frantically, feeling compelled to document the phenomenon before it slipped away. The whispers held knowledge, he now felt certain, if only he could uncover their secrets.
Unbeknownst to Adrian, he was not the log's sole visitor. Nadia Volkov found herself drawn to the classified files one night after realizing her treasured coffee mug had gone missing near Adrian's sector. She hoped surveilling the area might reveal the lost accessory's location, but what she discovered was far more intriguing.
"That contemptible little man!" Nadia fumed as she read Adrian's scathing remarks about herself. His unfiltered insults stung, even if she knew he found her irritating. But when Nadia saw his recent log entries about the whispers, her indignation turned to curiosity. His descriptions were so alarmingly vivid and visceral. What was he up to in the abandoned sector?
Soon Nadia was remotely accessing the station log daily, utterly transfixed by Adrian's latest chilling accounts. When he posted an open plea for the whispers to reveal themselves, Nadia felt a thrill run through her. On reckless impulse, she posted an anonymous response:

The void hears you. But what cost comes with knowledge? Beware the swirling madness between the stars.

Adrian's feverish reply came quickly.

At last, a whisper from beyond! I must know more. I will pay whatever price the infinite cosmos demands.

Nadia leaned back from the console, heart racing. A small voice told her to walk away now, but the temptation was too tantalizing.
Over the next weeks, Adrian and his anonymous correspondent slowly parsed meaning from the whispers' sinister messages. Ominous warnings and cryptic riddles hinted at revelations that could unravel reality itself. Meanwhile, strange events continued plaguing the station - gas leaks, power failures, shadows seen darting in peripheries. Adrian described these occurrences to his faceless correspondent in exhaustive detail, with visibly fraying composure. Nadia responded in kind, increasingly obsessed herself. Their encrypted exchanges spanned dream journals, audio recordings, and video logs as they delved deeper into the macabre mystery.
Just who was this person who seemed to share Adrian's inexplicable psychic connection? At times Adrian wondered if they were two facets of the same deranged mind. Their shared dreams had taken on astonishing depth and clarity, with intricate alien vistas and mind-bending truths. But the price of forbidden knowledge was becoming unavoidably clear.
The station's structural issues worsened each day, and now demonic apparitions openly stalked its decrepit halls. Adrian relied entirely on his anonymous ally, needing more than ever to uncover their identity. He could head back to the main part of the ship. Lock off the abandoned sector forever and call it a loss. Take the hit to his ego. Or?
In a flooded passageway with emergency lights strobing, Adrian came face to face with a withered floating corpse-thing muttering cryptic curses. As the creature bore down on him, blaring alarms drowned its unearthly shrieks. Adrian gave a panicked yell to his unseen companion:
"If you can hear me, meet me in the old observatory now!"
Heart hammering, Adrian sprinted through increasingly derelict halls with the monstrosity fast on his heels. He smashed the door lock and slipped inside the observatory, sealing the entrance just in time. Footsteps echoed from the side and Adrian whirled to face his mysterious correspondent, wielding a heavy rusted pipe for protection.
"Adrian, it's me!" yelled Nadia, hair in disarray, shoulders heaving from exertion. Adrian froze in bewilderment.
"You?" he stammered. "You've gotta be fu-" Outside, the cadaverous being scratched demonic sigils into the metal with long bony claws. A vivid collective vision wracked their consciousnesses. The whispers converged into a single resonant thread, unveiling a cosmic revelation that transcended all concepts of space, time and being.
As the ultimate secret engraved itself onto their souls, the monstrous entity outside the observatory wailed in rage before sudden silence choked the station. The vision faded, leaving Nadia and Adrian spent on the cold floor. They gazed at each other wordlessly before sinking into a deep tormented sleep, two minds unequal to the revelations they had unleashed.
When Adrian awoke some time later, Nadia was nowhere to be seen. The station was peaceful once more, with no trace of the whispers or their interdimensional tormentors. Nadia and Adrian never directly discussed the events that transpired between them. But they carried those experiences within themselves, an unspoken bond connecting their transformed souls. Across crowded rooms their eyes would briefly meet in moments of secret camaraderie - two minds touched by cosmic truths beyond ordinary human reckoning.
Over the coming months, life carried on as normal, but Adrian was plagued by cryptic nightmares he could not shake. Flashes of strange vistas and murmurs in dead languages haunted his sleep. He suspected Nadia suffered similar torments. Until one day, the visions suddenly ceased. In their place came a pervasive sense of being watched from the shadows. Nadia confided in Adrian that she felt it too. At first they clung to each other for support, the only two who could understand this unnerving sensation. But over time, paranoia poisoned their refuge. Each suspected the other of hiding dark intentions. Their wary exchanges turned to accusations until trust disintegrated completely. Isolated once more, Adrian and Nadia spiraled into madness fueled by things seen and heard.
Death came for them in turn, though by what means none could say for certain. In time, the ship was sieged and abandoned completely by its crew. The hulking shell passed into orbit around a nameless black hole, taking its secrets and horrors with it forevermore.
But floating in the cold cosmic stillness beyond, the whispers that seduced and corrupted Adrian and Nadia eternally await a new crew.
Muted, but not silenced.