The Spider Queen

"What was the route again?" Sophie muttered as she walked through the silent corridor with nothing but her footsteps to keep her company.

"Something… something… split paths… two lefts and then one right…"

The 'Rsychosis' technique would send the memories of the clones into Sophie's mind after their deaths, but it would take a few moments to recall the smaller or less important details.

Sophie navigated her way through the starship while taking casual glances at the trail of destruction she had left because of her rampage.

It was fortunate that her killing spree did not appear to have damaged any vital equipment, but Sophie would need to send a couple of crewmembers to take a closer look.

After all… she wasn't too familiar with this model of starship.

She could only cross her fingers and hope that there was nothing wrong with the engines. There really wasn't much of an alternative to getting off this planet.

Only the knights would know where their starship was located and the security system onboard that particular vessel may be entirely different.

Either way Sophie would need a trained crew in order to fly the vessel and she had a sneaking suspicion that those religious lunatics would probably kill themselves rather than help a heretic.

"God… this is so fucking gross," Sophie growled as she pulled out some gooey bits of pinkish flesh from her hair.

She badly needed a shower.

Sophie did not want to show up in front of Lily covered in blood, grime, and filth but there was no other option.

Besides… maybe she needed to tell the little girl… no…

Sophie shook her head twice and trekked onward. The secret of her Insectoid heritage could not be easily exposed.

Maybe she would just say that it was a qi deviation or a side effect from one of her more aggressive cultivation techniques.

The eerie silence inside the starship allowed Sophie to focus on how she would handle the meeting with Lily.

If there was a one good thing about the events that had occurred earlier, it was the fact that her clone had enough willpower to send the child away before the bloodlust fully took over.

Thump! Thump!

Sophie's footsteps echoed through the confusing labyrinth of metalloid doors and staircases. All around her were the traces of her rage-induce state of madness.

From shattered doors to metalloid walls ripped open or torn apart by the sheer force contained in her claws as well as the numerous corpses and body parts scattered around.

The rest of the journey was uneventful as Sophie tossed those distracting thoughts to the back of her mind.

She finally reached the room that contained the exit hatch. It was a relatively open space that only contained a control console near the entrance and a wide-open hole in the middle of the room.

Sophie saw that the bridge had already been deployed.

Lily hadn't deactivated the structure once she left the starship, but it was more likely that she didn't know how to.

A chill ran down Sophie's spine as the horrifying possibility of what could have happened if she hadn't regained control flashed across her mind.

What if she had reached this room while still trapped in a bloodthirsty frenzy?

Would she have gone outside to look for more prey?

Sophie gripped her head in pain as the shame and guilt rising up in her chest was making her want to throw up.

It was getting harder to breathe and her vision started to shake as Sophie felt nothing but panic and fear.

"I… I… I am not a monster," Sophie quietly sobbed while tightly hugging the sides of her bodysuit with her hands.

"I am not a monster."

"I am not a monster."

She took a few deep breaths and exhaled softly. She decided to use a mental health trick that her father had taught her a long time ago to deal with panic attacks.

"My… name… Sophie Peterlor and right now I… I am standing inside a spaceship," Sophie trembled slightly as she tilted her head to scan the room.

"The walls are a… greyish black colour and there is a bridge that leads to the desert outside. I need to find Lily and bring her back."

"It feels warm inside this room and I can see a green button flashing in the middle of the console..."

Sophie continued to make observations until the nauseous feeling gradually went away and she could finally stand upright.

This was not the first time that Sophie had felt something like this.

During her early teenage years, because she had suffered from bullying and ostracization, crowded places would always raise her anxiety.

She had never told her father the reason for her fear, but he had still patiently taught her a technique that would calm her down instead of demanding that she explain why she felt that way.

This technique was called 'grounding'.

Instead of focusing on whatever was causing you to panic, you would list out observations about your surrounding area.

These details would help Sophie to distract herself and bring a feeling of calm or at least suppress her instinctive reaction to panic.

It had been years since she had last suffered from a panic attack, but the stress of the last few months had not been good for her mental state.

Being in an unfamiliar environment and forced to remain alert and vigilant constantly took a heavy toll on Sophie's well-being which she hid from Lily in order not to worry the little girl.

"One… two… three…" Sophie whispered as she took a few steps forward.

Her body was still trembling slightly, but now it was manageable.

Sophie furrowed her brows as she realised just how much time had passed.

"Come on… just last until you bring Lily back. Then you can shower and take a nice long sleep… don't think about the captives or Dawn… just imagine that bed," Sophie encouraged herself.

Sophie jumped onto the first step of metalloid bridge with a dull thump and made her way downwards with purposeful steps.

It was now nighttime and the temperature on the desert planet had dropped quite a bit. Sophie could see gentle clouds of white smoke whenever she exhaled.

The moon shone brightly in the night sky and was accompanied by numerous twinkling stars that flickered and winked.

Beautiful.

Sophie reached into her storage bag and pulled out a palm-sized disc device and entered in a series of numbers.

This was the second layer of protection to make sure that if someone malicious had stolen her monitoring device, that they would be unable to use it to activate the tracker.

Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!

A harsh alarm echoed through the quiet desert before an emotionless voice came from the device's speaker.

[Target is located 2.3km away]

The screen on the device turned into a map that showed a blinking red dot. The red dot was not moving so the monitoring device generated a simple route that led directly to the tracker.

Sophie's line of sight was blocked by several large dunes, but these massive bodies of sand were no match for her enhanced vision.

She peered in the direction indicated by the monitoring device and soon her vision shifted into a world of yellowish orange.

There!

Sophie spotted Lily huddled in the shadow of a sand dune with a sea of gorgeous red flowers blooming beneath her feet.

Flowers?

Oh no….