The Spider Queen

(Hydra Star System- Lunar Colony Renoran)

(Northern Region- 'Local Spaceport')

"We are the Chtendra…" the middle-aged man finally spoke as he remained frozen in place with his arms gently stretched upwards.

"Our people… we exist, and we do not. We are alive only in the memories and dreams of other species."

"Dreams and reality intersect. For our people they are one and the same… we are trapped by neither and both."

"What do you mean? Stop speaking in riddles," Qiana coldly whispered as she kept pointing her blaster rifle at the man lying down on the hard desert ground.

"Our existence is fluid… we exist in a quantum state of both reality and imagination. Your experiences on this moon are real and fake at the small time."

Qiana could feel her brain begin to hurt as the man continued to talk about quantum fluctuations and the beings beyond the void.

Apparently the Chtendra were a race of lifeforms capable of creating illusions well… reality… that had non- permanent effects on the creatures that experienced their existence.

They were unable to harm or help other lifeforms.

Any damage that they did or benefits and gifts that they gave would be immediately reversed within a short period of time.

Honestly it sounded quite awful.

They were basically an existence of God-like beings but anything they did would amount to nothingness.

They possessed all the power in the universe and yet were powerless.

"So, in that case only the three security officers are dead and Carter is knocked out… everyone else will return to life once the effects of your powers disappear?" Qiana asked curiously.

"Yes… even your memories of us will vanish," the middle-aged man admitted with a bitter undertone in his voice.

"So then why explain all of this to me? It is pointless since I will immediately forget everything once your powers expire," Qiana bluntly spoke.

She did not entirely believe the creature's 'truthful' words but what she had experienced over the last few hours was definitely something more than just an illusion or the effect of hypnosis.

"That was the purpose of the test… only one who can survive the obstacles that we set may be able to retain a hint of our existence," the man excitedly spoke as his eyes briefly flickered yellow.

"We need you… we need you to find something for us… an anchor point… something that will help us keep our presence in your world… please we are begging you…"

"I can't promise anything, but I'll keep my eye out," Qiana hesitantly spoke. The man nodded his head if he was relieved and then snapped his fingers.

The world suddenly shifted uncontrollably, and Qiana found herself standing in the middle of the desert.

She froze for a brief moment as she felt a fierce pounding sensation in her mind.

This headache lasted for a few seconds before disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared.

The heavy scent of blood filled her nostrils and when she looked down, she saw the corpses of the men who had just tried to kill her.

"Monster? There is… is no monster. Like I said… Oliva is a drunk… she sees things when she has too much to drink," a masculine voice desperately spoke.

Qiana looked down and saw Carter lying helplessly on the ground with heavy metallic cuffs locking his arms and legs in place.

His hands were missing a few fingers where Qiana's blade had sliced them off and the severed digits were only a few inches away from his body.

Qiana strode over to the muscular man and raised up her hand to knock him out with a quick blow to the back of his neck.

She stopped moving when her hand was mere centimetres away from his neck.

Qiana froze in place as she realised something…

Why did she have a sense of déjà vu?

It was if this had happened before. A faint memory surfaced in the young woman's mind of knocking out Carter and then injecting him with a strong drug.

"Then what about the car bomb? I can understand slowing down the rate of production but who gave you the order to kill me," Qiana coldly spoke as her eyes narrowed.

"The bomb… I don't know anything about… ARGGGHHH!" Carter screamed in pain as Qiana's blade neatly sliced through the flesh on his knuckles.

The young noble woman was not a novice to torture. It was an effective tool especially for assassination.

Of course, there was always the risk that the victim would just say whatever they thought their captor wanted to hear in order for the pain to stop.

Having the self control to stop oneself and lean just close enough to the line so the victim's mental defenses would not entirely break made Qiana a dangerous interrogator.

"Your uncle… he paid us three billion Enas…. told us that he would be able to make a look like an accident…" Carter confessed as he began to breathe heavily.

"He already transferred us ten million Enas as deposit… you can check my bank account…"

What a fool.

Qiana reached into her storage bag and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid that had a few bubbles trapped inside.

She jammed the needle roughly into Carter's shoulder and then pumped the liquid inside his veins.

Her uncle would have never paid these workers the full amount. If anything, he would use them as a shield to deflect blame.

Three billion Enas… Qiana doubted that any member of her family other than her father had that kind of money.

The young noble woman got up and stretched her arms. She glanced at the corpses on the ground and Carter's unconscious body and discovered that they were still there.

What was she expecting?

That the corpses would somehow be able to disappear? That sounded completely ridiculous considering that no one was nearby other than herself.

Still Qiana could not shake the feeling that she was missing something. It felt like walking into a room and forgetting one's original purpose of entering inside.

Yellow eyes…

Yellow eyes?

Qiana stumbled as she recalled that she seeing eyes appear on the sides of the tents in the base camp.

The curious thing about the base camp in her memories was the fact that it was empty. There was no one else there.

What were these memories?

Had someone managed to drug her?

Qiana frowned and tossed those strange thoughts to the back of her mind. Right now, her only priority was to get Carter to the base camp and interrogate him further.

She also needed to send a message to her father using her wrist communicator and inform him of the strange developments on the mining colony.