Netta tried to stand up, struggled, only to hear her Mother's sharp voice.

"Neith Oleander, you sit back down this instant."

Netta sat, felt her hands folding over her chest as though they were a puppet's.

Her Mother continued. "You ought to be honored, to be the final tool, my flaming sword, against the horde of humanity. Don't you recall, child, how your life was, before you came back into our world? My dear, I have never truly left you, I have always had one of your Sisters to keep an eye on you while you lived in those wretched cities. They told me such stories. Stories of how you suffered, how you were robbed, how you once withstood being molested by one of those human men. Tell me, why do you pity them, those who would have us killed if they ever discovered our existence?"

Netta clenched her eyes shut, humiliated at being reminded of things that she thought only she knew of. She said, "They don't know any better, Mother. It's not - it isn't right to kill them, just because they would fear us. They're right to fear us."

The sound - of Hera slamming her fist down on the table - made Netta leap, the sudden reversal of her control over Netta shocking.

For the first time this night, Netta saw the side of her Mother that she knew all too well. The zealous anger in her eyes that seemed to make the greens shine with the light of hell.

"Do not tell me what is right and wrong, when you don't know anything about true pain. Sacrifice. The Monsters' King is not the only one who became twisted by agony, torture. We need to subjugate Monster kind to save them, then cleanse the Earth of the humans who destroy it and its magic. Only then can we begin to rebuild this world, return it to its former purity."

Netta gazed at her Mother, horrified by the manic joy apparent in her face. Not controlled by the Witch's will, Netta turned, looked at her sisters. Their faces glowed with a similar joy as they reflected the zealous optimism that her Mother had spoken of.

For a moment, Netta felt compelled by what Hera had said. As soon as she felt the doubt creep into her mind, all she had to remember was all of the deaths that she had witnessed thus far.

And all that would come, with these Witches' wish.

Netta shook her head, pushing all thought of the validity of what they had told her out of her mind.

"Goddess, think about what you've done, Mother, to get this far. What you're talking about doing. You - you've killed so many people, people that - that trusted you, just to get me here."

Netta ran her hand through her hair, her heart pounding. Anger, sadness, despair - it all coursed through her blood, overpowering her fear. She shook with the overwhelming flood of it, her mind filled with thoughts of all of those who cared for - trusted her.

Hera's smile edged up one side of her perfect lips, reminding Netta of a sharp blade. "I am sorry to hear that you feel that way. Especially given the little pile of bodies you yourself have stacked up of your Sisters."

Netta felt a terrible, dark anger almost overpower her. She felt herself standing up and out of her chair, her hand reaching for the knife.

She didn't care what the repercussions of it would be. She had to avenge, to kill the mad woman sitting next to her.

"Neith, drop the knife and sit at my feet."

Netta wanted to scream as she felt the knife drop out of her hand as her fingers grasped a hold of it. She fought the forced movement of her body fiercely.

Still, she came to sit at her Mother's feet, crouching like a monkey. The feel of Hera's hand on her head sent a chill up her as the desire to wrench it off of her beat, relentlessly, against Netta.

She heard Beryl speaking, her high voice bubbling with good cheer. "Now, that's a good little doggie."

Hera spoke, leaning in close so that she was whispering into Netta's ear. "You poor, poor tormented, unique little creature. Accept your loss, give into despair and it'll be over all the sooner."

Netta's gaze focused, and she realized that she could see the two bound Witches. They gazed at her, wide, frightened eyes begging for her to realize something that Netta was powerless to understand.

Her Mother's voice seemed to ring off of the walls of Netta's mind. It was like the voice of the Goddess herself, telling her the truth.

"Don't think of your burial tonight as a punishment, as it once was for you. Rather, think of it as your chance to meditate on what you will one day mean to our women."

Her nightmares of the place did not do justice to what it felt like to be once more lowered into the box, then into the hole. The dirt that had been thrown on the box was thrown by the crying duet of both Erwinnia and Ophelia. Netta could hear their crying, muffled, through the wood of the coffin that surrounded her.

She knew when they had finished when she could no longer hear them, or the sound of the soil hitting the front of the box.

The dirt's not going to cave in here, Netta found that she had to keep reminding herself. Just like the old days

I had promised myself that I would never go through this, not ever again.

And yet, here she was. Alone, as she had always been.

Netta closed her eyes and wished that she could sleep.

When, finally, all that she could hear surrounding her was a dull sound of utterly enclosed space, she tightened her arms around herself and wished that she could imagine that she was anywhere but there.

She began to weep, her tears falling down the sides of her face as she lay, face up in the enclosed, cold space of the box.

There was not enough space here, either, to wipe the tears away. Lightless, Netta tried to imagine how she was supposed to keep her sanity.

And what's more, she had the intense feeling that she was forgetting something - and it drove her mad.

Around and around and around her brain went, trying to make sense of what her mother had said - trying to make sense of how her mother had come to be. And what could be so important, about the thing she could not remember

That fearful parasite, the Monster King.

At some point, exhausted, she closed her eyes.

It was a voice in the darkness, somewhere above - behind her head - that awoke her with a start.

"Here we are again, eh?"

Netta blinked as a sick feeling began in her stomach. "Who's there?"

A sigh - broken, sad, deeply. "Do you really forget yourself so easily?

Netta swallowed, feeling a terrible panic that was born of the darkness that was worse than the kind that encased her. It billowed from inside of her, unfurling, endlessly.

She choked back a sob, fear and a sense of sadness that she could not hope to understand seeming to infect her. "What do you want from me?"

The voice seemed to coil, rasp. "Everything."

She found that only when she closed her eyes that she had been staring, blind in the opaque darkness.

"I - I know you. I can't survive you in here." In me. "Please-"

He shouted, "Damn you, you can't do this, not here!"

"I don't even know who you -" She stopped, aware then that something was breathing on her mouth. She slammed it shut, tried to suppress the urge to cry out.

Nettles, Netta - I'm going to kiss you, I want you to forgive me for this, once you remember me -

The feel of those lips, for a moment, we strange, terrible warmth. She felt as though that heat was spreading through the man's lips was burning through her skin.

She cried out then, as understanding of the what had been wrenched out of her mind filled her mind. When she fell up, away from the daze of her memory returning to her, she found that those lips were still there.

Softly, willessly - questioningly - pressed to her lips.

The sense of sorrow that pervaded her was so great that all she could do was raise her arms up so that her fists pressed to the coffin wall behind her head, her upper arms pressed to her tear-drenched face.

"Oh - oh Goddess, no, no, please, please no -"

The coffin shook with a terrible power, shocking Netta out of her single-minded shock with a cry.

"Damn it, know me, Neith!"

That was the problem. Netta pressed her arms to her face, willed for the nightmare to end.

"Go. Leave me, Monster. If you ever cared for me -"

"Why do you act like you don't know me?" His voice, in the tight space of the coffin, seemed to want to suffocate Netta. "What is making you push me away like this?"

Netta shuddered a cry out, then, hesitantly, drew her arms against her shaking sides. "You - you lied to me - oh!"

A sudden realization struck her, rending memories that once brought her warm, oftentimes innocent pleasure now seemed to be cast in a horrible light.

"He - you - you're going to eat me," she breathed heavily, in spite of her longevity, she feared then that she could hyperventilate. "Goddess, you've meant to eat me all along. You wanted me to kill all of those Witches, then you would - you could become strong enough to, to -"

The beast growled, the sound drawn-out, sounding like it resonated from a great, powerful chest.

You're jumping to a lot of conclusions, allowing your mind to conjure horrors that the like of I am incapable of - or, in the very least, am innocent of.

Netta allowed her fist to sail, uselessly, until it struck the wood of the coffin in front of her.

"Do not lie to me - I am finished with mischief, with - with smoke and mirrors, and I will fight you, Lover, Liar. Killer."

There was a pause, then It spoke once more, the voice sounding hollow, without personality transplanted onto it.

"You will dash me from the heaven of your mind and heart, doubt me because of the lies of others with cold duplicity?"

She felt it, then, Its breath as It spoke further, heaving over the side of her face. "You must be careful, girl, for I am wholly capable of giving you what you wish for. I - always - have been."

Netta cried then, feeling him breath on her for what felt like a nightmarish eternity.

Finally, the Monster spoke, Its voice returning to what It always sounded like to her.

"In order to damn me, you must attest to believing me a liar. Have I ever lied to you? Netta," she felt, then, the touch of a finger - so hot, against the freezing surface of her face. "I have never lied to you before now. What would lead you to thinking that I am doing it, now?"

Netta spoke, anger and horror beating their way into her voice. "I only need to trust you once for a lie of yours to harm me." And everyone as well.

When did she get so careless, so stupid, as to think that this sort of a relationship would ever lead anywhere? What right did she have to chance that It just happened to have learned the error of Its cruel ways?

Who was she to gamble the safety of everyone?

Her chest grew tight, the muscles in her body constricting as she felt her every hope in not only the last few months, but her every year alive, seem to wither in front of her.

She felt as the beast she could not remember removed Itself from her, felt it with a cry that tore out of her lungs.

"You brand me like some horrible creature that lives in the center of a labyrinth." It chuckled, the sound humorless, empty. "If you are to believe that I am such a thing, then who am I to offer you nothing but sorrow when you want to be with your family."

She blinked. The moment that she opened her eyes she thought that she saw two orbs of brightest flame above her. The gaze that they possessed burning into Netta.

When she closed her eyes, unable to withstand the damnation that they pressed into her, the accusation, she opened her eyes to realize that they were gone.

She wept, alone, in the darkness.