“You are a woman who has been given the gift, but spurns it,” Regina went on. “You try to be a man when men are nothing but the purveyors of the seed. It is the woman that is life. It is the woman that is continuance. It is the woman that spawns life in these green depths. And you turn away from that most precious of gifts that was instilled, engineered into our kind.”

“No, no, Mother. I’m more than that, I’m—”

“You are a breeder and that is your purpose. The reason you were given breath. To breed and multiply and fill the dark waters with your spawn. In the beginning, we came from the sea and in the end, we must return to it.”

Inside the suit, Javy shook her head from side to side because this was all blasphemy in accordance with her beliefs. As Regina continued to speak of life on Earth and how humans were engineered from wild beasts, intelligence instilled within us, a crop the aliens had sown and would now reap in a final, diabolical harvest, Javy felt like she could not breathe. She felt Regina’s knobby, callused hands squeezing the life out of her.

“You will take your place amongst our kind and fulfill your destiny.”

Javy trembled with fear and rage, with repulsion and anger. Her entire life, this woman had tormented her, squashed her, made her feel small and weak and meaningless. She had sucked the blood from her veins and drawn the air from her lungs. She had stepped on her again and again like a squirming bug. Even in death, it hadn’t stopped. The evil hag had suckered herself to the soft white underbelly of her soul, slowly leeching the life force from her.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed at her. “I’VE ALWAYS HATED YOU!”

Regina prattled on about how she had only given birth to her because it was the right and necessary thing. She spoke of her daughter like a white grub she’d squeezed from her loins and nourished on royal jelly so that she might take her rightful place in the hive.

“YOU DON’T EVEN CARE THAT I FUCKING DESPISE YOU!” Javy cried out.

At that moment, she realized there was a painting on the wall behind Regina’s chair. In it, a man of gleaming onyx sat on a throne, hundreds of naked human beings wriggling at his feet like plump maggots. He was the Messenger, Javy knew, and he and only he understood the greater plan for mankind. He watched her with glistening spider eyes, grinning at her, because he knew all and she knew nothing.

Javy strode toward Regina.