"It's you, Great Lady Beatrice!"

"It's you, Great Lady Beatrice!" I realized just a step too slow that the Beatrice I was trying to find wasn't here, but someone else who considered herself Beatrice and who had quite a nasty temper was. Surely, appealing to her ego was the right way to save my skin here...!

Crap! I felt something bind around my neck. Reaching for it with my hands, I felt a thin thread... thin, but impossibly strong. If I could see the color, I knew it would be red.

"Kyahahahahahaha!! That's right, Pervy Uncle! It's me, Beatrice. Not bad as far as last words go. What does that lame old epitaph say again? 'Praise my glorious name?' It feels pretty good to hear it just before the end."

I felt the cord curling around my neck as I saw a dark pillbox hat move into my field of view, as well as the head of a gold scepter the wire was attached to... but my eyes were rolling up in my head, so I couldn't look down to see the rest of the witch...

"Sorry, though, Uncle. There's not gonna be ten tons of gold, or lost love, the Golden Land, or any of my oh-so-generous Predecessor's gifts. If that's what you were wishing for... why don't you just give up and die?!"

As the cord tightened and everything went dark, I definitely died. But I'm definitely not giving up!