Hey, you beautiful people. The idea for this came about in the middle of a test at college when, out of nowhere, I got a sudden mental image of Cassie Rose and Winslow lying on that platform you leave her on, waiting for death, and realised that she quite literally dug her own grave. It gave me the shivers and I figured it was time I contributed something to this fandom, right? Right?

Just a little heads-up: I'm British and I write with UK English, so if you see certain words spelled with a 'u' ("favourite", "colour", etc.), that's the reason why.

Also, shout-out to Savannah-the-Caracal for her encouragement and for advising me to cut myself a bit of slack. She's pretty cool, so go check out her stories.

(This chapter was edited on 15/01/18; the ANs were altered, minor mistakes were fixed and there's been a new development I want to share with you guys: GUESS WHO GOT ACCEPTED ONTO THE ENGLISH AND CREATIVE WRITING COURSE AT HER FIRST-CHOICE UNIVERSITY?! (*does happy dance*))

Fic-ward, ho!

She screamed.

She cursed.

She raged.

She clawed at her hollowing cheeks and tore at her hair.

She broke down and wept puerile, pointless tears.

Finally, she dropped limply against the chunk of rock suspended in the middle of the cavern like some kind of cage. Waiting.

And still nothing. Nobody. Just her and her cat. As the days spilled into each other, he remained by her side like he always had. Even here. In a death trap of her own making. The same death trap that would serve as their grave.

She had never given much thought to what lay beyond death. There hadn't been any real need to, because death was weakness, something that only ever happened to other people, that she was much too clever for. Even when she'd been methodically (obsessively) plotting the violent deaths of those around her, even now that three of them were nothing but inventory (it wasn't as though anyone would really miss TorqueDawg, she technically hadn't caused the death of Sparklez and as for Dan…well, even if she hadn't been planning to kill him anyway, he'd seemed the most likely candidate to be carrying around what should have been hers, hadn't he?), all that had mattered was the enchanted flint and steel.

Both of those precious portal keys, now snug in the pockets of those who were no doubt cheerfully toting them like some kind of toy, knowing full well how desperately she'd needed them and not giving half a damn.

Selfish, undeserving bastards, the lot of them.

Especially Jesse.

Interfering, persistent, sanctimonious, self-satisfied, hateful Jesse who'd just had to waltz in to play hero, ripping her chances away from her and then having the sheer gall to pretend she had the first understanding of what she was going through, that she hadn't meant to leave her to die slowly, painfully, pathetically, so close to freedom but powerless to reach it.

That in itself was its own kind of torture. How cruel the universe was.

"I'm really sorry it had to be this way, Cassie. I wish it could've gone differently."

"Me too."

Well, she hadn't been lying. She wished it so badly it hurt, hurt like the hunger pangs that gnawed ever more insistently at her insides, hurt like the torchlight that drilled into her eyes and illuminated every pitiful detail of her plight, from the incessantly squealing Endermites below, to the tauntingly close platform above, to the indifferent walls and the cold hard blocks on which she lay.

Hadn't purple once been her favourite colour? Now it seemed to press around her like some sort of oversized coffin. How appropriate.

Tracing all those who'd had the bravado to call themselves 'adventurers', gaining their friendship (please, as though any of them had ever actually given a damn about her), installing her traps and passageway system, taking the risk of not sitting near one of the table buttons in the hope that one of those cretins would be stupid enough to push it, playing her part so well that she'd so nearly managed to push the blame onto the blond idiot who, logically, could not have been the killer even if he'd had the backbone…all useless. Thanks to some goody-goody interloper sticking her pretty little nose where it didn't belong and those equally unwanted irritants she'd called her friends.

Stupid little girl. Hadn't this whole thing taught Jesse that there was no such thing as 'friends', that nobody could be relied upon?

…Except for one. Darling Winslow, who lay curled beside her, his purrs less and less frequent and more and more weak. He was just waiting now. Just like she was. Her body had stopped shivering against the stone pressing into her back. Stopped trying to fight the inevitable. In fact, the moment the Endermites had started to look like the better option was the moment she'd realised she didn't even have the strength left to reach out and pet her best friend, let alone push herself off the edge of her little platform.

The universe was so, so cruel.

And hadn't she known that by asking, begging, for her cat to be returned to her arms, she'd condemned him to share her fate? Though that was probably the way Jesse and all those other thorns in her side had wanted it. Nice and neat and thorough.

As Jesse's pitying expression swam nauseatingly before her eyes, a scream brewed in her lungs, only to cut itself off as it reached her throat. For one thing, her throat was so raw, her mouth so dry, her lips so cracked that she could barely choke out the threats and profanities she was rasping into thin air.

For another, she didn't want to disturb the ghosts that shivered at the edge of her vision. She'd stopped trying to summon the ability to turn her head to look at them, because they melted away every time she tried. But that didn't mean she didn't know they were there. At first, she'd wondered whether they were there to torment her or to watch over her.

Then she'd asked herself why it mattered. It wasn't like there was anything they could do to her now.

And besides…what good would screaming do her, really? Nobody would come. Nobody cared. Hadn't every fibre of her body been crying out for help for weeks, months, years? And who'd heard her then? Who was even listening?

Because of course she was okay. Why wouldn't she be…

…when she'd been so full of anticipation while stamping her signature on each of those invitations, so sure she was signing the execution warrants of the recipients, so blissfully unaware she was actually writing out her own?

Cassie Rose died laughing.

You can't spell 'slaughter' without 'laughter'…haha…ha…ehhh… (*crickets chirp*)

Yeeeaaahh, I'm not 100% happy with the way this turned out, but I've rewritten it about four times and this is the best I've managed so…yeah. Let me know what you think.

(*awkwardly tips hat*)

~ Rainy

(PS: credit for Cassie referring to Lukas as "the blond idiot" goes to the awesomely talented Toni42.)

(PPS: Anyone who has a better idea for the title, please feel free to drop a comment or PM me. I'll credit any suggestions I use.)