Struggling was futile. Alex was too exhausted to put up much of a fight anyway. It had been days since he had last been given food and he hadn't had any water since that morning either. The torture he had endured over the past few days had taken it out of him too. It was only when he saw the box on the table that Alex realised what they were going to do. He had thought they were taking him for yet another torture session. He had been wrong. The box was just big enough for him to lay down flat in; they were going to kill him and this would be his coffin.

Even then, he didn't realise the true horror that awaited him. Realisation came as they forced him in and he heard the nails being hammered in, the vibrations of the hammer running through his body each time it came crashing down. He was going to be buried alive… As he lay there hyperventilating in panic, his thoughts suddenly turned to Ben. He hadn't seen the other agent since they had been captured… however many days ago that had been. Was he suffering the same fate? Pounding on the lid of the box - he couldn't scream thanks to the gag in his mouth - did nothing. The guards were impassive as they held the lid down and hammered the nails home. There was nothing he could do. The hammering stopped. He had heard it make its dreadful progression around the box until it had completed its circuit. They had been thorough. There was no way that he would be able to escape on his own… and there was no chance of rescue. If rescue was coming, it would have been here days ago!

Terror overtook Alex as he felt himself suddenly lifted up. He was going to be sick. No! If he was sick, he would die, suffocated by his own vomit. He had to calm down. Focusing on his breathing and trying to imagine that he was anywhere else, the nausea slowly subsided, although his stomach was still tying itself in knots. He imagined that he was back on holiday with Jack, Tom and Sab, playing frisbee on the beach and just being a normal teenager for once, far away from the dark, murky and death-filled world of MI6. Alex forced himself to ignore the jostling and bumpiness of his journey and mentally took himself back to that beach.

Eventually, he was set down and panic rose again as he heard the grating sound of a shovel digging down. Was this part of the torture? To hear his own grave being dug? Part of him was surprised that they hadn't made him dig it himself. Maybe they thought it more likely that he would escape if they did and they certainly wouldn't want that. Now that he was still, it was somehow easier to force himself back to his happy place - to the beach - than it had been whilst they were moving. Alex could actually hear the waves and smell the salt air in his mind. Then he realised the horror of the truth. They were on a beach. He was going to be buried under the sand. Oh the irony of his happy place becoming his last resting place was not lost on him.

The digging stopped. How far had they dug? How far would he be lowered before he hit the bottom of his grave? How much sand would be piled on top of him? How long would he have before his oxygen ran out? How long would he have before he died? Alex had to use his hands against the side of the box to steady himself as his coffin was lifted and lowered into the ground. But he didn't try and attempt to escape. If, by some miracle, he did get out now when he had been unable to do so before, they would surely shoot him dead where he stood. He would just have to save the little strength he had left, wait until they had gone and then try again.

The sand thudded down onto the box as they buried him. Small trickles fell through the cracks in the wood, landing on his face, his arms, his legs, in his hair.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Alex could almost feel the weight of it all pressing down on his chest as more and more sand was shovelled down. Breathe. Rapid breaths would go through his remaining oxygen much quicker than slow, steady ones. Breathe.

"He's going a lot quieter than the other one," Alex heard one of the men jeer.

'The other one?' That had to be Ben, surely? Did that mean that Ben had already suffered this fate and was already dead? Despite his own circumstances, Alex felt an awful wave of sorrow for the agent who had been one of his few friends at MI6. He had always been able to count on him to support and back him up. And now he was gone.

The sand kept thudding down. Was it his imagination or was it already getting harder to breathe? No. Don't think like that. There had to be enough oxygen for him to survive for a while, otherwise it wouldn't be a very torturous death. Wait until they've gone, then work on escaping. He might not be able to get the lid off, especially with the weight of all that sand, but there were always the sides of the box that he could try. Soon enough, the thudding of sand being shovelled down stopped and Alex could just about make out the sound of footsteps retreating.

Now he started in earnest, trying to kick or punch or open the box in any way he could. If he hadn't been so weakened by his lack of nourishment, he might have gotten somewhere but, as it was, there was so little strength left in his body that nothing he did made the slightest difference to the integrity of the box. And there wasn't enough room to get leverage. He couldn't draw his legs up to his chest to kick out more powerfully. He couldn't get the right angle to push up with his arms. All he could do was lay and wait until he passed out from the lack of oxygen and, eventually, died. At least he would be unconscious when the end finally came. All things considered, Alex knew that there were worse ways to die. This was a lot better than dying, screaming in agony, at the hands of Dr Three.

"Alex! Ben!" Maybe the delirium of hypoxia was already setting in. He had to be imagining the voice calling for him and Ben. No one was coming. No one would find them. At least not until the wind shifted the sand and revealed the graves at some point in the future.

"Alex! Ben!" the voice called again. This time it sounded closer. Maybe it was the voice of the person who would lead him on… into whatever came next… if anything happened once you were dead. Alex had never really given it much thought. And now, it didn't really matter. If there was something, he would find out soon enough, and if there wasn't, well he would be too dead to realise. It was odd, the calmness that settled on him as he accepted his situation. He had faced death many times before but never quite like this. There had always been the possibility of escape, but not this time. So why waste time worrying about what he couldn't change? His main concern was for Jack. And Tom and Sab. They would probably never find out what had actually happened to him. They would bury an empty coffin, maybe in the plot next to his uncle. He was sure that he would get an equally patriotic service as Ian had done, although he wasn't sure he deserved it. He had never done any of it for his country.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps incredibly close by, although it was muffled by the layers of sand. There was someone there! And they must be fairly close - the footsteps sounded the same as the guards had done when they were walking away. Hope suddenly burning in his chest, Alex began to pound the best he could on the lid of his coffin once again, hoping against hope that he would be heard.

"Alex! Ben!" he heard the frantic shout again. He tried to call out, to reply and shout and make his presence known, but the gag stopped him from making anything louder than a small whimper. Maybe the footprints the guards had left in the sand would give his position away?

Alex was lightheaded now and had to make a conscious effort to draw breath. There couldn't be much oxygen left in the small box. He closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing and hoping that he would be found before it was too late…

"Alex! Ben!" Yassen shouted desperately. He knew that they were on the beach. He just didn't know where. And he could only hope that he was in time to save them. Yassen looked wildly around in the light of the sunrise and saw footprints up on the dunes. The imprint of many sturdy boots and the fact that they were too recent to have been from tourists gave it away too. These had been made recently by a group of guards large enough to carry two coffins and bury them in the small window of time where they wouldn't be seen.

"Alex! Ben!" he shouted again when he reached the dunes. The footprints were everywhere and didn't show a clear indication of where he should dig. If they were here, and still conscious, Yassen just hoped that he would be able to hear them. He paused, waiting silently, listening for the smallest sound. Then he heard it, the faint banging of a fist against wood just over to his right. Yassen ran and began shovelling as though his life depended on it. There was no time to lose - Alex and Ben's lives were at stake. He hadn't dug very far - only about a foot down - when the blade of his shovel hit wood. He kept going, digging until the whole of the coffin was revealed, and wrenched the lid off with his hammer. Ben Daniels was lying there, close to death and looking relieved to still be alive.

"Alex?" was his first fearful plea once he wrenched the gag out of his mouth. Yassen just shook his head.

"I found you first," he said as he helped the agent out of the coffin.

"Alex!" they both shouted in unison and then Yassen heard the faintest thud coming from his left. He had been standing over Alex when he heard Ben. They exchanged a look and scrambled over to where Alex's coffin must lay.

"останься со мной пожалуйста, Alex, моя любовь! останься со мной пожалуйста!" he shouted. Pleaded.

Yassen began digging furiously with his shovel and Ben used the lid of his own coffin to scoop vast amounts of sand aside. He may have been close to death and exhausted himself, but the agent put his all into digging deeper and deeper and Yassen knew that they were both thinking the same thing. They had to get to Alex! They couldn't let Alex die!

Muffled conversation followed the sound of desperate digging that Alex heard. Ben was still alive and had been found. At least one of them would be getting out of here. Alex was gasping for breath now that there was so little oxygen in the air around him.

"Alex!" He could only manage a couple of feeble punches to the wooden box that surrounded him in response and just hoped that it was enough.

"останься со мной пожалуйста, Alex, моя любовь! останься со мной пожалуйста." It was Yassen who had come looking for them, then, Alex thought as he drifted into unconsciousness, unable to stay awake any longer. That was nice. They might be separated by the box and the sand, but he was with people that he loved and Alex took comfort in that as he floated into oblivion.

Dig. Dig. Dig. Deeper. And deeper. And deeper. They had buried Alex so much deeper than they had buried Ben. Why? Yassen wanted to scream in his frustration but he channeled that energy into digging.

"Just hold on, Alex!" They both kept shouting. Again and again they shouted as they dug. Thud! They hit the top of the coffin. But it was only one of the corners; most of it was still buried. They had been digging in the wrong place! Both men started digging more frantically, trying to make up for the time they had wasted. They both kept calling out to Alex, trying to keep him conscious and both, Yassen knew, terrified that they were going to be too late. No sounds came from Alex's coffin any more. They kept digging until eventually enough of the coffin lid had been revealed. Yassen wrenched it back with his hammer and stared, motionless for a split second. Alex was lying unmoving and with a blue tinge around his nose and, from what he could see behind the gag, his lips. He wasn't breathing.

"Alex!" Yassen shouted as he jumped down to pull Alex up onto the sand that had trapped him. He had no pulse. Yassen wasn't going to give up. He began CPR, blowing oxygen into Alex lungs and pounding on his chest to try and restart his heart. In the back of his mind, he knew that without the proper equipment, there wasn't much hope. But he refused to give up. There was a crunch as one of Alex's ribs broke. It wasn't uncommon when patients were resuscitated, but it wasn't pleasant to think about either. So Yassen didn't think about it. He kept going with the chest compressions and the mouth-to-mouth, waiting for and willing Alex's body to respond.

"Yassen," Ben said sadly some time later, putting a hand on Yassen's shoulder. "He's gone."

"No!" Yassen couldn't believe it. Only now, as he looked into Ben's sorrowful face in defiance, did he realise that tears were streaming down his face. "No!" he said again, but in his heart, he knew that Ben was right. He slumped onto the sand beside the small unmoving body and wept, pulling Alex's body on his lap and cradling him in his arms. He had failed. He had broken a promise that he had made long ago; a promise that he would keep Alex Rider safe. He had failed.

The guilt of Alex Rider's death weighed heavy on so many people's hearts.

Yassen Gregorovich because he had failed to find him quickly enough to save him. That he hadn't heard Alex but had heard and rescued Ben first. He had broken a promise that he had made, not just to himself but to John and, later, Ian Rider too. That he had lost the boy that he loved as a son.

Ben Daniels' guilt was that he had been found first. That he hadn't prevented Alex from being used and sent on that final, fateful mission. Or any of them. He hadn't dug quickly enough. He had dug in the wrong place. That he hadn't done more to protect the boy that he considered the younger brother he never had.

Jack Starbright, Tom Harris and Sabina Pleasure all felt guilt for not doing more. For not standing up to MI6 and keeping Alex safe. They knew that he would not have wanted them to feel such guilt over something that they had no control over, but they felt it all the same.

Derek Smithers' guilt stemmed from the fact that he knew that he should have done more. He should have made a stand, first to Alan Blunt and then to Mrs Jones, and stopped them from using Alex in the first place. But he had done nothing.

Mrs Jones looked at the too small coffin, carried by Yassen Gregorovich, Ben Daniels, Tom Harris and Wolf, with the Union Jack folded across the top. First his parents. Then his uncle. And now him. Alex Rider had saved so many lives, but it hadn't been worth it. She should have stood up to Alan Blunt the moment that he first suggested recruiting the youngest member of the Rider family. But she hadn't. And she would have to live with that guilt for the rest of her life.

Alex Rider's funeral was well attended. Alongside Jack, Tom and the Pleasures, there were friends and teachers from school, the rest of K Unit, the Sergeant from the SAS training base, Doctor Roger Hayward, Diana Meacher and other medical staff who had met him at St Dominic's. There were a few MI6 agents, and a large number in the crowd that very few people, other than Mrs Jones, recognised. They were just a few of the people that his actions had saved; James Sprintz and some of the other teenagers from Point Blanc, Paul Drevin, as well as several heads of state. Although they hadn't wanted to take attention away from the young hero who they were here to remember, so they stood discreetly and quietly at the back of the crowd without their usual entourage. There was enough protection from MI6 for them to worry about security concerns anyway.

As the coffin was lowered into the ground where Alex would be laid to rest, in the plot beside his uncle, all that could be heard in the cemetery were sobs. The words that Mrs Jones had spoken at one of their first meetings came back to haunt her. 'You're never too young to die' but she had been wrong. Alex Rider had certainly been too young to die.