Yes, it is a deathfic. I didn't want to say so flat out, since the ending would have lost all its vigour if the reader already knew the outcome. I was intending to add the 'death' tag to the entry in a week or so, when most people who are reading it for the first time will have done so, and there wouldn't be such a spoiler effect.

I tried to word the author's note so that people were expecting a dark ending, without giving the suspense away.