The scream that tore through the room did not come from the mourners.

It came from inside the coffin.

The maid gasped and ripped at the broken lid with both hands until the lead mourner finally dropped beside her and helped tear it open.

Inside, the young woman lay pale and weak, her fingers trembling, her lips barely moving.

She was alive.

One of the women in black collapsed into tears. The second man staggered back so fast he hit the wall.

The maid leaned over the coffin, crying now.

“I told you,” she whispered. “I told you I heard her.”

The woman inside struggled for breath.

“Water…” she rasped.

The room erupted into chaos.

The lead mourner stared down at her like he was looking at a ghost.

“No… no, we buried you…”

Her eyes fluttered open.

She turned weakly toward him, then toward the maid.

And through a shaking breath, she forced the truth out.

“They tried to make me disappear.”

The whole room froze again.

The maid clutched the edge of the coffin, sobbing from shock.

“Who?” the lead mourner asked.

The woman’s hand lifted weakly and pointed.

Not at a stranger.

Not at the door.

At the second man in the dark suit.

His face drained of all color.

The mourners turned toward him in horror.

The maid looked up, shaking.

The woman in the coffin swallowed hard, her voice breaking into a whisper.

“He said if I woke up… he’d finish it.”

And in the middle of the funeral meant for a dead woman, every eye locked on the man who had buried her alive.