Elena dropped the axe and tore at the shattered lid with her bare hands.

“Mrs. Hart? I’m here. Please, hold on.”

A weak, trembling breath escaped from inside the coffin.

The mourners froze as Evelyn’s fingers slowly appeared through the broken opening, pale and shaking, but alive.

Her husband lunged forward.

“She’s confused,” he said quickly. “She was very sick.”

Elena stepped between him and the coffin.

“No.” Her voice shook, but she did not move. “You were scared she would wake up.”

The older mourner stared at him. “What did you give her?”

He said nothing.

Together, the mourners lifted the cracked lid away. Evelyn lay inside, barely conscious, her lips dry, her breathing shallow. When her eyes opened, they searched the room until they found Elena.

“Elena…” she whispered.

Elena took her hand and burst into tears.

“I heard you,” she said. “I heard you scratching.”

Evelyn’s husband began backing toward the door.

Then Evelyn turned her head and spoke with the little strength she had left.

“He wanted the house.”

Every face in the room shifted toward him.

“He said no one would question an old woman dying in her sleep,” she whispered.

The husband bolted for the exit, but the two male mourners blocked him before he reached it.

Elena stayed beside the coffin, holding Evelyn’s cold hand against her cheek.

“I was afraid I was too late,” she cried.

Evelyn’s fingers tightened weakly around hers.

“You came,” she whispered. “When my own family let them close the lid… you came.”

Elena lowered her forehead to Evelyn’s hand as sirens rose outside.

And for the first time in that spotless funeral room, the mourners were no longer grieving the woman in the coffin.

They were watching her breathe.