The Woman They Tried to Bury Alive

Chapter 1: Stop the Funeral

"Stop the funeral! She's not dead!"

The maid's scream tore through the chapel.

Everyone turned just in time to see her lift the axe again and bring it down on the black coffin. The sound was brutal. Wood split. Guests screamed. Splinters flew across the white flowers.

"Stop her!" someone shouted.

The maid, Clara, did not stop.

Her orange uniform was soaked with sweat. Her white maid's cap had slipped sideways. Tears ran down her face, but her hands stayed locked around the axe handle.

Inside the coffin was Lady Evelyn Blackwood.

The richest woman in the county.

The family said she had died peacefully in her sleep.

Clara knew that was a lie.

An older man in a black suit stepped forward, his face red with anger.

"Shut her mouth. Now."

Clara pointed the axe at him. "You are burying a living soul. All of you know it."

The room froze.

Evelyn's daughter, Margaret, covered her mouth in horror. Her husband, Arthur, stood beside her, his face pale. Near the coffin, Evelyn's elderly sister, Rose, stared at the broken lid as if she had seen a ghost.

"She's still breathing," Clara cried. "She's banging on the wood."

For one second, no one moved.

Then a sound came from inside the coffin.

Scratch.

A thin, sharp sound.

Like fingernails dragging across wood.

Arthur whispered, "Did you hear that?"

Rose stepped closer, trembling.

"It's her," she said. "She's awake."

The family looked at each other.

But they did not look relieved.

They looked terrified.

Clara saw it then.

They had known.

And before anyone could open the coffin fully, the old man grabbed Clara's arm and hissed into her ear.

"You should have let her die quietly."