A deafening crack split the funeral parlor.
Wood exploded from the white coffin as splinters scattered across the polished floor.
Screams filled the room.
“What are you doing?!” the man in the black suit shouted, his voice echoing off the cold walls.
The maid stood trembling, gripping the axe with both hands, eyes wide with something deeper than panic.
“She’s not dead!”
The mourners recoiled in horror.
A woman cried out, “Stop her!”
But the maid didn’t move back.
She yanked the axe free, her breath shaking, chest rising fast.
“I heard her… I heard her breathing!”
Another swing—
CRACK.
The lid split further open.
And then—
silence.
Not normal silence.
Heavy.
Wrong.
The kind that presses against your ears.
The man stepped closer now, slower, his voice no longer angry… just uncertain.
“…that’s impossible…”
The maid dropped the axe.
It clattered across the floor.
She fell to her knees and began tearing at the broken wood with bare hands.
“Help me!” she screamed.
No one moved.
Not one person.
Then—
something.
A faint sound.
From inside.
“…did you hear that?” a woman whispered, barely breathing.
The camera of the moment seemed to pull everyone forward at once.
Toward the dark gap in the coffin.
Something shifted inside.
A subtle movement.
A presence where there should be none.
The man’s voice broke into a whisper.
“No…”
And then—
a hand.
Pale.
Still.
Suddenly—
it twitched.
The maid gasped and reached toward it, her fingers shaking.
“She’s alive…”
And in that exact second, just before anyone dared touch it—
the hand moved again.
Harder.
Like something inside was trying to get out.
Cut to black.
Part 2 in the comments.
