Chapter 3: The Truth in the Wood
Chapter 3: The Truth in the Wood
He ripped at the edge of the coffin with shaking hands.
“Open it!” he shouted. “Open it NOW!”
Two guards forced the latch.
The lid gave way with a heavy creak.
The hall fell completely silent.
Inside—
His father lay in a tailored suit that didn’t fit the reality of what was happening.
His eyes were open.
Wide.
Panic-stricken.
Tape stretched across his mouth.
His chest rose in shallow, desperate breaths.
For one impossible second, no one moved.
Then chaos exploded.
“No…” the son whispered, voice breaking. “No, no, no—”
His stepmother stumbled back.
For the first time, her composure shattered completely.
“That’s impossible,” she breathed.
The father thrashed weakly, trying to speak through the tape.
His fingers scratched against the velvet lining of the coffin.
Alive.
Buried.
Conscious.
The son turned slowly toward the only person who had refused to let this coffin be opened.
“You knew,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
The stepmother’s face went pale.
“I didn’t—” she started.
But the truth was already written in her fear.
Sirens wailed faintly in the distance.
And in the open coffin, the man they had buried started to cough through the tape—still fighting for air that had already been taken from him once.
The son looked down at his father, then back at her.
And in that moment, grief turned into something far more dangerous.
Because funerals end with closure.
But this—
May you like
This was only the beginning.
The End
