Chapter 3 - Breaking the Surface
Down in the dark, Mariana’s fingers had found a weak point in the pine seam—where the rushed carpenters had skimped on nails to finish the oversized box before sunset.
“Push with your legs, Mateo! Use the wall of the box!” Mariana commanded, her voice fierce and commanding, cutting through the terror.
With a joint surge of adrenaline, Mariana shoved upward with her shoulders while the boys kicked with their remaining strength against the footboard.
Crack.
The dry wood groaned. A shower of loose dirt rained down onto Mariana’s face, filling her hair and mouth.
“Again!” she roared.
CRACK.
The lid splintered open, and a rush of cool, midnight air flooded the coffin. Mariana gasped, greedily sucking in oxygen, her hands bursting through the gap in the soil like talons. She clawed upward through the loose, freshly shoveled earth, pushing dirt aside until her hand broke free into the open night air.
A minute later, coughing and gasping for breath like drowning swimmers breaking the surface of a deep ocean, Mariana pulled Mateo and Santiago out of the open grave one by one.
They collapsed onto the grass beside the headstone, shivering, pale, and caked in dirt, but alive.
“Are you okay? Can you breathe?” Mariana asked frantically, checking her sons’ pulses, wiping the dark soil from their tear-streaked faces.
“Mom... my chest hurts,” Santiago whispered, clutching his shirt.
“We’re going to get help,” Mariana said, her eyes flashing with cold steel as she stared toward the distant gates of the cemetery where Rodrigo’s car tail-lights were just disappearing down the winding country road. “Your father and grandmother thought they could bury us. But they made one fatal mistake.”
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She stood up, her bare feet pressing into the damp grass, her black dress ruined and stained with earth. She looked down at her boys.
“They left us breathing.”
