PART 1
Alejandro woke up to the smell of varnished wood and tuberose suffocating his lungs. He didn’t open his eyes right away. Not because he didn’t want to, but because an invisible, terrifying force was keeping his eyelids sealed as if they were cast in lead. He tried to move his fingers, then his toes. Nothing. Not even his tongue answered him. His body was a statue of cold flesh, but his mind was awake, screaming in a dull echo.
Suddenly, he heard the prayers. The unmistakable murmur of a rosary being recited at high speed.
“Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners…
He heard the sound of footsteps crawling on a marble floor. Someone was crying softly. A man coughed near him and whispered,
“He was only 45 years old. A fulminant heart attack. What a misfortune for the family.
Terror pierced him like a blade of ice. I wasn’t in a bed. I wasn’t in a hospital room. The darkness around him was absolute, sticky, and the space was so small that his shoulders brushed against the walls. It was in a box. Your own box.
Alejandro, the patriarch of one of the most important tequila families in Jalisco, was being held alive in a luxurious funeral home in Mexico City.
He recalled the night before in his mansion in Lomas de Chapultepec. She had been feeling without energy for 3 weeks, with a strange tingling in her extremities and tightness in her chest. His wife, Sofia, a woman 15 years his junior, with a perfect smile and calculating look, had brought his cup of pot coffee to his bed.
“Take it, my love. It has the mixture of natural herbs that Dr. Mauricio sent us. “He’ll help you sleep,” she had said, caressing his forehead with a tenderness that was now repulsive to him.
Mauricio was not only her personal cardiologist, he was her best friend since college. Alejandro trusted. He drank the bitter liquid. Then came the dizziness, and then, total darkness.
Now, trapped in his mahogany prison, he felt the touch of hands on the fabric of his suit. Sofia’s sweet and expensive perfume flooded the small space.
“Almost, my love,” she whispered, her voice devoid of any trace of sadness or pain. We finally got rid of you.
Another voice, masculine and deep, joined in. Mauritius.
—The synthetic paralyzer was an absolute success. No one questions a recognized cardiologist when he signs a death certificate due to cardiac arrest in a stressed patient. They did not even ask for an autopsy.
“What time do you put it in the oven?” Sofia asked with a coldness that froze Alejandro’s stagnant blood.
“At 6 p.m. As soon as it turns to ashes, the agave fields, the beads in Switzerland and the house in Valle de Bravo will be ours.
Cremation. They were going to burn him alive. Alejandro wanted to howl, tear his throat for help, but not a single muscle obeyed. The wake continued around her, a macabre play where her murderer received hugs and condolences, wiping invisible tears.
The lid of the coffin began to descend. Darkness swallowed Alejandro as the 3 metal locks clicked, sealing his fate. The air began to become scarce and heavy. His lifeless body was headed for the flames.
But what the murderous lovers didn’t know, was that a little oversight in the kitchen trash was about to unleash a real family hell. You won’t believe what’s about to happen…
PART 2
The sound of the coffin wheels sliding through the corridors echoed in Alejandro’s skull like war drums. He was being moved. Every vibration, every bump in the floor, was a reminder that time was evaporating. He was on his way to the crematorium. In his mind, the flames were already licking his skin, and despair turned into a silent prayer. If he came out of it, he would destroy Sofia and Mauricio mercilessly.
Meanwhile, in the main room of the funeral home, the tension could be cut with a machete. Alejandro’s younger brother, Roberto, his eyes bloodshot, ignored the scandalized looks of the Mexican high society gathered there. Doña Elena, Alejandro’s mother, cried inconsolably in a corner, clinging to her rosary. Sofia approached the old woman to hug her in front of everyone, but Roberto abruptly interjected.
“Don’t touch her, viper,” he hissed, low enough for only her to hear him. “I swear on my life that I’m going to find out what you did to him.” He was fine until the two of you began to “take care of him.”
Sofia hardened her gaze, showing her true face for a microsecond.
“You’re crazy with pain, brother-in-law. Alejandro left. Accept it, because starting tomorrow, I’ll take control of the family business.
That arrogant phrase was the trigger. Roberto didn’t wait any longer. He ran out of the funeral home, got into his truck and drove like a madman through the Periférico. He knew that Sofia was meticulous, but pride always leaves traces. He arrived at the mansion in Lomas de Chapultepec. He forced the service door and entered the kitchen. The house was in a deathly silence, too clean. He checked the pantry, the drawers, the tea bags. Nothing. Desperate, he put on some gloves and began to empty the trash can. Among stained napkins and avocado remains, he found something that didn’t add up.
A small dark glass jar, without a label, with a transparent and oily residue at the bottom. It didn’t smell like anything.
Roberto knew Hector, an old college classmate who was now a forensic toxicologist at a lab in Coyoacán. He called him as he ran back to the truck.
“Hector, I need you to test something today. I’m carrying a sample. My brother is ‘dead’ and they’re cremating him at 6. I think his wife poisoned him.
At 5:15 p.m., Alexander’s coffin was placed on the heavy metal platform in front of the crematorium. Through the wood, Alexander could feel the scorching heat radiating from the firebricks. The machinery of the place whirred like a hungry monster.
Alexander focused all the strength of his soul on his right hand. His brain was sending desperate electrical signals to his limbs. Move. Please move. A cold sweat began to break from his forehead, the first physical sign that the paralyzing effect was beginning to subside infinitesimally.
In Coyoacán, Héctor stared at his computer’s screen with his eyes wide open.
“Roberto… this is not a natural tea,” he said on the phone, his voice trembling. “There are traces of a very powerful synthetic neurotoxin. It induces a state of extreme paralysis. It slows the heartbeat and breathing to almost 0. Whoever has taken this seems dead… but the horror is that he may be 100 percent conscious.”
Roberto’s world tilted.
“They’re going to burn him alive!”
It was 5:40. Roberto didn’t have time to get to the funeral home with that traffic. He drove to the nearest police station and pushed his way to the desk of Commander Vargas, a hardened man who knew the family.
“Stop the cremation of Alejandro García!” It’s a murder in progress! Roberto shouted, throwing the preliminary report from his phone and the bottle on the table. His wife and Dr. Mauricio paralyzed him!
Vargas saw the real desperation in the man’s eyes, grabbed his radio and ordered all available units to surround the municipal crematorium immediately. “Stop the procedure at any cost.”
In front of the oven, Sofia and Mauricio watched from the waiting room. Mauricio breathed a sigh of relief.
“It’s all over now. There will be no body, there will be no evidence.
“And it all begins for us,” she replied, adjusting her expensive black veil.
An employee of the crematorium approached the machine. He pressed the button. The conveyor belt squeaked. The coffin began to move slowly towards the maw of fire. 3 meters. 2 meters. The heat inside the box was already suffocating. Alejandro felt that he was burning inside. With a superhuman effort, born of absolute panic and fury, he managed to move his index finger. Then, a violent reflex caused his entire arm to hit the wooden lid from the inside.
A dull blow.
The clerk frowned.
“Did you hear that?”
“It’s the wood,” said another worker. Sometimes it creaks from the heat.
1 meter. The flames roared. Alejandro gathered all the air that his depressed lungs could swallow and let out a guttural, broken sound, an almost animal-like moan that tore through the lining of the coffin.
At that exact moment, police sirens wailed, breaking the peace of the place. The double doors of the crematorium were kicked open.
“Police! Turn off that machine right now! Commander Vargas shouted.
Roberto walked in behind the officers, covered in sweat, his eyes fixed on the wooden box inches from the fire.
“Open it!” Open my brother!
The clerk, trembling with terror, removed the latches and lifted the lid. The smoke and heat came out suddenly. Everyone in the room held their breath.
There, with his face bathed in sweat, very pale, Alejandro was motionless… but his eyes slowly opened. He looked straight at Roberto. His index finger visibly trembled.
Roberto burst into tears like a little child.
“He’s alive!” Call an ambulance!
Sofia, from the waiting room, saw the scene and turned white as wax. He began to shake his head.
“No… it can’t be…
But here came the big reveal that no one expected, the twist that destroyed everything. Mauricio, seeing the police and Alejandro with his eyes open, knew that his life was over. In an act of pure cowardice, he raised his hands, ran to the officers, and pointed to the woman he claimed to love.
“It was her!” She forced me! The cardiologist shouted, crying. He threatened to ruin my career if I didn’t get the toxin! I only helped her out of fear. She had already transferred 82 million pesos to an account in the Cayman Islands this very morning! Check your accounts!
Sophie, seeing the betrayal, lost all the composure of a grieving widow. He pounced on Mauricio in front of the police, digging his nails into his face.
“Unhappy traitor! You planned this to take my money and kill me later! I saw the tickets to Europe in your name alone!
As the two accomplices tore each other apart, shouting out their own crimes and betrayals, paramedics lifted Alejandro onto the stretcher. He couldn’t speak, but as he passed his handcuffed, bloodied wife, he held her gaze. Sofia understood the message: he had heard everything. Every mockery. Every plan. And now, she was going to pay for every second he spent in the dark.
The trial was the scandal of the century in Mexico. “The dead man who heard his own funeral”. Sofia and Mauricio blamed each other until the last day, revealing a network of fraud and lies that led them both to receive sentences of more than 40 years in prison in maximum security prisons.
Alejandro’s recovery took nearly a year of painful physical therapy. But the poison could not kill his spirit. He sold the mansion in Lomas de Chapultepec, that empty and cold castle, and divided half of his fortune into foundations. He moved to a simple but light-filled house in Coyoacán, two blocks from his brother Roberto.
One morning, sitting on the patio having a real coffee with his brother, Alejandro smiled. The lesson was brutal: human greed has no limits and can disguise itself as the sweetest love. But blood calls, true family love rescues you even from the flames, and in this life, karma always has the last word.
What would you do if you found out that the person sleeping next to you is your worst enemy? Leave your opinion in the comments and share this story if you think that, in the end, the truth always comes to light, even if they try to bury it.
