The cracked screen lit up again. It wasn’t a call. It was a voice recording that had somehow started before my son’s phone broke. I pressed play, and through the static I heard my own voice whispering, “Mom, don’t let her bury us.” I froze. I had no memory of saying it. Then another voice came through — my son’s. He was crying. “Mom, we weren’t sick. Grandma put something in our drinks.” I looked toward the bronze doors. From the other side came three slow knocks.
I screamed for help, but nobody answered. Then I remembered what my son had said before he collapsed: he’d seen Grandma carrying the same silver bottle she’d used at dinner. I crawled toward the door and found a tiny ventilation opening near the floor. Through it I could see the corridor — and my mother-in-law standing there with my husband. She was holding a shovel. My husband was holding the bottle. They weren’t waiting for us to die. They were waiting for the medicine to wear off. Then my daughter’s phone buzzed beside her body.
I grabbed it with shaking hands. There was one new message from an unknown number: “Stay quiet. The police are already inside the house.” A second message arrived immediately after it. “Your husband knows.” I looked at my son, who suddenly opened his eyes. He whispered that he could hear them outside. Then the bronze door handle began turning. I held my children close and waited for it to open. But when the door finally moved, it wasn’t my mother-in-law standing there. It was a police officer — and behind him was the doctor who had signed our death certificates.
