The Heiress They Buried Alive

Nora's POV On the day of my burial, I stood beneath the old oak tree at the far edge of our estate and watched my own funeral. Under heavy mourning clouds, the air smelled of wet soil and the kind of grief that refuses to leave. The yard was a sea of black, neighbors and old family friends moving in hushed, practiced sorrow. My mother's cry split through all of it like broken glass. "Hannah, my love!" Someone tried to hold her back. She fought them off. Her knees crashed against the fresh mound of soil. Her fingers clawed at the earth, digging in deep until the dirt packed beneath her nails and her fingertips began to bleed. "Let me see my daughter!" Her voice was raw, scraped hollow. "Nora, my child, you cannot leave mummy like this!" Across the grave, my boyfriend Frank knelt with his forehead pressed against the soil, his shoulders shaking. My best friend Tina stood beside him, one hand resting gently on his back, her own tears running in clean lines down her cheeks. My mother fainted not long after. Two women caught her before she hit the ground. Someone splashed water gently across her face until her eyes opened. She surfaced slowly, blinking, the expression of a person waking into a nightmare they had briefly escaped through unconsciousness. Then her gaze drifted toward the grave and reality returned all at once. The sound that came from her chest was not a scream. It was quieter and somehow worse, a low, fractured thing that dissolved almost before it fully formed. "I will endure," she whispered. Her fingers found the old shirt of mine she had been clutching since morning. She pressed it to her face. Her shoulders trembled. "My Nora. My only daughter. She has followed her father into the unknown." She said "I will endure" again. And again after that. Not with conviction but with desperation, the way a person repeats something not because they believe it but because stopping feels like the last thing they have left to lose. Behind her, my uncles stood in a semi-circle of false solemnity. Clems and Martins whispering about the estate while John played the role of grieving brother. I had been so fixed on my mother that I almost didn't hear it. Footsteps approaching behind me. Too close. I spun around and fell straight into a stranger. His arms caught me before I hit the ground, one hand closing around my waist, the other steadying my shoulder. For one disorienting second I was held by a complete stranger with charming eyes and unfathomable handsomeness I doubt I have seen before. "Easy." His voice was low and unhurried. He assessed every inch of me, a slight smile spreading across his face. I should have pulled away immediately. I didn't. Because the eyes looking down at me were the kind that trapped me in awe. For a moment I forgot everything going on around me. "How does a beautiful girl end up sneaking behind an oak tree instead of standing with everyone else?" His eyes moved briefly toward the burial before returning to mine. "You do know there's a funeral happening over there?" I blinked. He tilted his head, waiting patiently. "Huh?" He raised an eyebrow. "Are you deaf and dumb?" he asked. The words snapped me back. I stepped out of his arms and planted both feet firmly on the ground, my chin lifting to where it should have been from the beginning. "It is none of your business," I said, smoothing my gown. "I stepped away for fresh air. That is all." He looked at me for a moment. Then a slight, quiet smile reached his eyes. He extended his hand. "Clinton," he said. "And you?" I looked at his hand. Then at his face. "A nobody," I replied, looking away to avoid his gaze. Something moved across his expression and he exhaled. "Alright." He lowered his hand slowly. "Nobody it is." He glanced back toward the gathering and adjusted his jacket. "I stepped out to take a call. The crowd was too loud." He looked at me again briefly. "I'll be heading back now. If you don't mind." Seeing that I wasn't in the mood of conversation, he walked away. I watched him go and I was still lost in how handsome he was before my mother's voice pulled me back to reality. "Please someone show me where my daughter is." The grief stabbed me in the heart. The stranger by name Clinton who just left a few seconds ago handed a brown envelope which I presume it's money to my mother, patted her back and left with two men that accompanied him. I watched them drive past the gate and his eye met mine again, I turned away immediately. Just then Clems leaned toward my mother and spoke just loud enough for the people nearby to hear. "Hannah." He exhaled slowly. "Remember what the elders say." He paused briefly. "Ghosts can see us. They can walk among us. But they cannot talk." My mother froze. The words landed exactly as he intended, not as comfort but as a door swinging shut on something fragile. Slowly her head lifted and turned toward the oak tree where I stood. For one terrible moment her eyes seemed to find me. Her lips parted slightly. Something moved across her face, recognition, or the desperate wish for it. My heart stopped. But her gaze passed straight through me like I was made of air. My uncles had spent weeks constructing a world in which I did not exist. Every major television station had run the same story. Every radio channel repeated it throughout the day. 'Young Tech Genius Nora Anderson dies in a tragic car explosion during internship travel. No survivors. Body burnt beyond recognition.' The media had been paid well. The story was clean. My classmates covered their profiles in black and candle emojis. Even government records had been quietly adjusted, my name removed from every registry, every database, every place where names are stored and protected. As if someone had simply pressed delete on a human being. The crowd began to thin as afternoon moved toward evening. Cars pulled out of the estate one by one. The pastor said a final prayer. Someone helped my mother to her feet and guided her slowly back toward the house. At the gate, Uncle Clems paused and looked back once across the estate, his eyes sweeping the grounds with the satisfaction of a man taking stock of something he now owned. Then he walked inside. I stood there until the estate was empty. Then I wiped my face slowly with the back of my hand. I looked at the empty grave they had filled with nothing and at the house my father built, now walked through by his brothers like it had always belonged to them. ‘My existence, or my life.’ My uncle's cold voice still echoed in my ears. And I made myself one promise. I will come back and I will take back everything they stole. *+*+*+*+ The first three days after the funeral, I stayed in a guesthouse on the rough end of Greystone Avenue. A narrow bed. A ceiling fan that rattled on its highest setting. Thank God for the attitude of saving in a Box my Dad instilled in me and I started it immediately 6 months ago. I sat on the floor and let everything hit me at once. My father's death. My mother's devastating state. Frank and Tina exchanging glances when they thought I wasn't watching. The empty grave. I let it all move through me completely, because feelings you refuse to feel have a way of arriving later at the worst possible moment. I cried until there was nothing left to cry. Then I washed my face, sat on the floor with my back against the bed, and started thinking. I needed three things. A new identity. A job. And groceries to be able to sustain myself against the task ahead. I had built test identities during my internship, practice exercises in a digital forensics module, constructing false paper trails to understand how verification systems could be exploited. I had never imagined using that knowledge for myself. I ghosted into the National Registrar, pulled up the encrypted backend of the University database. Inserted Mira Josh in the server log amongst the 2024 graduating class, created a digital footprint of four years of grades. I didn't just build an identity. I hacked reality. By the morning of the third day, Mira Josh existed. I went through twelve companies before I found it. Clinton's Media Tech. Thirty-two floors of blue glass in the center of the financial district. But it was the name at the top that held my attention longest. Clinton Moore. The same name on the margins of my father's contract file. ‘C.M., Clinton's Media Tech. Eastern site.’ That meant my father had a contract with this company. I applied for the software development position immediately. Two days later I received a confirmation. I had my hair cut to shoulder length at a nearby salon, dyed it to oxblood color, retrieved my big eye glasses from where I kept it in my laptop bag and left. I approached the receptionist desk and introduced myself in a calm, unremarkable voice. "Mira Josh. Software development position." The receptionist checked the system, nodded, printed a staff pass, and slid it across the desk without hesitation. "Third floor. Welcome to the company." I smiled and reached for the elevator.