When the Deceased Breathed

I'm Sarah Miller, a highly-paid "Soul Weaver" specializing in unique and often unconventional final rituals to bring closure to grieving families. My latest lucrative assignment, an $80,000 overnight "final companionship" at an isolated upstate New York estate, was meant to be purely symbolic for a wealthy young man named Ethan. As I prepared for the intimate ritual, ensuring his body stayed suitably pliable with electric blankets, I noticed something profoundly unsettling. My "deceased" client, Ethan, was alive, his chest rising with a faint, steady breath. The truth unfurled in terrifying whispers: he was Marcus Thorne, the scion of a tech empire, kidnapped by the seemingly grief-stricken Jenkinses, who were now my captors. Their monstrous plot was far beyond ransom; they intended for me to conceive a child with Marcus, then brutally murder us both to secure his family' s immense fortune. Trapped and utterly isolated in the dimly lit viewing room, my cell phone mysteriously ruined and the heavy doors locked from the outside, I realized my professional expertise in the ceremonies of death had become a meticulously crafted trap for the living. The sickening realization struck me: I, the pragmatic Soul Weaver who navigated grief for a fee, was now a pawn in a cold-blooded scheme, facing a fate far worse than any ritual I had ever performed. I was no longer an impartial professional but a direct participant in a nightmare, facing murderous criminals rather than mourning loved ones. But as terror threatened to paralyze me, a new resolve ignited, fueled by deception and an urgent need for survival. With Marcus, my "client," by my horrified side, we formulated a desperate, insane plan to turn my unique skills against them. We would harness the very superstitions that led them to hire a Soul Weaver, conjuring a terrifying 'ghostly' haunting within their own mansion to fight for our escape.