I Refuse to die twice

The heavy double doors of her bedroom slammed shut, cutting off the suffocating atmosphere of the mansion downstairs. Emma locked the door with a sharp click, leaning her back against the wood as she finally let out the breath she had been holding.

Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

“What the hell was that?” She murmured in a daze.

Then she fisted her hair and screamed in frustration, tugging her hair tight. 

What she didn't expect was for some hair to get pulled off.

“What the fuck!?” 

She almost cried as she threw the hair on the ground.

“So now I'm both losing hair and my life? Can't I at least die beautifully?!”

She raised her hand to pull on her hair again but she remembered and slowly brought her hand down.

She began pacing back and forth across the plush Persian rug,chewing frantically on her nails, her thoughts racing out loud in the empty room. 

"Okay. Okay, think. You just rejected a two-million-dollar settlement. Cool cool cool, but you are officially broke."

She stopped pacing, feeling the urge to strangle someone. 

"What do I do now?”

Her thoughts were all over the place as she tried to think up the best solution to take her out of the mess.

“Okay okay. First option... I can take out a bank loan, right? Start a small business, get some quick cash..."

 She instantly shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. 

"No. Idiot. Ethan is the most powerful tycoon in the city. The moment my name hits a loan application, he’ll find out and crush it before the ink even dries."

She started pacing again, frustration boiling over. 

"Even if I want to just pack a bag and run away, running costs money! Train tickets, fake IDs, rent... I have absolutely nothing."

What kind of 24 year old had absolutely nothing. She might have been living a destitute life in her previous life but at least she had a cent or two.

Unable to contain the panic anymore, Emma groaned and threw herself face-first onto the massive, king-sized bed. 

She thrashed her legs, kicking the expensive sheets and throwing a total, unadulterated tantrum into the pillows.

"Of all the novels to get sucked into!" she yelled into the mattress, her voice muffled. "People transmigrate and become beloved princesses, pampered villainesses, or wealthy female leads! But no, I just had to get the exact opposite. A tragic, neglected cannon fodder with a piece-of-shit husband and a death clock ticking over my head!"

She rolled over onto her back, staring up at the glittering crystal chandelier with pure exhaustion.

"What unfortunate luck," she muttered to the ceiling, throwing her hands up in defeat. 

"I was still a virgin in my past life, and I transmigrated straight into a miserable marriage. I didn't even get to enjoy the billionaire husband perks before he tried to legally assassinate me!"

For a long moment, she just lay there, the heavy silence of the mansion pressing in on her. She couldn't take a loan.

 She couldn't ask Ethan…

“Who do I even call?”

Does the original Emma have any friends? A family? Anyone who can help her hide or lend her a few bucks?

She squeezed her eyes tight to remember the plot.

Suddenly, a sharp thought struck her mind.

Emma sat up abruptly, her eyes widening. She smacked her own forehead in disbelief. 

"How could I forget? Her phone!"

Emma scrambled off the bed, her bare feet hitting the floor as she began frantically searching the large bedroom. 

She tore open the nightstand drawers, flipped over the couch cushions, and rifled through the vanity table, desperate to find the one lifeline that could give her answers.

She checked under the pillows, inside the exotic jewelry boxes on her dressing table, and even peered into the pockets of the few expensive coats hanging in her walk-in closet, tossing things onto the floor in a frenzy.

"Where is it? Why the hell would she hide her phone?!" she muttered, her breathing shallow as she threw open the bottom drawer of the nightstand.

Deep in the back,she lifted a stack of old journal entries and pressed flowers which she threw aside in disgust, then her fingers brushed against something cold and sleek.

Her eyes lit up.

“Found it.”

She pulled out a matte-black smartphone. It felt shockingly heavy in her hand. It was an old model from at least a few years back.

 Her heart did a nervous flutter as she pressed the power button.

 The screen instantly lit up, displaying a completely unfamiliar lock screen photo: the original Emma, looking like a fairy,her lips spread in a toothy smile and her eyes shining as she stared into the camera.

Emma felt sorry for her.

This must have been before she married him.

 "Don't worry, girl. I'm going to fix this for us," she whispered.

Typing in a pattern unlock that her muscle memory seemed to remember on its own.The home screen loaded instantly. There were no social media apps. No games. No group chats with friends. The phone was a digital graveyard, a stark reminder of just how isolated the original Emma had been. 

The only frequent contact on her call log was 'Ethan,' and every single outgoing call to him had been marked as ‘failed’.

Emma sighed, shaking her head.

Hoping to find at least one distant family member or a childhood friend, Emma tapped on the messaging app. 

But instead of standard text messages, there were all notes to herself.

Emma sat back on her heels and clicked the first one.

“Dear me,” it read. “Ethan looked at me today. It is my twentieth birthday and I think our engagement is going to be announced today!! I'm so excited.”

A small smile stretched on her lips. She could feel the excitement the girl must have felt.

She scrolled further, reading almost everything that had happened as Emma documented and they were just a show of how her life plummeted.

“Dear me,it's the second year of our marriage and I'm twenty-two now. This is not what I had hoped for. I don't know why he hates me. He used to treat me better when we were kids,what went wrong?...”

A few scrolls more, she saw another.

“Dear me….Dad passed away today. I've never been so sad. My only family is gone…. I wish I had seen him one last time.”

Emma felt a pang to her heart as her vision blurred.

As an orphan herself,she knew how incredibly lonely it felt and knew what the original may have passed through, after being plunged into a world of loneliness, alongside her terrible marriage.

Tears slid down her cheeks and she wiped it with the back of her hand.

That message was dated two years ago. 

There must be something more,Emma sniffled and as she searched,she saw a draft in an app named ‘my precious’.

Emma raised a brow.

“My precious?” She murmured in confusion.

It couldn't be Ethan,she had seen Ethan's own chatbox with tons of unreplied messages. And in the book,no one was so dear to Emma.

Curiosity spiking, she tapped it.The app opened straight into a drafts folder. Emma's breath hitched as she looked at the dates. Every single message in this folder had been written over the last two weeks,but none of them had actually been sent to anyone.

As her eyes scanned the text, the blood drained completely from her face.The writing style wasn't desperate or pleading like the original Emma's diaries. It was sharp, cold, and frantic.

Draft 1: I think someone is watching the house. Ethan thinks I'm crazy,he thinks I just want him to stay with me. I'm scared..

Draft 2: Someone might want me dead,but who?....

Emma’s hands began to shake so violently she nearly dropped the device. The original Emma knew. She hadn't been a clueless weakling who blindly signed papers; she had been terrified, trapped, and trying to figure out a way out before she suddenly died and this new soul took over her body.

Slowly, Emma scrolled down to the very last draft, saved just hours before she woke up in this bed.The final message was short, brutal, and kept like a reminder to self.

“If you remember everything, don't trust anyone in the Hayes family.”

Emma slowly dropped the phone, goosebumps rising from her skin.

What did she mean by ‘if you remember?’ 

Did she know something was going to happen?