Chapter Text
Emily Corin sat hunched over a Styrofoam container of microwaveable pasta, the artificial cheese sauce congealing in clumps under the weak light of her flickering overhead bulb. The air in her London flat smelled faintly of mildew and disappointment. She took a mechanical bite, chewing without tasting, her gaze fixed on the peeling wallpaper across from her.
The apartment had felt like a fresh start once. Now it was a tomb with rent. A leaky ceiling wept rhythmically into a rusted pot on the floor. The drip echoed like a metronome marking the tempo of her slow unraveling.
She used to play the piano to drown out silence. Now she couldn’t afford an electric keyboard, let alone time.
“I gave up my music,” she whispered, the words as brittle as the fork in her hand. “I gave up what I loved just to survive.”
The spreadsheet open on her laptop taunted her from the dining table—cells full of numbers she’d filled in late at night, weekends, lunch breaks stolen from the break room. Endless hours quantifying other people’s money.
And none of it was enough.
She stared at the wall. One crack slithered downward like a vine, reminding her of how everything she'd built was quietly crumbling.
She stood outside her boss’s office the next morning, palms damp, heart thudding like a drumbeat. She’d rehearsed this conversation a hundred times.
“I wanted to ask about a raise,” she said, when he finally looked up.
He blinked. “A raise?”
She pushed forward. “I’ve taken on more projects. I hit all my targets, and I’ve worked every weekend since Q3 closed.”
He smiled—condescending, paternal. “You’ve done good work, Emily. But times are tight. We’re all making sacrifices.”
Two weeks later, her coworker—James—was promoted. The same James who borrowed her analysis, who laughed too loud in meetings and offered no credit where it was due.
She didn’t cry. She just stood by the office window, looking out at the blur of gray clouds over London’s skyline, and whispered, “Unbelievable.”
The city pulsed below. Fast. Expensive. Hungry. She’d come here for opportunity. Instead, she found endless debt, underpayment, and a nagging feeling that her life belonged to everyone but her.
Her phone rang that evening. Grandma.
“Emily, my dear,” came the familiar, breathy warmth. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” A lie wrapped in fatigue.
“You know,” Grandma began gently, “your mother was like you—driven, determined. Then she met your father. Everything changed.”
Emily pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m not Mom.”
“I just think it’s time to start thinking about your future. A husband would—”
“—pay my rent? Cook my meals? Raise my kids while I work two jobs?”
A beat of silence.
“I only meant—”
“I don’t need a man to rescue me,” Emily snapped. “I need a world that doesn’t bleed me dry.”
She ended the call. The dial tone buzzed like a gnat. She dropped the phone beside her and curled into the sofa cushions.
Outside, the streetlights flickered. Inside, the ceiling drip had found a new rhythm.
She opened her laptop and typed “medieval queens who ruled alone.”
Pages loaded with women in armor, royal robes, long shadows cast over courts full of doubters. She clicked through them slowly. Then hit play on an episode of House of the Dragon. The credits rolled. Violins surged. Fire danced across the screen.
“What if I were a princess?” she murmured, allowing the fantasy to curl around her like a blanket. “What if I didn’t have to ask permission just to live?”
The show flickered in the dark. The women onscreen burned and bled, clawing for power in a world built to deny them.
“They deserve better,” Emily said aloud, her throat tight.
Then, as if summoned, her music player shuffled to a song she hadn’t listened to in months: “Labour” by Paris Paloma.
The lyrics crept in like a tide.
Who fetches the water from the rocky mountain spring?
And walk back down again
to feel your words and their sharp sting...
Emily closed her eyes. Tears slipped down her cheeks. The weight she carried pressed heavier against her chest.
All day, every day—therapist, mother, maid...
Just an appendage, live to attend him...
It’s not an act of love if you make her
You make me do too much labor.
She didn’t sob. There was no rage. Only stillness. A cold, quiet exhaustion.
“I’m so fucking tired,” she whispered, the words catching in her throat.
She didn’t mean tired like a long day. She meant tired like spent. Like a wick burned down to its last inch. Her body ached in places she hadn’t known could ache. Her hands trembled. Her thoughts felt muffled, like trying to scream underwater.
A distant thunder rumbled. The ceiling drip had stopped. The silence was disorienting.
Emily lay back on the sofa. The laptop cast a pale light across her face, illuminating the tear tracks on her cheeks.
Her eyelids grew heavy.
She let them close.
She didn’t dream.
The next morning, the sunlight filtered through gauzy curtains, soft and golden.
Sara knocked twice before letting herself in. They always met for Sunday coffee.
“Em?” she called. “You decent?”
No answer.
Sara rounded the sofa and froze. Emily lay still, arms crossed over her stomach, eyes closed, face peaceful. Her chest didn’t rise.
“Emily?” Sara whispered, rushing to her side.
Emily’s skin was cool. Her lips slightly parted, like she was in the middle of saying something.
Sara’s fingers shook as she dialed emergency services.
The paramedics arrived fast. They moved with practiced grace, hushed voices, solemn nods.
“Exhaustion,” one said quietly. “Her heart just... gave out. Likely overwork. Nothing immediate. No trauma. She just... stopped.”
Sara stood in the hallway as they covered her friend’s body with a sheet. Her vision blurred.
She remembered Emily’s laugh, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about old piano pieces, the sarcastic commentary during their favorite dramas. She’d been tired for so long. Sara had just thought... she’d pull through.
Emily Corin, age twenty-seven, died in her sleep in a modest flat above a pawn shop in Camden.
She left behind no partner, no children. No pension. No legacy.
Only silence.
But even in death, the pressure didn’t vanish.
It just... transformed.
Somewhere far beyond that London flat — in a world of fire and crowns and dragons — a breath was drawn in a different body.
And Emily opened her eyes.