Part 1Gifting My BFF Something Extra Special

My best friend made me pumpkin puree. I poured it straight into my pregnant dog’s bowl.

Because I’ve been reborn.

In my last life, she bound me to a "Harvest System." Every time I ate the food she prepared, the baby growing inside me would be transferred to her womb, to be born as her own.

She had married into a powerful family, one that hadn't produced a male heir in three generations. Her in-laws were desperate for a grandson. But she was barren. So she turned her predatory gaze to me, her newly married best friend.

I managed to get pregnant, a miracle I cherished, but after every meal she brought me, I would suffer a devastating miscarriage.

While I mourned, she gave birth to four sons, one after another, basking in the adoration of her husband and his family, her triumph a cruel mirror to my grief.

In the end, she and her husband framed me for adultery, shattering my reputation. My own in-laws threw me out onto the street with nothing. I starved to death, alone and forgotten.

But now, I’m back. She wants a child, does she?

Well, stealing mine is no fun.

This time, I’m going to give her some far more… unique "treasures."

* * *

I opened my eyes to the sound of a doctor confirming my pregnancy.

Three months along. Right on schedule.

Before I could even process the news, a steaming thermos of chicken soup was placed in front of me.

“Elara, pregnancy must be so exhausting for you.”

The voice belonged to my best friend, Seraphina. A pampered trophy wife, draped in silk and dripping with jewels.

“I knew something was up when you lost your appetite,” she chirped, her smile never quite reaching her eyes. “Here, I made this soup just for you. It’s delicious. Go on, have a taste.”

I met her gaze, my jaw tight, and made no move to take the bowl.

A sharp sigh came from my other side. It was my mother-in-law, rolling her eyes. “Elara, what are you waiting for? Drink it. Don’t be so ungrateful. Sera is so good to you, always thinking of you.”

A nearby nurse chimed in. “She’s right. If I’d married into a family like that, I’d have forgotten all my old friends. Seraphina has a heart of gold.”

“I heard she even made that pumpkin puree by hand. A friendship like that is so rare these days.”

“She’s as beautiful as she is kind. Her children will be just as wonderful, I’m sure.”

Seraphina offered them a gracious, practiced smile before turning back to me, ladling a bowl of the glistening soup and holding it to my lips as if I were a child.

“Drink it while it’s hot. I was up at four this morning, simmering it for eight whole hours. If you don’t like it, I can make you a squab broth instead?”

A cold wave of memory washed over me.

In my past life, the joy of learning I was pregnant had been fleeting. I drank her soup, and by that night, I was cramping, bleeding, losing my child.

My husband took me for every test imaginable, but the results were always the same: my body was perfectly healthy. There was no medical reason for the miscarriages.

And that was only the beginning.

I conceived three more times. I lost them all. Each time, the doctors were baffled. No gynecological issues, no identifiable cause.

I nearly went mad trying to understand why. Why couldn't I hold onto my precious babies?

It was my mother-in-law who found the “answer,” watching our home security footage. She saw me—or a version of me—leaping around the house, jumping on furniture, even punching my own stomach, as if desperate to destroy the life inside me.

But it wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t.

I was always so careful, treating my body like a fragile temple. I guarded my diet, my every move. I would never have done those things.

I pleaded, I swore I was innocent, but my husband and his parents were convinced I’d lost my mind. They had me committed.

The doctors diagnosed me with schizophrenia.

Then, to seal my fate, a strange man appeared, claiming we were lovers. He told everyone the reason I’d killed my four unborn children was because I refused to give my husband an heir, saving myself for him alone.

I was cast out, divorced, and stripped of every penny and piece of identification I owned.

I died under a freeway overpass, my last sensation the gnawing emptiness in my stomach.

Only when my soul drifted free did I see the truth.

It was all Seraphina, and the “Harvest System” she had bound to me.