My Second Life as Harriet

The first thing I felt was pain. My lungs burned, my head rang, and when I opened my eyes-there was blood everywhere. A broken carriage. Cold wind. Bodies that would never move again. And then, the sharp, twisting ache in my stomach. I looked down-my hands trembling-and saw the swell of a belly that wasn't mine. I was pregnant. Heavily. The realization struck harder than the pain itself. I didn't know where I was, or even who I was. My limbs felt foreign, my heartbeat erratic, as if it belonged to someone else. I tried to crawl, to move away from the wreckage, but the world blurred at the edges-until all I could see was the sky, vast and endless above me. When I woke again, everything had changed. The air was warm. The voices around me-soft, melodic, in a language I couldn't understand. Silver eyes watched me from the shadows, faces too ethereal to be human. That was the moment I realized... wherever I was, it was no longer the world I knew.