All the way home from school, Alea's head throbbed as she kept thinking about the string of words in the mysterious message she'd received. > Find the second baby. Your life was switched with hers.
The sentence echoed in her mind like the tolling of a bell that refused to stop. If it was true that two baby girls had been born at Harapan Bunda Hospital on the same date, then there was a strong possibility that one of them really wasn't Alea.
But who was the other baby girl? And why had their lives been switched in such a complicated way?
Alea gripped the strap of her schoolbag tighter, feeling a cold fear creep into her fingertips. She was beginning to realize that this great secret had expanded far beyond the mere domestic conflicts of her family.
As she stepped into the house, the atmosphere inside felt unnervingly quiet. Only a few servants moved soundlessly through the living room. Alea was about to head straight upstairs to her room, but her steps came to an instinctive halt when she faintly heard voices coming from Adrian's study.
The thick, ornately carved wooden door wasn't fully closed, leaving a narrow gap.
Alea had just started to walk past when Celine's voice came through the opening, loud and brimming with emotion.
"Dad, I don't want to be lied to anymore. I want to know everything!"
Alea froze where she stood, right beside the wall near the stairs. She held her breath and strained her ears.
"I'm old enough to know the truth about this family, Dad," Celine pressed.
Adrian's deep voice answered in a low, weighted tone. "You don't need to know everything in this world, Celine."
"But this is about Alea!" Celine cut in, her voice trembling.
Alea pressed her lips tightly together, her heart pounding.
"I heard you and Mom talking that night," Celine said, her voice colored by deep confusion. "Alea... she's not your biological daughter, is she?"
Silence. Adrian gave no verbal reply. Celine continued, her voice beginning to break with sobs. "If she isn't your daughter... then who is Alea, really? Was she switched with someone at birth?"
Alea felt her heart stop beating. An icy sensation swept through her entire body. Celine knew too!
After a long, agonizing silence, Adrian finally answered stiffly, "Celine, listen to Dad. Never talk about this or bring it up in front of Alea."
"Why, Dad?"
"Because the more she knows," Adrian said in a deep voice laced with veiled menace, "the greater the danger threatening her life will become."
"Danger from whom, Dad?!"
Adrian didn't answer. Celine's sobs grew louder. "You always said I was your favorite daughter. But now... I don't even know whether this family is really as whole as I've always imagined it was..."
Alea clamped both hands over her mouth. Beneath her own pain, a stab of pity pierced her when she realized that Celine had also been thrown into the same abyss of fear.
Not long afterward, Marissa's soft yet firm voice cut in. "Enough, Celine. End this conversation."
The door hinges creaked, and the study door swung open.
Alea spun around on instinct and hid behind a pillar in the hallway. Celine hurried out, her beautiful face wet with tears. She ran upstairs toward her room without noticing Alea.
A few seconds later, Marissa followed. Before closing the wooden door completely, she looked inside and whispered to Adrian, "We have to resolve this before it's too late."
"I know," Adrian replied curtly.
Alea held herself still until the two of them went back inside, then slipped upstairs to her own room.
She sank weakly onto the edge of her bed, staring blankly at the wooden floor. Her suspicion had now been proven true. The three of them were hiding a truth about the baby-switching scandal.
But... what was the reason behind it all? The night grew deeper and darker.
Alea was still awake in the darkness of her room when she faintly heard the roar of a car engine stopping in the front yard.
She rose from her bed and slowly approached the window, parting the curtains slightly. Beneath the dim garden lights, a tall, broad-shouldered stranger in a dark coat stepped out of the black vehicle. Alea didn't recognize him.
The man strode toward the front door. Within minutes, Alea saw Adrian come out to greet him personally. They exchanged a few brief words, their faces tense, before finally heading inside toward the study.
Alea's curiosity burned hotter in her chest.
She slowly turned the lock on her bedroom door, then tiptoed down the hallway toward the upper landing. When she reached the study door, which once again stood slightly ajar, the conversation inside drifted out more clearly.
"It's time we revealed it," the stranger said in a firm, cold voice.
"The time isn't right!" Adrian snapped.
"You've put it off for seventeen years, Adrian!"
Alea held her breath in the darkness of the hallway. "If everything comes to light now," Adrian answered in a hoarse voice heavy with pressure, "I won't be the only one destroyed. All our lives will be ruined!"
"Rendra has started making his move," the stranger cut in sharply.
The name struck Alea's consciousness, leaving her rigid with shock.
"He already knows Alea exists," the man continued. "If Rendra finds her first, it will be too late for all of us."
Alea clutched her pounding chest. Rendra Pratama was still alive. All this time, she'd assumed the man might be someone from the distant past who was already dead. But the opposite was true: he was real, he was alive, and he was actively tracking her down! "He must not come face-to-face with Alea!" Adrian said firmly.
"Why?"
"Because if that happens," Adrian said quietly, "Alea will learn the whole rotten truth about the past."
Shocked, Alea instinctively took a step back. But in the darkness, her heel accidentally struck a small ceramic vase on a decorative table in the hallway.
Crash!
The sound of shattering ceramic rang out, slicing through the silence of the night. The intense conversation inside the study stopped dead.
A wave of overwhelming panic seized Alea. Without thinking, she spun around and ran as fast as she could to her room. She slammed the door, turned the lock, and leaned helplessly against it while struggling to catch her ragged breath.
Only seconds later, the echo of heavy footsteps approached and stopped right outside her door.
Knock... knock... "Alea?"
It was Adrian's voice. Alea stayed silent, biting her lower lip tightly in the darkness of her room.
"Alea, open the door," Adrian called again, his tone controlled yet thick with suspicion. "If you happened to overhear something... don't jump to conclusions."
Alea squeezed her eyes shut. Every cell in her body screamed for her to open that door and spill out all the questions tormenting her chest. But fear and the warning about danger held her body still.
After several moments of silence with no response, a heavy sigh sounded from outside before Adrian's footsteps slowly faded away.
With cold, trembling fingers, Alea reached for her phone on the table. She opened the photo of the Harapan Bunda Hospital document she'd saved from the school library that afternoon, then typed in and saved the hospital's full address.
At last, one firm decision took root in her mind: Tomorrow, she would go there herself.
She no longer cared about the Adinata family's prohibitions or threats. She had to seize the truth for herself.
The next morning, Alea acted as though she intended to go to school as usual. But shortly after the family car dropped her off at the main intersection, she quickly hailed a taxi and directed it toward Harapan Bunda Hospital.
The old private hospital looked far more dingy and dilapidated than she'd imagined. Alea stood in the front courtyard for a moment, drawing a deep breath to steel herself as she tightly clutched the baby photograph hidden in her pocket.
She walked with determination toward the main admissions desk.
"Excuse me," she said to a female clerk behind the counter. "I'd like to ask about old birth records."
The clerk looked up. "What year?"
"Seventeen years ago. Specifically, July 12."
The clerk's fingers danced across the keyboard for several seconds before finally stopping. Her brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, but the medical records for that date are incomplete in our system."
"Is there no record of two baby girls being born on the same day?" Alea pressed curiously.
The clerk fell silent, studying Alea's face with a puzzled look. "Who exactly are you, miss?"
"I... I'm one of the baby girls born that day." The admissions clerk jolted in shock.
But before she could respond further, an elderly woman in a senior nurse's uniform who had been sitting at the desk behind them suddenly stood. Her eyes locked onto Alea from a distance, her face filled with disbelief.
The senior nurse walked closer, slowly but surely.
"You..." the old nurse whispered when she stood directly in front of Alea.
Alea turned to her in confusion. The old woman's trembling hand slowly reached out and grasped Alea's uniform sleeve. "Those eyes... the shape of your eyes..."
"What's wrong, ma'am?" Alea asked, confused.
The old woman's breathing quickened, and her face suddenly went deathly pale. "You... you look so much like your mother..."
Alea's chest tightened violently. "My mother?! You know my real mother?!"
But before the old woman could answer, her gaze accidentally fell on the tiny, ink-stained baby photograph peeking out between Alea's fingers. In an instant, the senior nurse's expression changed drastically, becoming one of sheer terror.
"That photo... where did you get that photo?!" she whispered in panic.
"I found it at home," Alea answered quickly.
The old nurse instinctively pushed the photo back into Alea's grasp, anxiously sweeping her gaze over the hallway. "You have to leave here right now!"
"Why? Please tell me, ma'am!" Alea pleaded.
"Never try to look for or open those records again!"
"You must know something about the baby switch, don't you?!"
The old nurse leaned closer, gripping both of Alea's shoulders tightly as she whispered in a voice trembling with fear, "If you still want to survive... never trust anyone. Anyone at all."
Without another word, the old woman spun around and hurried away, disappearing behind the door to the sterile hallway.
Alea stood frozen amid the bustle of the hospital waiting room.
But just as she turned to leave the building, her eyes accidentally caught an old wooden display frame mounted on the wall of the main hallway. It held a series of photographs of legendary doctors who had once served there.
Alea's steps came to a complete halt at one of the photos. > Dr. Surya Mahendra > Obstetrics & Gynecology Specialist > (Retired — 17 Years Ago)
Alea stared intently at the silver-haired doctor in the photograph.
The doctor's retirement seventeen years ago had coincided exactly with the year of Alea's birth and the hospital's suspicious change in management. He might be the only surviving key witness who knew the secret of what had really happened to the two baby girls that night.
Alea took out her phone and photographed the nameplate as her next major clue, then hurried toward the front door.
She had no idea that directly across the main road in front of the hospital, a dark-windowed sedan was parked motionless.
Inside the car, a man wearing sunglasses watched Alea's every move through a small pair of binoculars. He pressed a cell phone to his ear.
"She just left Harapan Bunda Hospital," the man reported coldly.
A deep voice, unmistakably authoritative, answered from the other end of the phone: > "Don't let that girl find Dr. Surya's whereabouts."
The man inside the car curved his lips into a thin, cold smile. "Understood. In that case, we'll have to move faster than she does."
At the same time, inside a taxi speeding through the city streets, Alea stared blankly out the window. She never realized that from this moment on, her search was no longer merely a private secret, but a dangerous hunt in which every step she took was already being watched by unknown spies.