Chapter 7: A Name I Don't Know
The moment Alea stepped out of the Harapan Bunda Hospital grounds, her intuition began screaming that a pair of unfamiliar eyes was watching her every move.
That strange feeling first surfaced when the taxi carrying her stopped at a red light at the city's main intersection. In the reflection of the side mirror, Alea caught sight of a black sedan with tinted windows parked several cars behind them. The sedan remained perfectly still when the traffic light turned green, as though deliberately maintaining a safe distance to avoid arousing suspicion. Alea tried to dismiss her anxiety, convincing herself it was all just a coincidence. But when the taxi pulled over across from her school gate, the black sedan appeared again, parked not far away along the roadside.
Alea's chest fluttered violently, her heart racing as she struggled to hold back her panic. She had no idea who was behind the vehicle's dark windows, but the recording of the mysterious conversation in her house the previous night rang clearly in her ears once more: Don't let that girl find Dr. Surya. Who were they really trying to stop? Dr. Surya? Or was it her own life they were trying to protect?
"Alea!"
Naya's loud call shattered her long reverie. Her best friend approached, clutching two thick textbooks. "Where have you been? Didn't you say this morning that you were heading straight to school?"
Alea tried to pull herself together, forcing a faint smile that felt utterly hollow. "I had to take care of something outside for a bit."
Naya tilted her head, studying Alea's pale face with a furrowed brow. "You look really washed out and worried, Alea. Are you sick?"
"I... I just didn't get much sleep," Alea replied shortly. Naya didn't press her any further, though the wary glint in her eyes showed that her suspicions hadn't been put to rest.
They walked side by side toward the classroom, but Alea's thoughts had wandered far from the school around them. The teacher's explanation at the front of the room sounded like meaningless static. Only one name remained etched in her mind: Dr. Surya Mahendra. If that doctor was the person who had overseen her delivery seventeen years ago, then the key to this entire complicated puzzle had to be in his hands.
When the recess bell rang, Alea hurriedly searched through old online forums on her phone and managed to find a record of the doctor's address: 17 Melati Street. She quickly wrote it down, determined to go there after school. But before she could close the screen, her phone vibrated sharply in her hand. A message from an unknown number appeared again:
You never should have gone to that hospital yesterday.
Alea's body went rigid as she typed a reply with trembling fingers: Who are you really?! Answer me!
Within seconds, the next reply appeared on her screen: Someone who wants you to stay alive.
Alea held her breath, anger and confusion wrestling in her chest. She typed back: Then tell me... who is Rendra Pratama really?!
The message showed two check marks, followed by a long, silent pause before a photo attachment arrived.
Alea opened the photo. It showed a young man standing firmly in front of the old Harapan Bunda Hospital building. His face was strikingly clear, his sharp gaze radiating a mesmerizing calm. A brief caption appeared at the bottom of the photo: Rendra Pratama — 17 years ago.
Alea stared at the photo without blinking. A strange feeling suddenly surged through her. The young man's face felt completely unfamiliar, yet at the same time carried a familiar warmth from the hazy fragments of her childhood memories. When she enlarged the photo, she saw a young woman standing beside Rendra with a gentle smile. She was the exact same woman as the one in the ink-stained baby photograph Alea had found!
Alea's hand trembled violently. If the photo was genuine, then the elegant woman beside Rendra was her true biological mother, and Rendra Pratama was part of the very beginning of the fate surrounding her birth.
After school, Alea took public transportation to the Melati Street neighborhood. The old housing complex looked extremely quiet and deserted. House number 17 stood at the very end of the street, enclosed by a green wrought-iron fence whose peeling paint had been eaten away by rust.
Alea stood frozen in front of the gate for a few moments before finally mustering the courage to knock on the iron fence. "Excuse me... Good afternoon..."
The silence remained oppressive. Just as Alea let out a resigned sigh and was about to turn away, the rough sound of a dry cough came from behind the front door. An old man with white hair and a stooped body appeared, holding the door. Even behind his thick glasses, his eyes remained sharp and intensely wary.
"Who are you? What do you want?" the old man asked in a hoarse voice.
Alea stepped closer to the fence and showed him the photo on her phone. "I want to meet and speak with Dr. Surya Mahendra."
The old man stared at the screen of Alea's phone for a long, scrutinizing moment before finally looking straight into her eyes. "I am Surya."
Alea's heart pounded as she held her breath. "Doctor... I want to ask you about an important event that happened at Harapan Bunda Hospital seventeen years ago."
Dr. Surya's expression instantly turned stiff and tense. "What's your full name, child?"
"I'm Alea Adinata."
At the sound of that family name leaving Alea's lips, Dr. Surya stood stunned in silence for quite some time. His eyes filled with deep uncertainty before he finally turned the key and opened the iron gate. "Come in," he whispered.
The interior of the old house was very simple, filled with stacks of old medical books and the smell of stale paper. Dr. Surya guided Alea to the living room sofa, then poured a glass of warm water onto the table. "Why have you come looking for an old man like me?"
Alea reached into her pocket, pulled out the baby photograph stamped "Baby A," and placed it on the wooden table. "Do you recognize this photo, Doctor?"
Dr. Surya lowered his head to look at the tiny photograph. In an instant, the hand holding his cup froze. His face suddenly went deathly pale. "Where... where did you get this photo?!" he demanded, his voice trembling with panic.
"It was in my house," Alea answered firmly.
Dr. Surya looked at Alea with a dazed expression filled with both pity and fear. "You never should have come here, Alea..."
"Everyone always says the same thing to me!" Alea cut in, her voice thick with emotion.
"Because they all know how dangerous the truth is!" Dr. Surya snapped.
Alea leaned forward, staring straight into the doctor's eyes. "Then please explain it to me, Doctor! Please..."
Dr. Surya let out a heavy, wrenching sigh. He struggled to his feet, walked to the bookshelf, and took down an old tin box. "On July 12, seventeen years ago, two baby girls were born almost simultaneously at Harapan Bunda Hospital."
Alea held her breath, her chest fluttering violently. "I already know that fact."
"But what you never knew..." Dr. Surya looked at her with wounded eyes, "...is that the identities of those two baby girls were switched."
Alea shot to her feet, her hand gripping the edge of the table. "So... so the rumor about the babies being switched was actually true?!"
Dr. Surya nodded slowly. "Yes. It really happened. That night, the hospital was in complete chaos because of a sudden management takeover. Two emergency deliveries took place at the same time in a single, severely cramped room."
Alea stared at him sharply, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. "Who were the biological mothers of those two babies, Doctor? Who is my real mother?!"
Dr. Surya closed the old tin box tightly. "I can't tell you that name, Alea."
"Why?! Why can't you?!"
"Because after the switching incident that night," Dr. Surya whispered, "Rendra Pratama came to see me privately. He paid me and threatened me to keep my mouth shut and completely forget everything that happened that night."
Alea's body went rigid where she stood. "Rendra Pratama?"
"Is Rendra Pratama... my biological father?!" Alea pressed, her eyes pleading for confirmation.
Dr. Surya fell into a rigid silence. He neither confirmed nor denied it. But the old man's prolonged silence was more than enough to confirm Alea's suspicion.
"Rendra Pratama..." Dr. Surya murmured, "...isn't the person you should fear in this secret, Alea."
Alea furrowed her brow anxiously. "If it's not Rendra... then who should I be afraid of?!"
Dr. Surya was about to answer, but his sentence broke off when the roar of a heavy vehicle suddenly stopped right in front of his gate. Dr. Surya hurried to the window and pulled the curtain aside slightly. The old man's face went deathly pale, consumed by sheer terror.
"They... they've found this place..." Dr. Surya whispered, trembling violently.
Alea crept over to peek through the gap in the curtain. Outside the gate stood a black sedan with tinted windows—the exact same car that had followed her from the hospital to school!
Dr. Surya hurriedly reached into his pocket, pulled out a worn sheet of paper, and wrote an address with violently trembling fingers. He shoved the paper into Alea's hand. "Go to Rendra Pratama at this address right now, before those people find him first!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Heavy pounding echoed against the iron gate at the front of the house, followed by a cold, threatening shout: "Dr. Surya! Open the door right now!"
Dr. Surya gripped Alea's shoulders with both hands and looked at her with utter resignation. "Run through the back door now, Alea! Hurry!"
"But what about you, Doctor?!" Alea cried, tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Go, Alea! Run!" Dr. Surya shouted, pleading with her.
Alea turned and ran as fast as she could down the kitchen hallway toward the back door. Before pushing open the outer door, she managed to glance back. In the dim living room, Dr. Surya stood alone, facing the front door as it began to buckle inward under forced entry. For the first time in her life, Alea witnessed pure, unmistakable fear in the eyes of an adult man.
Alea shoved open the back door and sprinted through the narrow alleys behind the old neighborhood. Behind her, the pounding against the front door rang out, cleaving the silence of the afternoon.
Clutching the address from Dr. Surya, Alea felt one name pounding relentlessly through her consciousness: Rendra Pratama. She realized that her search had reached the point of no return, and that this unfamiliar man might be the only truth capable of completely changing the course of her life.