The Lost Alpha Daughter

“Ow, my head,” I grumble to myself. I sit it from my nap, or at least I think it was a nap, oddly I can’t seem to remember falling asleep. I look around, and I can’t quite seem to tell where I am. “Sweetie, are you alright?” I hear from somewhere to my right. I look over to see a middle-aged woman, maybe about 40? I don’t know, she looks old enough to be my mom. I’m not quite sure how old my mom is, this headache must be messing with my brain. I don’t respond right away; I look at her with what I’m sure are very glassy eyes. “Uh…” is about all I manage to say. It’s that moment I really get a good look at where I am. I’m in a park? It seems like it, given the number of people with dogs around me. I’m sitting on a metal bench; seems like an odd place I chose to take a nap. Why am I here? Why can’t I remember? “Do you need some help? I think I should get you to the hospital sweetie,” the lady says to me, bringing me back to focus. Hospital? Why would I need a hospital? I pull away my hand I had pressed to my temple, the source of this piercing headache that doesn’t seem to want to get better, and it’s then that I notice my hand is sticky with blood. I guess I screamed, because everyone playing with their dogs has stopped. Even the dogs seem like they’re staring at me like I have two heads. I look back at the lady, she seems nice, and her deep brown eyes are laced with worry. This time I only nod. She holds her hand out to me and I take it. “Come on sweetie, let’s get you some help. What’s your name?” That’s odd. I want to answer her question, but I can’t. She seems to understand my silence because she doesn’t press the issue, she just nods and quickens our walking pace. With her free hand she whips her phone out of her pocket and holds it to hear ear. “Hey David, something came up. I need you to meet me at Mt. Reading Hospital,” I hear a rather panicked man’s voice on the other end of the line. Maybe her husband? She interrupts him, “No, honey, slow down, I’m fine. I’ll explain later, just please hurry.” With that she hangs up her phone and shoves it back into her jacket pocket. She must sense me looking at her. She looks over and smiles down at me, but she isn’t smiling with her eyes. She looks scared, but she’s trying to be brave for me, a girl she doesn’t even know. Just then we get to her car. I climb in the backseat, and before I know it, we’re speeding away. We get to the hospital pretty quickly, but also this headache is really affecting my ability to process things right. I’m in a room with little cartoon dinosaurs around the top of the room. I hate that they do that, why do they put anyone who isn’t an adult in a room that looks like it was designed by a toddler. A few doctors have been in and out the last couple hours. I lost track of all the tests, the bright lights they flashed in my eyes, the questions, the poking and prodding. David came and joined Stephanie, which I learned is the nice brown-eyed lady’s name. They’ve been standing in the hallway the whole time I’ve been here. I like David, he’s really funny, and he’s got one of those mustaches that looks like a squirrel is sitting on his lip. The last doctor left the room, and I can see him talking to them through the window in the door. It’s muffled, but I can make out the gist of what they’re saying. “But she’s only 12, someone has to be looking for her, right?” I hear Stephanie say. Her words are dripping with concern. “Unfortunately, that might not necessarily be true. We reached out to the police department and no one has filed any reports. From the looks of her, it seems like she has been sleeping outside for several days at least. Our best guess is she is a runaway foster kid who somehow hit her head,” the doctor answers. But that can’t be right, can it? I have parents. Sure, I couldn’t tell you what they look like, or a single thing about them, but I for sure have them. Unfortunately, as the headache faded, my memory didn’t get any better. I can’t take the conversation any longer, so I try to find something to distract me. I glance over at my chart sitting on the edge of my hospital bed. I don’t really understand any of it, but I do notice the very top of the form where “NAME” is written in big bold letters. On the line where my name should be, it just says “NK.” I hear the door click open and I scurry back into my spot at the top of the bed. All three of them shuffle into my tiny room. Everyone is just kind of standing there, no one knowing what to say. I for sure don’t want to talk about my apparent lack of parents, so I break the silence first, “What’s NK? Is that my name?” I’m confused how they know my name when I don’t. “Well,” the doctor seems to be hesitant in his response, “no, it’s not. That’s just my shorthand, it means not known. Is there something else you’d like me to write? You can go by whatever you’d like until you can remember.” I think about that for a second, c*****g my head to the side. I crawl back over and look at the “NAME” box again. “No, NK is good, you can call me that,” I respond. I figure it is as good a name as any. It seems weird to pick a random real name, so a not random, not real name seems more like the way to go. David smirks at that. “I like this one, she’s got spunk, I can tell,” David replies. I sit up straight and smile big. I may not know what the heck is happening to me, but I’m so grateful it was Stephanie that found me.