Author's Note

I am not using any specific version of X-23. This is mostly my own take, using aspects from what I've seen and know. She is going to be heavily influenced by her appearance in Logan. So minimum dialogue from her.

Lost

A pulsating ache right in the cranium.

That's what the girl felt as she came to.

Placing a hand on her throbbing head, the girl brought herself up into a sitting position from the ground. It took only a few seconds for her to realize she had been laying on concrete.

It certainly explained the sudden uncomfortable strained feeling in her back.

After grunting in annoyance at the pain, the girl scrunched up her face as her sense of smell was suddenly assaulted by strong, unpleasant scents. Garbage, filthy water, and what was undoubtedly a mixture of numerous body excrements.

She soon figured out where she was, being quite familiar with this type of area.

She was in an alley.

Straining her eyes open into a squint, she saw that it was nighttime and she was right in the middle of the alley. After standing up and dusting herself off, she noticed that the smell of the leavings was stronger and different than that of humans. In fact, she could swear it was the smell of livestock.

Maybe a police horse had gotten loose.

It then became apparent to the girl that she had misplaced certain pieces of information, including who exactly she was. Placing a hand on her now painless head, she began searching her mind for whatever memories she could find.

She found very little unfortunately. Mostly vague recollections.

She may have been part of a team, maybe more than one. There was the feeling that she had experienced very few bits of joy in her life.

She wasn't sure about her family. She knew she no longer had a mother but didn't know why. And she wanted to say she had a father and brother, but it didn't seem entirely accurate for some reason.

She could glimpse that this correlated with some type of family drama. Perhaps this was the reason she couldn't definitely say she had a father and brother.

There was only two things that stuck out in her mind clearly.

The first was that her name was Laura. She couldn't recall any middle or last name.

The second was a number: 23.

There was some level of significance to this number. Her age? A quick look at herself told her she was at least in that range or close to it. Part of her birth date? A password? Assigned number from this team or teams?

Laura grunted in frustration, unable to discern anything else. She needed help. She was positive she knew someone well versed in mental problems. She just had to find them. After finding a way to remember their name.

Not knowing where exactly she was didn't help. She'd have to go with her instincts on this.

Some quick looking around allowed her to see that either path in the alley lead to more buildings. She also found a rock against the wall. One side was growing moss, or from the smell a moss/fungus hybrid, no doubt resulting from the trash.

Her instincts were telling her west, though this too wasn't entirely clear. She just had the feeling that West was also of some importance.

Using the rock she spotted, she determined which direction was west and went into a sprint. Her instincts also told her to stay in the shadows.

Most of what she ran past was small businesses, either closed or empty, telling her it must've been pretty late into the night.

She skidded to a halt at the sound of voices, ducking into another alley, hugging the wall and sliding further in, waiting for the two bystanders to pass by.

The sound of clip clopping made her think they were policemen on night patrol. Oddly enough, she couldn't discern any noises from their horses, not even breathing.

And then they slowly walked by the alley.

They weren't policemen. They were horses. Talking horses. This almost overshadowed the fact that one of them had a horn.

Once they were out of sight, Laura looked down at her shirt with knitted eyebrows, looking at the unicorn depicted on it. Looking back up, she ran to the alley entrance to look around the corner.

One of them was in fact a unicorn.

So.....she was either dreaming, or in some type of alternate horse reality. For some reason the latter seemed to be just as plausible as the former.

The fact that these horses seemed quite colorful gave her more credence to an alternate reality, as she was sure she wouldn't dream of something out of a children's cartoon.

This strengthened her resolve to find her friend...acquaintance.....whoever.

She broke into a sprint again once the two horses were far enough away.

She stopped again when she realized that if she was in fact in an alternate reality, then whoever she sought most likely wasn't here.

That was a problem.

But If there were unicorns, then perhaps there was some kind of magic to be found here. And maybe that magic that could lead her home. But she didn't have the first clue how to go about finding it.

She'd have to make friends with someone, or at least get into their good graces, something else that'd be difficult to do.

She was starting to get a headache at all this complication, placing her fingers to her forehead with a sigh of frustration. The loss of so much memory didn't help either.

Suddenly she heard something.

Upon closer examination, she realized it was music. Classical music. String instruments.

It was nice.

She couldn't help but be drawn to it.

It helped to ease her frustration.

With no idea how long she'd be here, she might as well see what this world has to offer.

Laura returned to running, now toward the source of the music, her earlier destination now defunct.

As she got closer and closer to the currently obstructed concert hall, she started to make out that there was at least one instrument more prominent than the others.

Cello.