Abortion

My sister had never been on friendly terms with us. My parents would often yell at her for coming home drunk at four in the morning, clad in a torn tank top and miniskirt, retching all over the carpet, cussing repeatedly at them. She refused to go to Church with the family and failed every class at school - because she didn't turn up for her exams. They would call her an embarrassment in front of other parents, and would often ground her, but she would always find some way to sneak out.

When she was seventeen, she got pregnant. She went missing the day after she told me, and my parents filed a missing persons report. The county police ended up searching every nook and cranny of the entire town, but were unable to locate her. Her boyfriend said he had personally escorted her home that night from the party, and seen her to the front door, so he thought it was unlikely she had gotten abducted. The police gave up on the search after a few weeks and came to the conclusion that she must've run away from home.

It was at that time I started hearing strange banging and scraping sounds from the basement. They would sometimes be loud enough to wake me up at night. This continued for months. I ignored them initially, but over time, I was becoming more and more agitated. I tried to investigate several times, but the door would always be locked. Then in the middle of one night, I was making a trip to the bathroom when I noticed that the basement door had been left open, so I decided to go inside and check if there was anything strange, not really expecting much. When I flicked the light on, however, a horrific sight presented itself.

I stifled a scream as I saw my sister, bound tightly to a chair, duct tape over her eyes and mouth. She looked skeletal; I almost didn't recognise her. Marks of dried blood were scattered across the wall, her clothes and the floor. Her head hung from her shoulders and eyeliner ran down her cheeks. I thought she was dead, but as I took a few steps forward, she began to lift her head.

"Oh my god," I said, desperately tearing off the duct tape and cutting the ropes with the edge of a spade, the first sharp tool I could get my hands on. "What the fuck happened?"

She gripped my arm tightly. "I... I shouldn't have told them..." she whimpered, pointing to a black trash bag in the corner of the room. Suddenly, a feeling of acute sickness and terror overwhelmed me. Before I could open the trash bag to confirm my fears, I heard faint footsteps approaching from the hallway.