The Vanishing

I've been haunted by guilt since my sister disappeared. Maybe going back will help...

- LOUISE JENSEN

Someone is in the house. My heart thud-thud-thuds as I lie stiffly, I'm gripping the duvet so tightly that my fingers hurt. Someone is in the house.

It's hard to hear anything over the sound of my pulse whooshing in my ears. My blood running fast and hot, while I am cold with fear.

Someone is in the house.

There are no discernible sounds coming from downstairs now, but I had heard them. Hadn't I? The creak of the floorboards in the dining room below me. Slow footsteps.

A clearing of the throat.

As much as I want to hide in the wardrobe, I tell myself that I'm a grown woman, capable of investigating.

It's not as if I can call out to my parents, is it? Their room, now empty, is next to mine.

Slowly, quietly, I climb out of bed, stuff my feet into my slippers, shrug on my dressing gown. My mobile is in my hand, unlocked, the numbers 999 already punched in ready to dial if there's someone downstairs.

Already I am doubting myself. I do that a lot lately. Questioning who I am.

What... what my purpose is, I suppose.

After everything that's happened, I'm told it's only natural, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I'm shaking as I inch my way across the hallway, a scream ready in my throat.

If this was a horror film, I'd be shouting at the screen for the heroine to lock herself safely in the bathroom. To call for help.

But I need to be brave, in a way that I wasn't before. In the way that I would be if I could go back to that night, relive it again. Not reliving it in my mind the way that I do over and over, but to actually be there. If there was some kind of back-tothe-future-Dr-Who miracle.

I shuffle down the hallway. The dining room door is ajar. I'd closed it, hadn't I? A sliver of creamy moonlight spills through the window onto the mahogany table that now gathers dust, unloved.

A movement. A shadow to my left.