Update: The original author responded to my message on Reddit and though he was disappointed about his work being plagiarised, he was very grateful to me for reaching out and offering him a share of the post rewards. He is also very excited about Steem and has created an account - he is waiting on confirmation from @Steemit and then we will have another great writer on the platform - all is not lost!

Backstory - I did not do my due diligence when selecting the original guest author. I had agreed to send them 50% of the liquid rewards. This story appears to have originally appeared on Reddit three months ago, I will attempt to contact the original author, MrMichaelSquid via Reddit/Facebook, and send that share of the rewards to them and bring them to Steem. If I do not receive a response by Feb 1, I will send that portion of the rewards to SteemCleaners.

The vast majority of the rewards on this post are from my auto-votes - if you have upvoted this post manually, or you are one of my auto-voters and you're uncomfortable with this situation, feel free to remove your votes.

I feel these guest post slots are a good way of me helping new Steemians get a leg up and get some exposure, but this experience has shown that I need to be very careful when offering people that opportunity. I will take more care when selecting authors to guest post in the future ...

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My mother, my sister and I grew up in a rural home with a lawn and nearby woods. We had a chipper Scottish Terrier, Herbert, who ran about smelling flowers and deer droppings waggling his black nubby tail. Childhood was lovely and my mother was fairly open about most things, such as our father running off when I was young, a hopeless alcoholic. When my sister and I grew of age, we’d been advised about flying things like birds, bees and the likes, and it was then we learned of the abortion.

My mother was very religious growing up, she was lovely and kind but extraordinarily strict about things that conflicted with her beliefs. She’d explained that the child, who’d she named Roger, had chromosomal abnormalities that caused him to stop developing in the womb. The doctors had advised her to abort out of health concerns to her dismay. She had reluctantly gone to the clinic alone as my father had been out on a 3 day bender. She explained this as a warning about irresponsible sex I gather, and that was the only time she had mentioned it.

Years have passed as I grew older, went on dates, started college and wiped away heartbroken tears. I’d been depressed and everything in the city reminded me of my ex, so I made plans this weekend to spend time with my mom back home. I texted about four hours ago that I’d be home around 2, and I received no response as I bought my ticket and a paperback novel to accompany the three hour train ride.

I dozed off, arriving at the station and called my mom, getting her voicemail. I called a car and soon entered the slick black vehicle, careening past spindly branches of autumn trees and country sky. Mom was often in her study, away from her phone, so concern hadn’t yet built. We pulled into the driveway and I thanked the driver who drove off to his next fare. I inhaled the fresh country air and childhood flooded back as I headed down the walkway to the unlocked front door. “Mom? I’m home” I called into the house to no response and entered.

Talk radio filled the kitchen, a half chopped onion sat on the cutting board, wrinkled and clearly days old. Panic flooded my mind in the realization something might have happened. “MOM!” I called loudly, frantically running up the stairs, nothing, there was no sign of her anywhere. After searching the entire house I realized she was gone and decided to call my father, and that’s when the dread grew inside of me.

He picked up after the fourth ring, and I explained I came home and she wasn’t there. I asked if he’d heard from her, and if I could see him as I was a bit worried. I told him about the onion, half cut on the counter and I heard his tone change from friendly to grave.

“Oh.. oh god..” he said, sounding like he knew something I didn’t, something dreadful. “Don’t go in the basement, I’m driving over right now”. He said in a panicked voice. “Uh, dad we don’t have a basement” I stated, as if he’d forgot that in the fifteen years he’d been gone. There was an attic, a porch, a walkway, a garage and 2 bathrooms, all of which I’d checked thoroughly in search of my mom, but there was no basement. He then began to talk about his drinking while I scanned the floors in each room, walking over to my mother’s study. “I started drinking after leaving your mother” he said to the sound of an engine starting, a shiver in his voice, “Not before. I started drinking when I realized what she had done”.

I noticed the open closet door in her study that was always closed, my phone pressed firmly to my ear. “You were only three at the time, I didn’t mean to abandon you, but I couldn’t stay there, knowing” He began crying, completely bawling and I saw the tiny knob on the closet wall, the seams near the edges of the barely visible self-closing door.

I opened the door to stairs that descended in darkness into the basement. My feet led me in despite the fear that raised my neck hairs and thumped in my chest. My father continued “She said she went to the clinic that day but she lied”, he sobbed. The basement was cold and pitch black, so I touched the button to reactivate my phone screen, which was pressed firmly against my ear. “She never had the abortion” he whimpered. The white glow was too faint, I heard the rustling sound and removed my father’s sobbing from my ear to illuminate the shadows in front of me and I saw what had been making the sound.

It was about five feet tall, its smooth, slightly translucent head massive and malformed. It was white and puffy, dark veins visible under soft, gelatinous skin. It’s black billiard ball eyes reflected the phone screen, unfeeling as it stared at me, over the half eaten corpse of my mother. It was my brother Roger, somehow kept alive in those tanks that lined the walls until he grew, into this thing. He was a standing fetus with a few developed adult parts, his thin fingers, his crooked teeth, his bony feet. His brain was slightly visible in the massive forehead above those voids of eyes. Above that horrible toothy mouth that, as I screamed while scrambling up the stairs in absolute terror, screamed back at me ...

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Original work by the freshly recruited MrMichaelSquid who will be joining the platform in the next few days :)
Image source