She lumbered, swayed and staggered like a drunk cat. Her wrists burned red. Marks of tight rope formed a bracelet around her wrist and legs. Her eyes were a blur, drifting between a horrid dream and harsh reality— the ganged rape.

After a week of her disappearance, Amanda came plodded home, with the police on her tail. Shutters and flashes  of camera, accompanied by hungry ears haunted her. Everyone wanted to know where she has been. Yet, no one believed her story.

Her parents were assured she was lying. The hue of disappointment on their faces wrinkled their faces. Her brothers were embarrassed. She had become a smear on their pristine reputation.

Everyone assumed the worse diversion from the truth. She might have planned to elope with a boy after all.

Her case was closed. The story got framed as hard news, leaving room for ambiguity and diverse interpretation by the reading public. Amanda was home, but her home was now a prison.

" Your uncle will be around to keep watch over you until we decide what to do with you," her father gruffed.

Worries twisted her face into a grotesque looking picture. Her felt her heart pounding to a scent of danger completely diffused into the air.

At first, her uncle brought  a man or two into the house. He would introduce them as his friends and ask her to get refreshments for them while he stepped out. To her utter dread, she became the refreshment.

They got up, dusting off the dust of her struggle while carrying a scent of their perfume in the pungent musk.

She waited for her uncle. He appeared when the men where about leaving, and each passed him a dollar bill. 

The teen tried to tell her family. Their ears were shut against her cries. They answered with a cold rebuke. Amanda was alone in this cold, cruel world.

The numbers of the visitors grew. Her sobs became a different battle in her mind. She no longer brought the gratification of seeing her broken, so they went rough. Two, three, four at once.

When she could no longer live through each day, she left a note and her body as evidence.

Autopsy report came with ruptured hymen, and deposit of semen that matched her uncle's DNA.

The revelation kept her family trembling on their feet. Guilt, regrets, then silence. 

Death was an escape for Amanda, but her note, her body and her story became a clarion call for the society to bend, listen and save other teens like her.