SOPHIE Bryant has grown up with the tragedy of her missing brother hanging over her. She was just nine when Allan jr, 23, disappeared without a trace on a night out in 2013 - but she didn’t quite understand then what was going on. The now 20-year-old recalls her mum and dad, Marie and Allan sr, regularly speaking to the police and press, and growing more frantic for answers that have never come. Sophie, from Glenrothes, Fife, said a couple of years ago human remains were found and the family gloomily hoped they belonged to Allan jr. “It feels bad saying we wish it was him, but if it was him maybe we’d have got a bit of closure,” she told The Sun. “We think he’s definitely… not alive,” she explained with a pause when asked if she still holds out hope. “It’s a good thought to think - that he’s alive somewhere - but we know something bad has happened, or he would have been home by now.” Allan jr was picked up on CCTV leaving the town’s Styx nightclub at around 2am on November 3 2013. The family has passed thousands of tip-offs over the years to Police Scotland, but ultimately without any luck. There is no video evidence yet released to indicate where exactly the young man went or what became of him. For Sophie, the night Allan jr disappeared started like any other Saturday booze-up for her brother. Him and his pals were pre-drinking at the Bryant home and then headed out for what was the Halloween weekend. They first went to an engagement party at Leslie Golf Club on the outskirts of town, and then to the nightclub. “I can remember the weekend he didn’t come back home,” said Sophie. “I was just wondering where he went. I can’t remember what the last thing was that I said to him. “You never expect something like that to happen, so you don’t necessarily recall that stuff. “I just always think about what happened.” She went on to say: “My parents did shield me from it a bit, they kept me out of the public eye when they were originally appealing for information.” Sophie can remember her mum and dad “always” being on the phone to the police and would sometimes join them on searches as a child. Getting closer to finding out what happened to Allan jr often dominates home life. “It’s pretty much day to day, they’re always talking about what they should do to keep him in the public eye,” Sophie said. “They (her parents) try to live their lives as well, but I think sometimes we feel guilty about doing that.” She said such a feeling is contradictory because of how happy-go-lucky her brother was. “He wouldn’t want us not to be happy,” she admitted. A photo of Sophie aged just nine shows her holding up a missing person poster brandishing her brother’s face. To her, Allan jr was her older sibling who teased her and who she play fought with her, but who always looked out for her. “My memories of him are just really when we were playfighting and carrying on,” she said. “He was my brother.” Family members have also told her that she shares mannerisms with Allan jr that no-one else does. “I like that,” she said. A photo taken of the pair of them together on the family’s porch is also something Sophie cherishes, but it’s bittersweet. “There’s one that I quite like,” she said when asked if she had any photos of her and Alan jr. “I was really quite young, so I don’t remember it being taken, but it’s a nice one. “It is difficult to look back at it though.” Sophie said just going into Allan jr’s old bedroom after he went missing was hard for all of them. “I think we left it for quite a while,” she said. “We couldn’t get rid of his stuff. We’ve still got it.” She said it was also hard moving house - the family have moved twice since 2013 - and she worried for a while if her brother were still out there he wouldn’t know where to find them. Outside of her home life, Sophie has had to shoulder a lot over the years, including the often unwanted attention she receives from people in the town. At school she became known essentially as the girl whose brother disappeared. “Even people I didn’t know would come up to me, talking about it and asking if I’m his sister,” she said. “There were always stupid rumours,” she continued. “Just in high school you’d hear people say they’ve found him in a ditch - things that aren’t true, but it’s hard to hear. “It really affected my anxiety when I heard that.” While she preferred to try and ignore the attention, Sophie remembers confronting someone who was making light of her brother’s disappearance. “I did once,” she said. “I can’t remember what I said but they knew I wasn’t happy and they never did it again.” Sophie went to college for a while but dropped out due to her anxiety. However, she plans to return eventually to study psychology. One thing that has always allowed her some peace is riding horses at a local stables. “That seems to calm me down,” she said. “I’ve made a lot of friends there. “I started when I was 13, I started quite late,” she added laughing slightly. “Horse riding helps me focus on what I’m doing.” Last week, Sophie posted on Facebook for the first time about Allan jr. “I’ve been putting it off for a long time and as I’m older now it just makes sense to write a post,” she wrote. The post goes on to say she “couldn’t fully comprehend” her brother’s disappearance at the time, adding: “The effect it has had on the full family is devastating, I can’t even put into words how heartbroken we all are. “It wasn’t until I got a bit older I realised how serious this was.” Sophie went on to write that she feels “bad” for not having as many memories of Allan jr as her older sister Amy “but all the memories I do have are all good ones”. “I just pray that one day people will come forward and we can finally get the closure that we need,” she added. The post finishes: “Not knowing what has happened to Allan is the worst thing, it's unimaginable for any family to go through. “It's a living hell not knowing what has happened to Allan.” Asked about her post, she told The Sun: “I’d been thinking about doing one for a while, I just didn’t know how to start it. “But a lot of people said they were proud of me for doing it. “I just need one person to come forward who knows something.”