Security breach
A short story where Sun deals with the aftermath of a regular daycare kid killing themselves.
The kid in question is a frequent visitor of the daycare who is being abused by her father. A seven year old.
Sun has noticed and recognized her behavior as that of an abuse victim since he has software specifically designed to detect this sort of thing.
He has tried countless times to alert the staff about it, but it’s always just been either disregarded, or the one time it had gotten to the police the case had been dismissed due to the child being too scared to say anything condemning. The physical evidence was brushed off by her mother as injuries from play.
The kid doesn’t come to the daycare one day. Or the next day, or the one after that.
Sun noticed this, because of course he did. He would never not miss one of his little friends. But he knows something like this was normal, sometimes even regulars stop coming for one reason or another. It wasn’t until five days after the last time he saw her that he finds out why.
Sun had been cleaning up after a long day of taking care of the kids. He was bustling all around making sure things were in tip top shape for the next day, when he was alerted to the presence of a person entering the daycare. This was nothing to worry about really, the security guard was still doing paper work at their desk, so that was probably who the new person was here to see.
He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but it was kinda hard not to hear them when he has robotic senses and including himself, they were the only three people in the daycare. He absentmindedly hears as the two humans chat about inconsequential little things, but his attention snaps to crystal clear attention when he hears the security guard at the desk say the name of the absent girl.
He mechanically(heheh) continues cleaning while remaining focused on the developing conversation between the two, curious about the child and feeling a sinking dread that had been with him since the first day she’d not come in. The one behind the desk asks if the other knows
”whatever happened to that one kid…um, ah! Charlotte was her name, yeah, where’s she been?”
The other one takes a beat too long to respond. Sun can’t see their expression but all of a sudden he wishes he could.
”…so you haven’t heard” They lowly scoff ”Figures the Fazbitches wouldn’t bother telling you”
”What?”
”Turns out the kid had been getting the shit beat out of her by her dad,”
The other cuts in with a disbelieving huff of a laugh, sarcasm lacing their words ”Well go fucking figure, what a goddamn surprise. It’s almost as if we’ve been saying that exact thing for months. So, what’s so different now, did she finally tell on him or something?“
When the other one responds they sound a little irritated ”Well if you’d let me fucking finish, I’ll tell you” They take a breath, and when they speak next their voice sounds subdued, quiet, almost whisper like to their conversation partner. ”She offed herself dude, they found her in the woods near her house”
The other speaks ”What?! Are you serious?“
”Dead serious”
”Dude, not the time.” They pause for a second ”Well, how do they know she wasn’t murdered? She’s seven for Christ‘s sake, even if she was depressed, it’s not like suicide would be something a kid that young would be able to conceive.”
The quite volume is back when the other responds ”She made a note.” A mirthless laugh ”From what I’ve heard, it looked exactly like a seven year old wrote it. Orange crayon dude.”