After My Five-Year-Old Daughter Asked Me Not to Send Her to School

My five-year-old daughter returned from school one day, her eyes red from crying. She dropped to her knees before me, clutching at my shirt, and pleaded with a quivering voice not to send her back to kindergarten. Her tiny frame trembled with each word, and her tear-stained cheeks glistened under the light.

Concerned and heartbroken, I inquired gently about the reason for her distress. But she only sobbed harder, her small shoulders shaking with fear, her lips sealed tight as if some unspeakable terror had stolen her voice.

A sense of dread washed over me. I carefully lifted her shirt, and my heart clenched at the sight of her tender skin marred by a constellation of tiny puncture marks. My blood boiled with a mix of fear and fury, and without a moment's hesitation, I captured the evidence in a photograph.