Challenge #03026-H103: Worn Away

The family went to court just as the parent said they would. Recordings of the cruel abuse the students, and instructors, of the Alliance - run school were shown as evidence. And now these people were forced to see, and hear, everything they did to her and face their crimes. Of how Barbara would stop, turn away to hide her tears, something the cameras saw, though everyone else ignored. It wasn't just the parents who intended to teach the instructors, the students, and their parents a lesson for such unkindness, the courts themselves intended to burn this into a memory so that students in other alliance schools, ones going through the same brutality that this young girl had endured, would finally have hope. And it would set a legal precedent known as the "Barbara Incident". -- Fighting Fit

[AN: Callback to this thing ]

The court watched a vibrant little girl turn to stone, pebble by pebble. A stream of daily check-in facial scans. The first day of open-faced optimism slowly morphing into a Human being barely hanging on by a thread. And then... that thread snapped, and so did young Barbera.

The evidence was plentiful. A cultural and sociology professor explaining that Humans were social animals and having a group of friends was essential to their mental health and well-being. Seemingly endless footage of Barbera trying to befriend her schoolmates and being shunned. Even more endless footage of Barbera being alone; in the playground, during group projects, at in-school social events. Hours' worth of Barbera finding corners to hide and cry in.

"The Humans have a form of torture in which the penitent is immobilised and forced to endure regular or irregular drops of water landing on their face. One drop of water does no harm, we know this," said the Menanis family lawyer. "It doesn't hurt. It's harmless. But drop after drop, incessantly, unavoidably hitting you?" Here, the lawyer held up a hag stone. It was granite, but drops of water had worn a hole straight through it. "It can wear at even the strongest."

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