“You think I have the blessing of Healing?”
“Well… you’re a nurse, after all,” Samantha replied sheepishly, realizing how naive the assumption sounded.
Barb began to laugh, but it was not her voice that came out. Something cruel and sinister had taken over her voice box, reverberating through the walls and the ceiling and the floor, coming from everywhere at once and nowhere at all. The echoing between her ears made Sam question if Barb had even opened her mouth or if there sound was broadcast directly into her head. She could only confirm it was real when she looks over at Chap and saw in his face the same expression: awe and fear.
“What do you think happens when a person sees the worst of the world? The worst in humanity? Sees with her own two eyes and hears with her own two ears, year after year, humans doing the absolute worst to each other. And yet she is expected to help them, to give from herself endlessly for them. What do you think happens to those people?”
When Sam did not answer, her ability to respond frozen by fear, the voice emanated from Barb’s mouth once more.
“Empathy, that most precious ember that inspires people to help other, dies. There is a misconception that hate is the cause of war. But hate can only exist in the absence of empathy, as can many other emotions. But if you can get the combatants to look each other in the eye and understand one another, war cannot continue.
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