Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [794]

I had let myself fall back to the end of the line of us by then. I wasn’t in trouble. Sound doesn’t trigger my sharing. I have to see another person in pain before I do any sharing. And this was one I’d do anything to avoid seeing. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 794

Note

The passage turns on the cruel logic of her hyperempathy: the power that connects her to others’ pain comes with an escape clause she can use, and here she uses it — the sound can’t reach her. ‘I wasn’t in trouble’ reads as self-reassurance that doubles as a small confession; wanting to avoid seeing is both mercy and evasion.