Look before you leap.
Never trust your enemy.
In serving the wicked, expect no reward, and be thankful if you escape injury for your pains.
Whatever you do, do with all your might.
A man is known by the company he keeps.
She added: "And I fight alone."
Self-help is the best help.
Attempt not impossibilities.
When she stopped writing, she had an amalgam of ideas, but no clear answers. The bottom line was, she had to do something. She squeezed her head between her arms like she was trying to pop an answer out, but it didn't work. She needed a break. She stretched like a cat, and then took a walk around her property. The sky cleared of clouds and the ground was drying.
The ideas on the chalkboard didn't match what was inside her. There was less overlap than she expected. There didn’t seem to be any absolute truths. The only one she could think of was, "We all die."
She wondered if death was actually death if we continued on forever in heaven. There was no turning back from that one, at least not for us mortals. It seemed that life was precious and worth preserving.
She sighed, then started talking to herself.
“Everyone knew the difference between right and wrong. It’s like an instinct within us all. Even the monsters knew the difference because they hid their bad deeds. Then when they were caught they lied to get out of trouble, because they knew they were doing wrong.”
“People made excuses to justify things they wanted to do. As long as they could escape consequences, they would keep doing it.”
“Did everyone just do whatever they wanted to make themselves feel good? What made people feel good, could be radically different from person to person. Good people did good things because they felt better. Bad people did bad things because the outcome of the deed benefited them in some way. It wasn’t because they didn't know it was wrong. They just didn’t care.”
“I had to stop the monsters from hurting the least fortunate, the people who couldn't stand up for themselves. I could represent them, be their voice and their fists, if necessary. I would have to dwell somewhere in the middle, between the shadows and the light to make the game fair for the rest of us.”
She wandered back into the barn and to a dressing area where she plopped down in front of a makeup mirror. She stared into her dark eyes. She asked her reflection, "God works through you…?"
"The morality was already within me? Maybe it was just in my heart not my brain?"
She stood up and returned to the chalkboard. She scanned the lists again. She collected pieces and reworded them to suit her. She also added some of her own.
At the top she wrote, "Be generous."
She wrote the word 'greed', and circled it again. It seemed like the primary problem. Then she made her own list of miseries she'd witnessed in the Citadel.
Lack of respect for life
Persecution
Prejudice
Ignorance
Racism
Apathy
Despair
Selfishness
Stop hurting each other
Play fair — Cheating
Usury
Taking advantage of others who were less fortunate
Exploitation
She stepped back with arms akimbo to review her work. "The monsters were infected by these miseries. We needed protection from them. They needed to be removed from the community. It seemed like the fundamental way to save our society.”
She turned the list back on herself, to see how the monster hunter compared to the monsters. “To fight them I would have to be like them, but how far could I go? Was there anything I wouldn't be willing to do for my mission?"
She went back and forth in her imagination. She could think of an exception for nearly all the rules. She narrowed it down to one she didn't think she could break.
"Though shalt not kill," resonated within her heart.
“It was the one I would absolutely hold monsters accountable for. But how could I eliminate a monster with out killing it? How can I de-fang them?”
Then she came back to the same problem, both God’s and man’s laws encountered.
“If the ideas lacked an effective enforcement mechanism, there was no accountability for the misery they spread. If there were no repercussions, there were no real consequences. No rules, laws, or guide for living harmoniously, mattered. The threat of jail didn't work, if they could pay their way out of it. The threat of suffering in hell was only a deterrent if you really believed it would happen. Maybe it would be different in the afterlife, but I had to contend with problems in this world. This was where we felt the pain. This was where the suffering was undeniably real.”