08 – Sleeping is dangerous, and pain hurts

After another day of walking, Jacob decided to stop for the night. While at first he thought that his body no longer required sleep, it was now evident that he was quite wrong in that assumption. He was closer to how a player of a game would feel, true, not feeling pain nor fatigue when using game-like elements, but apparently the need for sleep never truly went away.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to shear a sheep to sleep. He could just make a small wooden hut, barricade himself inside, and sleep on a bed of leaves.

He scanned the darkness. The night was cold and the wind had picked up over the last few hours, making the leaves rustle and whistling when it passed through some small fractures of the rocks. It made the atmosphere almost surreal how dark it was, the light of the small moon not reaching this far down through the dense canopy.

Placing the stack of wooden planks in his hotbar, he started to build a small rectangular hut around himself. He reasoned that shutting himself inside a one-meter thick wall of wood would be enough, but hearing the far away howl of some strange beast made him question that decision.

Inside, he placed one block of leaves and then manipulated it without using the game elements, making the stack fall onto the floor. It made for a quite comfortable, if not orthodox, bedding.

A thunder struck in the distance. Rain pelted the roof and the sound of many raindrops reverberated through the small closed off space. Jacob stared at the ceiling, eyes wide, his mind wandering off to what he left behind at his home. To his mother. To his father who, he hoped, loved him despite all his actions seemed to suggest otherwise. He missed them.

As time passed, his eyelids felt heavy. A fog encroached his mind, thoughts and images mixing and confusing together in a dance of delirium. He slept, for the first time in this new world.

Crashing sounds. A jaw, snarls. The wet and hot breath of something. Big. Fangs, dangerous and sharp. Pearly white teeth, a black muzzle. Another loud crashing sound, wood splintered.

Jacob jumped to his feet, the realization of what was happening flooding his system with adrenaline. He was fully awake now, back in his armor and with his sword in an eyeblink.

The beast was massive. Meters upon meters tall, glowing red eyes and a breath that seemed to solidify in a thick mist as soon as it left its mouth. Long and muscular legs covered in black fur, stains of clotted blood.

Just in one look, he knew that he could not fight this thing. A swipe of his sword confirmed it, hitting its hide like trying to cut a slab of plate armor. He kept waving his sword around, trying to find a way out of here that was not in the mouth of the monster.

He broke a block behind him, the action covered by his body, and after one last swipe of his sword he bolted out of the small hole and into the forest. He ran and ran, feeling his stamina deplete for the first time since he arrived here.

Pain erupted from his shoulder. Turning around, he saw a large tooth lodged into his armor, piercing it and stabbing into his bones and flesh. The sudden pain made him drop the sword, which clanged on the ground and bounced off a rock.

He rolled away, feeling the powerful bite of the beast tore a large wooden branch apart just where he was. The armor on his shoulder was ruined, a mangled mess of metal and blood. The pain was piercing, like a ringing not in his ears but in his whole body.

He got up on his legs, somehow he didn’t even know, and ran once again.

He kept going, ignoring all that was happening to him. His legs felt wooden, or made of lead, heavy, slow. He still kept running.

Only a small glance at his health bar showed that he had lost more than half his health, and it was dropping steadily. His mind was flooded with questions. Why did he feel the pain now? Why was he not healing? Just how much of this was a game and how much was not?

He arrived at a small clearing. He could swear that there were people talking in the distance. His eyes were heavy, his head was heavy.

He felt like sleeping for a while, catch his breath.

“Mother! There’s a person here!”

The world was slowly going dark. He was tired. He was cold.

Someone picked him up. He could see small, fleeting flashes here and there. People talking around him, discussing things. A small room, with a bed. His bed. He was back home?

Maybe he was. Maybe he was back. Did he want to be back? He had no idea. But the warm, comfortable bed felt so much like his old one. It was all right, at least for a while, he could sleep. And so he slept, a faint smile on his peaceful face.

“Is he dead?” Lumia asked, her body slightly curved over Jacob’s sleeping figure.

“He’s sleeping now. I healed him, but he needs rest now. Come, let him be.”

Tyla led her daughter out of the room, and into the kitchen. She looked at her daughter, her deep emerald eyes that paired so well with her light green hair seemed now to drill holes into Lumia’s soul. He then turned around like nothing happened, and opened the cupboard.

“What were you doing in the forest, alone, at night?”

She began to prepare a small bread sandwich, slowly cutting the bread with a small knife.

“I was… I couldn’t sleep. I took a walk to clear my mind.”

“In the forest? At night?”

“I’m sorry. I—”

Tyla sighed, and passed the sandwich to her daughter. Lumia gingerly took it, and bit into it shyly.

“If it weren’t for you, that human would have died. I guess it’s a good thing you were there.”