The Gate Traveler-Chapter 21B7 - : Sleep Is Overrated

When I finished treating Mahya, I went back to the guy I’d left mid-spell and handled two more cases before finally heading to rest. Somehow, in that short span, the women in the clinic had completely lost their minds.

The guy I’d abandoned mid-treatment had been stung by some type of insect with a paralytic venom. He had so many bites all over his body, despite the armor, that I couldn’t believe he survived them, even with the two anti-venom potions his friends had given him. But they’d managed to keep his heart pumping and his lungs working. Otherwise, he would’ve been a goner. The venom, on top of being a paralytic, had liquefied his muscles. In this case, my Heal Muscle spell surprised me in the best way. I’d never cast it on muscles that were more than sore, so I had no idea it would work. But since Healing Touch made hardly any difference, it was worth a try. To my amazement, it worked. I even checked the spell description to see if I’d forgotten anything.

Heal Muscles

A targeted healing spell designed to repair and rejuvenate strained, torn, or damaged muscles. Its focused nature makes it a reliable option for those who suffer from repetitive strain or physical trauma without affecting other tissues. Its effectiveness improves slightly with each level.

It had the “damaged muscles” part that could explain the success, but it was still unexpected. It worked with a caveat. I couldn’t target a specific area and had to cast it on each muscle individually. The body has a lot of muscles. But despite all my complaining, it did the job, and slowly, one by one, I returned his muscles to a solid state. On top of the venom, the nasty bugs had also bitten him, leaving numerous cuts on his body. When I was done with the healing, he’d lost all his muscle mass to the venom that liquefied them, and all his fat reserve and some of his flesh mass to healing. I cast a couple of Fortify Life Force on him and let him sleep to regain his strength, still smiling at my revenge fantasies.

The next patient was a woman who’d fought against a mixed group of monsters or spawnies—I wasn’t sure which. Her body was covered with bite marks. Some looked like an extra feisty chihuahua had chewed on her, and others like an alligator had a snack. With all the healing and the blood loss, she needed the rest. After a couple of Fortify Life Force spells, I let her sleep and moved on to the third urgent case before I could finally get some sleep myself.

The third patient was a big man, Al’s type of big, who’d had something even bigger crash into his chest. It broke a few ribs, and one of them punctured a lung. He had the Spirits and Al to thank for staying alive. Without potions, he wouldn’t have made it to me. I cut him open, moved the ribs back into place, and healed them. Next, I healed the lung and started channeling Control Blood to move it out, but stopped immediately. He had a coughing fit that cleared his lung completely. I stopped the Anesthesia, cast Fortify Life Force, and he woke up on his own. Diagnose showed he was in good condition. The healing took a toll, but it was minimal.

“Drink this,” I said, handing him a bottle of water.

He took it and saluted me with it. “Thank you, healer.”

After finishing the water, he started to get up, and I put a hand on his shoulder. “Not so fast. You need some energy.” I gave him one of the protein bars they kept in the healing hall for cases like this. “Here, eat this.”

His entire face lit up, and he demolished half a bar in one bite. I couldn’t understand it. They made those protein bars by boiling high-mana spawnie meat with spices and then dehydrating it. I tasted one once and almost gagged. They were tougher than the toughest jerky I’d ever come across and tasted like prosciutto waaay past its expiration date. But for some strange and totally illogical reason, everybody besides me liked them. Even Rue. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Sure, I could understand liking aged cheese—I enjoyed some types myself—but aged meat, or in this case decaying meat, was outside my ability to comprehend.

He finished eating and left, and I could finally go to rest. I cast Clean on myself and the bed and dropped into it. When I was this tired, it took me less than a minute to fall asleep. Sadly, I wasn’t fast enough. The insanity started, and the first one to strike was Bo. She stuck her head into the room, saw me lying on the bed, and rushed over to my side.

“No, no, no! You can’t sleep here!”

I stared at her, bewildered. The previous two times I’d dropped into one of the beds, nobody had a problem with it.

“Why?” I asked.

“No, no, no! These beds aren’t for you! Get up, quickly!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

Half sitting and still staring at her, totally lost, I asked again, “Why?”

“You need to sleep in a better place. Come! Come with me.”

She dragged me out of the room and led me to the treatment room I’d used before to regrow limbs. She pushed me against the wall near the door. “Wait here.”

I had no idea what was going on, and being so tired, my mind had trouble coming up with any explanation that sounded even remotely logical.

Five minutes later, she came back with two guys carrying a couch behind her.

What the hell?

They dropped the couch in the hall. Bo opened the treatment room, and the guys went in, carried out the treatment bed, and then carried in the couch. I watched the whole process, blinking from tiredness and confusion in equal measure.

She grabbed my arm, dragged me into the room, and pushed me down onto the couch. “Now rest.” She turned on her heels and left.

I rubbed my face and let out a weary sigh. Whatever the issue was, I was too tired to figure it out.

The couch was a terrible idea. Each cushion had its own wooden frame, so instead of resting on something soft, I had a whole set of hard edges pressing into me from every direction. My body sagged into the gaps, and the wood dug into my back and butt. To make it worse, the couch was so narrow that when I tried to turn over, I nearly fell off. I cursed, got up, shoved it against the wall, and pulled a mattress out of Storage. Dropping onto it, I let out a contented sigh. Much better.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The better condition lasted less than a minute. The door opened, and Pi walked in. I sat up. “Urgent case?” I asked.

“No.” She walked over, dropped to the mattress beside me, and began lifting my t-shirt.

I grabbed both her hands. “What are you doing?”

“Taking off your shirt," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I see that. Why are you taking off my shirt?”

She looked at me with guileless eyes and blinked once. “Because you’re wearing it.”

I sighed and shook my head. Talking with Pi was always a challenge, and when I was that tired, it was a herculean effort. I squeezed her hands, hoping it would help. “Pi, darling. Take a breath and start at the beginning. Why is my shirt bothering you?”

She tilted her head and looked at me like Rue did sometimes when he couldn’t understand what was going on.

“Yes…?” I asked in a leading tone.

She looked me up and down. “It’s a nice shirt. I like the blue. I never saw shirts like that. Why is it soft? It looks thin but it isn’t see-through. Does it stretch? Can I cut it? If I wear it, will it—no, wait—oh! What happens if it gets wet, does it—” She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes again looking me up and down.

I groaned.

“Why did you make that sound? Does the shirt hurt you? Does it squeeze too much? Is it magic? Can I have one? Do you have more? Why don’t I have one? Do you only wear it at night?—because if you do, then you probably eat snacks in it—did you ever try roasted honey nuts with salt? They’re crunchy and sweet and salty all at once, but if you eat too many your tongue gets rough. Can your shirt hold nuts? Can I—” She cut herself off again, blinking at me as if she’d just lost track of what she was saying.

I released her hands and rubbed my face. “Pi darling, I’m dead tired. Can we please have this conversation in the morning? Right now, I don’t have the energy to keep track of all your questions or try to answer them.”

She gasped, eyes wide. “Dead? You’re dying? From what? Did someone poison you? Was it the stew? The stew tasted strange today, too many firebulbs—or maybe not enough firebulbs. No, no, it was the bread, the bread was too chewy, like chewing on a boot but wetter, only not really. Did you choke on it? Are you choking now? Should I get water? Or tea? Do you drink tea in bed? Should I bring you some fruit? No, fruit is sticky—unless I pour honey on it, then it’s even stickier. Do you like sticky things? Or maybe soft things, like moonberries. Do you eat moonberries in bed? They stain everything purple—wait, do you like purple? I like pur—“

I lifted both hands in surrender, and she snapped her mouth shut mid-word, her eyes still wide and fixed on me.

I dragged my palms down my face, too drained to know what else to do.

“Why are you hiding?” she asked, leaning closer.

“Because I’m tired,” I mumbled behind my hands.

She gave a sharp little huff, then pushed me back onto the mattress with surprising force for her size. “So go to sleep.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but thought better of it and clamped it shut just as fast.

Without another word, she flopped down beside me and threw an arm and a leg over me in a lopsided hug. Her head settled on my chest, and her hair tickled my chin. I was too tired to argue, too tired to ask what in the world was going on, or even try to make sense of it. My eyes closed on their own, and within five seconds, I was gone.

I woke up feeling far too good. Someone was going down on me. A jolt shot through me, and my eyes flew open. I snapped my head down, and there was no mistaking Pi’s curly blond hair. My stomach dropped, my whole body locking up in disbelief.

I grabbed a fistful of her curls and pulled her head back, stopping her. “What are you doing?”

She looked up at me, eyes wide and innocent, her face as open as a clear sky with no clouds in sight. “I thought you were smart, not a duck.”

My jaw went slack. I blinked at her, too stunned to even form a reply.

Dear Spirits, if you are real, please save me or at least help me understand. Love, John.

A distant giggle echoed in the back of my mind. It was faint and muffled, as if it came from afar through a fog, but unmistakable. The system was laughing its ass off at me again. The shock of it loosened my grip, and my hand slipped free of Pi’s hair. She dipped her head and went right back to my hard-on.

I grabbed her hair again, and she huffed at me like I was the unreasonable one. Did everybody lose their mind or something? First Bo with the shitty couch, now this. What the hell was happening?

She looked at me with an expectant expression, like get on with it, so I can too.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Thirty-one.”

That was unexpected. She looked maybe twenty-two or three and acted like she was twelve.

“Why are you doing this?”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. There was no mistaking the look. I’d gotten it so many times during my travels from various people, and from Mahya.

“Because I want to. I thought that was obvious.” She tugged at my shirt, not letting go right away, her fingers brushing along the fabric as if testing how thin it was. Then she tapped a slow circle against my chest, her nails grazing just enough to make me notice. “I like the taste, I like the feel, I like the way it makes people twitch, and I want yours too. They’re never the same—you know? Some are sharp, some are heavy, some are quick, some are slow—and I like finding out which is which. Some taste salty, some bitter, some like old nuts, some like sweet cream. Once I thought it was like honey wine—but that man was a foreigner, so maybe his was just weird. Maybe yours is different, maybe better.” She leaned in, her breath warm as her eyes flicked down before snapping back up to mine. “And if it is, I can brag—and bragging is the best, almost as good as eating fried cakes. Do you like fried cakes? You do, right? Everyone does—unless they’re strange, like ducks. Ducks don’t eat fried cakes. Or maybe they do. Do ducks even have teeth? No—wait—I saw one steal a whole Tisus bar once. Do you like Tisus? We can eat some after—unless you sleep, then I’ll eat them myself.”

I let her head go, defeated.

She went right back to what she was doing. I couldn’t say I was suffering—far from it—but the whole thing was so unexpected that I didn’t really know what to do. In the end, it was easier to give up and go with the flow. Not like it was a hardship or anything, and she was attractive. After a couple of minutes, she stopped, got up, and began undressing. I didn’t need to ask why and pulled a condom from Storage.

When I put it on, she froze halfway through tugging at her clothes. “What is that?”

“Protection from pregnancy.”

She frowned. “But the goddess says it’s good to be pregnant.”

“Yes, it’s good with a partner. Not with somebody who’s leaving soon.”

She studied me for a few beats, then gave a slight nod and went back to undressing.

That was the first normal conversation I’d ever had with her since we met. Maybe it was strange to notice in the middle of sex, but the contrast struck me harder than her sudden pounce on me.

We spent a few hours in the treatment room having fun, and it was fun. When Pi finally managed to focus, she actually sounded logical, not that we talked much. She was also attractive and playful in her unique, not-quite-sane way. All in all, it was a strange and unexpectedly enjoyable experience.

Before she left, she gave me a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. “That was great—I really liked it. You’re good, better than most. But I won’t do it again. Not because I didn’t like it, but because I don’t like repeats. Repeats are boring, like eating the same food three days in a row. Even if it’s good food, after the third day you want fried cakes instead—or maybe star pears—unless they’re too ripe, then they drip everywhere. Anyway, that was fun—like fried cakes with honey. Sticky, messy, and I liked it. I want a new thing now.”

She grinned, kissed my cheek once more, and skipped out of the room, humming to herself.

I sat there staring at the door for a while, shaking my head in bewilderment. When no answers, explanations, or logic dropped from the ceiling to help me figure out what the hell had just happened, I went back to sleep. She gave me maybe two hours before waking me up. I needed more.