Chapter 152 The Night Before

Laying in his bedroll the night before the assault on the gnoll garrison, Jack found himself once again unable to sleep. Maybe it was his nerves from the coming battle, or the conversation he'd had with Urien and Farlo at the last meeting. Either way, sleep eluded him, and after an hour of tossing and turning, he finally gave up on trying and walked to the nearest fire.

After all the caution about not lighting fires up to this point, it'd taken him a moment to understand why it was suddenly okay to now, but upon reflection, it made sense. The gnolls already knew they were coming, and pretty much exactly where they were, fires or not. Gnolls had the ability to see comfortably in darkness, humans did not. At this point, efforts at discretion would only put them at greater risk if they were ambushed. So fires were lit, and for the first time since leaving the clearing he'd finally gotten a belly full of hot food. It was nice to eat something besides dried meat and cold bread for a change.

Sitting down at the fire, he glanced over to discover Rose sitting a short distance away, staring into the flames, a cloak wrapped tightly around her body and head. He walked over and sat down beside her.

"Can't sleep either, huh?" He said.

"No." She said, shaking her head. "I can't calm down enough, even with how tired I am."

"Same." Jack said, looking into the fire.

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the crackling of the campfire, before Rose spoke up again.

"Do you think Ellie is doing okay?" She asked.

"If I know Ellie half as well as I think I do, I'm sure she's fine. I'm more worried about her captors, to be honest." He replied.

Rose gave him a sidelong glance, but said nothing. She shifted on her seat and pulled the cloak closer around her.

"I can't seem to get warm. I don't understand. It's not even that cold out tonight." She said, shivering almost imperceptibly.

"You're stressed. I used to have the same problem. When people get really stressed out, their bodies force the blood from their extremities and surface further into their body. It's part of the fight or flight response, although I can't really remember what it's good for." Jack said, moving over to sit closer to her.

Rose looked at him, puzzled.

"How do you know that? Did you read that in a book or something?" She asked.

"Well, not exactly. It's more like..."

He trailed off for a moment, realizing he was about to try and explain the Internet to someone who had no idea what a computer was.

"Well, there were these objects in my other world that people could use to create and store information. And then an inventor figured out a way to magically connect them so they could share information between them almost instantly. Then someone else found a way to make that information easy to search for across all of the objects. So, I guess you could say I got bored one day and used one of these objects to try and find out why I would always be cold. Turns out I was always anxious." He said.

"You were? You never seem anxious to me." Rose said.

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Jacked laughed out loud, before immediately stifling it and looking around to make sure he hadn't woken anyone.

"I've been anxious for most of the time I've been here. I'm anxious even now." He said, amused. "I can't believe you can't tell."

"Really?" Rose said. She looked genuinely surprised.

"Yes. Constantly. I used to take medication for it." He said.

"...Medication?" Rose said, looking confused again.

Oh right. You don't know about that either.