The Festival of Convergence

In which a horrific entity makes it's presence known during the festival, and, apart from an odd feeling of dread for any who see it, the worst result is the loss of potential profits.

“Old Earth cuisine!” I shouted to the crowds in the street. “Food from a world that can’t even be accessed anymore! Don’t miss it!”

Thankfully, it hadn’t taken too long to get everything set up, which was mostly due to the fact that I owned a permanent stand down here, meaning I didn’t have to set one up like the others did. This meant that I could start cooking before they had even finished setting up.

Sure, some people might have called it an unfair advantage, but hey, this was how I made my living!

I looked down to Emri, who was still staring at the wok like I’d asked her to.

“Alright, good job.” I said. “I’ll take over here, so you try to attract more customers over, ok?”

The small girl nodded, before walking over to the front of the stall.

 “Rice!” She tried to shout, and I realised that she wasn’t quite as loud as I would’ve hoped. I mean, it was enough for right now, but it’ll be a bit more difficult to attract customers over the sounds of the crowd.

I looked down at the rice, and noted that it would be ready soon. 

I wasn’t sure what I should cook when I got down here at first, but thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to think of fried rice. It was quick not too difficult to cook once you’d learnt how. But the best part was how it was incredibly difficult to find nowadays, due to Convergence both cutting the city off from the rest of the world, and causing enough chaos in the city that many buildings, conveniently including most Asian restaurants, were destroyed by rioters.

All these factors combined to essentially make recipes like fried rice an easy way to make a tonne of money, with the only limiting factor being how quickly you could prepare it.

Which was how we’d already made over four hundred sephals by twelve o’clock.

“Hey Mike!”

Oh…

Oh god…

I looked up from the rice to see a red-brown flash in the crowd, confirming my fears.

Hannah Clarke.

“No! Stop!” I shouted, running to the front of the stall. “We don’t have enough food for someone like you yet!”

“Too bad!” Hannah shouted, as she collided with one of the barstools I had placed at the front of the stall hard enough to bend the metal.

I looked into the crowd, and it wasn’t very hard to notice that quite a few people, who had previously been heading towards the stall, had turned around and started walking in the exact opposite direction.

“Damn it, Hannah…” I sighed into my hand. “Do you have any idea how many potential customers you just cost me?”

“Bah, you’ll get them back. You always do.” She said, shrugging her shoulders like she hadn’t just put a heavy dent in today’s profits. “Anyway, I heard you got involved in another incident yesterday. I just came to check up on you.”

I sighed again.

“Look, I’m fine, alright? And before you say anything uncharacteristically mature, it wasn’t my fault. The others at the station would have told you that, right?”

“Yeah.” She replied. “The chief told me what happened. That being said, he also told me that you completely ignored the officer who was trying to ask you what happened and provide you with medical assistance, despite the fact that you had multiple burns on your body. Mind telling me what was going through your head when you did that?”

“Those?” I asked. “Those were fine. They looked a lot worse than they actually were. Don’t forget, I’ve been burnt a fair few times before. I know when a burn is bad or not.”

She paused for a moment, before sighing, a concerned expression on her face.

“Fine. Just be careful though, alright? Josh told me to look out for you, and I really don’t intend to tell him that I failed when I see him again.”

I hesitated for a moment. Why did she always have to bring him up?

In the end, all I could do was sigh again.

“Yeah, alright.”

“Good!” She said, all traces of concern leaving her face, replaced instead by some dumb, smug grin that seemed irritating by its mere presence. “So who’s the girl?”

“Huh?” I asked, before looking behind me to see Emri, who had thankfully started looking after the fried rice while I was talking. “Oh, right. That’s Emri. I found her last night, looking through my fridge at four in the morning. Actually, you’d probably get along with her in that regard. Anyway, I told her that I would let her stay at my house and cook for her if she helped me here in the stall.”

“What?” Hannah asked, looking confused. “You mean you’ve decided to adopt her or something? I think you’re a bit too young for something like that. I mean, you’re only fifteen, and she’s… what, ten?”

“Fifteen…” I sighed, closing my eyes. I already knew exactly what was coming.

Slowly, I let one eye open and, as I’d expected, the smug grin was back.

With a vengeance.

“Oh… So you’re offering your home to a poor, innocent girl who has nowhere else to go? Not only that, but you’re also going to be cooking for her too? It would appear I’ve underestimated you, Mike.”

“Whatever you’re planning to say, don’t.” I said tiredly. “There are children present.”

As I said this, I felt something hit the back of my leg, bringing me down to one knee, and I looked over my shoulder to see Emri glaring at me.

“Not you, you damn runt!” I shouted, before realising something. “Wait, have you been listening the entire time?”

She nodded, still giving me the stink eye.

“Ok, well just before we continue, let me tell you right now that none of what she is implying is true.” I said, hoping to god that Hannah hadn’t successfully planted the wrong idea in her head. “Hannah’s thrives off misunderstandings and teasing people.”

“Hey, since when?” Hannah asked.

“Weren’t you the one who told me about the rumour in the police station that if you aren’t able to tease someone at least once a day, you’ll shrivel up and die of malnutrition?” I asked her.

She paused, before starting to mumble something about how stupid her co-workers and I were.

“Anyway, I suppose you being here might be helpful, because now you can try and keep her entertained for a bit.” I told Emri.

In return, Emri looked at me like I’d just told her to jump in front of a bus.

“Oh, come on.” I said. “I’m letting you stay at my house and cooking food for you. The least you can do is help me keep her distracted until I can prepare enough food for her…”

She continued to send me a pleading expression, which I returned with a stern glare.

Eventually, her shoulders slumped, and she sent me a dirty look.

“Monster.”

I just sighed for what was probably the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes, and went back to the fried rice.

After about twenty minutes of preparation, I finally had a large enough amount to give Hannah without having to worry about her still being hungry, which wouldn’t have ended well for anyone.

“Alright, here it is.” I said, desperately trying to hold the enormous pot of rice without dropping it and placing it on the counter of the stall, leaving her distracted enough that I could finally take a rest at the back.

“Who?”             

I looked beside me to see Emri, staring at Hannah as she shovelled fried rice into her mouth with a look of horror.

“What, you didn’t even ask in the twenty minutes you were talking to her?” I asked. “She’s Hannah Clarke, an officer with the Junction police department.”

In response, Emri shook her head.

“Josh.”

Ah, right.                 

Hannah did mention him before, didn’t she?

I looked over just in time to see Hannah quickly look back down to her food, letting me know that she had in fact noticed that Emri had mentioned him.

It wasn’t really a surprise that she was trying to pretend she hadn’t though. We both still seemed to have difficulty talking about him, even after all this time…

“Joshua Evans.” I said. “He was my brother, and he saved both of our lives.”