The Seeds of an Adventure

In which an ambition is revealed, a decision is made, and the seeds of an adventure begin to grow.

I was relieved when Emri didn’t ask me anything else about Josh, at least while we were still working. It only took a few minutes after the end of that conversation for Hannah to finish the pot of rice. I won’t go into details, because I don’t think my mind would be able to handle some of that stuff, but I will say that there were at least three moments where her jaw dislocated to consume more food, not unlike a snake would.

Sadly, this was nowhere even close to the most disturbing thing she did, let alone what I’ve seen her do in private.

After she’d finished, I pulled out a broom I kept in the stall specifically for this type of situation, and started poking her with it until she left, sprinting up the side of a nearby building and vanishing from sight with an indignant screech.

“How?”

I turned to Emri, whose expression, while still less intense than a normal persons would be, still managed to convey just how unnerving she found this sight.

Of course, this was entirely fair. I still couldn’t watch half of the things she can do now without almost fainting.

“It’s her core.” I said, well aware of how horrified I sounded. “Devour. She can transform her body to replicate the physical attributes of anything she’s eaten in her lifetime.”

Her expression grew a little more expressive, which from what I can tell, is about equal to her jaw dropping.

I really couldn’t blame her either. I just hoped to god that she never has to see any her replicate any of the more… Lovecraftian… species out there…

 “Sentients?”

Sadly, I didn’t have to think too hard on her question, already knowing exactly what she meant.

“Only dangerous criminals, but yes. Yes she has.”

She shuddered.

“She only has to eat a little bit to do it though, so most of said criminals are still alive.”

She stood in place for a little while longer, before her eyes widened and she looked up to me.

“Cores?”

“No,” I answered, “she can’t replicate other people’s cores. Only purely physical aspects.”

“Confused.”

“Well,” I explained, “she can’t do things like absorb knowledge or memories from anything she’s eaten, as those are mental, not physical. What she can do, however, is grow bony plates all over her body after she ate something that could do that. It’s… horrifying…”

Emri looked down in thought for a moment, before looking back up to me.

“Difficult?”

“Probably.” I replied. “Hannah says that in order to enact the transformation and growth of body parts, she needs to eat a lot more than the average person, otherwise it will take nutrients and stuff from her own body instead. That being said, I’m not entirely convinced that it isn’t just an excuse to make me cook more food for her.”

“Interesting…”

“But horrifying, right?”

She nodded.

“Horrifying.”

Neither of us made a move for a few minutes, frozen in the wake of the humanoid abomination that had just devoured all the rice I’d been stockpiling for today.

“Wait, she didn’t happen to pay you at all, did she?” I asked.

 Emri shook her head.

The twitch from last night came back, and this time it looked like it brought its friends along too.

“You damned gluttonous witch!” I screamed out, and I could swear I heard her laughter echoing across the rooftops.

 

 

Later that night, I walked through the door to my apartment in defeat.

I had barely made a fraction of the money I usually make.

I mean, it was still a decent amount, but almost definitely didn’t make up for the costs of the rice that I had seen vanish into the black hole that was currently my legal guardian.

“Next time I see Hannah, I may actually kill her.” I grumbled.

“Again?” Emri asked, a similarly defeated expression to mine on her face.

I guess my depression was contagious.

Kind of like smiles, but exactly the opposite.

And as for why she said ‘again’, well, that was most likely because I had been cursing Hannah’s name for almost the entire walk up to the apartment.

“Yes. Again. I will resurrect her somehow, just so I can get back at her. This will continue until the end of time, if need be.” I said, before kicking the back of my couch in frustration. “Damn it! How am I supposed to have any charming adventures to make readers laugh, cry, and realise that I’m the most amazing character ever conceived if I don’t have any goddamned money?!”

“Adventures?”

“Yeah, adventures!” I shouted, still injured, but now also with a foot that I had to desperately pretend was fine and not in intense pain. “I’m meant to have a tonne of brilliant adventures all over the city to capture the hearts of all my readers with my brilliant cooking and charming wit! But this place runs on money, and everything you do requires some kind of form or license, which also requires money, and finally, and this is the most important part, all the money I have goes into my own survival, food stocks for the stall, and this apartment!”

As I continued on my rant, Emri had walked over to the couch and sat down, a look of intense concentration on her face.

Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing how much better my life could have been if I had been lucky enough to not notice said expression.

Now, dear readers, take note of what I say next, because it’s incredibly important to realise one thing.

This was only my first big mistake.

“So what’s with that expression anyway?” I asked. “You wouldn’t happen to be thinking of a way to make a bunch of money in a few days, would you?”

She shook her head, but got up and grabbed my sleeve before I could turn away to continue ranting.

“Adventures.”

“What?” I asked, momentarily confused. “I already told you. You need money to get anywhere close to having something like an adventure in this place, or to be incredibly poor, or to become involved with some of the seedier parts of the cities society. Wait, you better not be thinking of turning me to crime! I mean, I know you’re not above stealing food, but I didn’t think you were an actual crimi-”

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t completely sure of where I was going with this new rant, but it was cut off anyway by a surprisingly strong punch to the gut, courtesy of the child-like monster that was currently pouting at me.

“Others.”

“Other whats?” I wheezed.

“Worlds.”

Alright, now I knew there was something strange about this girl.

Well, you know, apart from literally everything else about her…

“You do realise what you just said, right?” I asked, slowly managing to regain my composure. “I mean, I know that you may not have had the most… enjoyable… experience since you got to Junction from whichever world you’ve come from, but even when you consider the criminal aspect of the city, it’s still a lot safer than a hell of a lot of other worlds. You know why it’s safer? Because it has a bunch of rules and regulations specifically tailored for use in a city that houses the cultural equivalent of a multicar pileup! And I’ve heard from a reliable source, who just so happens to be a police officer, tha-”

“Hannah?”

“Yes, Hannah.”

“Reliable?”

“Very rarely, but in this case, yes. Anyway, she’s told me that the rules are a lot less developed in just about every other world that hadn’t reached space travel yet, and even in some of the ones that have! And this means that a fair few of them are incredibly violent! I don’t want to get hurt or anything.”

Emri just stood there for a moment, staring at me like I was an idiot.

“Really?”

“Yes really!” I said, flailing my arms around as if it would make my argument any more valid than it already was.

It did not.

“Adventure.” She said, making air quotes with her hands.

“Not every adventure needs to be dangerous for its characters.”

“Boring.” She said, before her eyes widened as if she’d realised something. “Oh. Wait.”

I gave up hope in the twitch ever receding.

“Man, normally, I would respond to that with some particularly rude swear words, but I wouldn’t want to teach a little kid like you any bad habits!”

And then I was on the floor, courtesy of a second surprisingly strong punch to the gut.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted. “I really don’t see how you expect me to go have an adventure in another world for no reason! The closest things you’ve made to arguments have essentially been you insulting me and punching me in the gut! Why do you even want me to travel to the other worlds anyway?”

“Companion.”

“Companion for what?”

“Me.”

“And why do you want to travel to other worlds.”

She paused for a moment, and I barely had time to catch the pained expression on her face before it returned to normal.

“Unimportant.”

“Oh, right.” I said. “So you’re not even going to tell me why I should follow you around on a journey that could very well end with my horrible, painful death! Sure, I’m convinced! Let me go and pack my stuff right now!”

She stared down at me for a moment, pouting.

“Sarcasm.”

“Yeah, sarcasm. Now that you’ve seen through my brilliant ploy, let me ask you something. If you’re so sure that I should travel between the worlds with you, why don’t you give me an actual reason? And not that stupid “You said you wanted to go on an adventure!” argument you tried to use at the beginning. If I wanted to have an adventure with those kinds of risks, I would have just gone to the waterfront after midnight.”

At this, she just sighed, before looking around the room. Eventually, something seemed to catch her eye, and she looked back to me.

“Recipes.”

“Recipes?”

She nodded.

“Foreign. Exotic.”

Crap...

For someone like me, that was actually pretty tempting…

The idea of amassing a treasure trove of recipes that hadn’t yet made their way to Junction yet was…

No! Don’t be stupid! Even if you get some cool new recipes, the cost of the journey will be way too expe-

“Expensive.”

Wait, what?

“What do you mean by ‘expensive’?” I asked.

“Rare.” She said. “Uncommon. New.”

She locked eyes with me.

“Expensive.”

Oh, I get it now.

If the recipe hasn’t made its way here yet, then I’ll be the only person providing it.

It would be rare.

Which meant it could be expensive.

No…

Don’t… Let… Her… Break… Y…ou…

Damn it…

She had found my weak point, and she had attacked it with everything she could muster.

I sighed.

“Fine. But I’d better not die on this trip.”

Realising she’d won, she gave me a wide smile, and I realised that I had never actually seen one from her.

It was a refreshing change.

As she turned around and walked over to the bedroom, I sighed again.

“You know, you could have won that argument way faster if you’d just used more than one word whenever you spoke.” I called over to her, and saw as the smile immediately faltered.

It was still there, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t a real smile anymore, and that there was conscious effort being used to keep it in place.

“Can’t.” She said simply, before closing the door.

Can’t? What did she mean by that?

I continued to ponder that last statement for a few more minutes, before realising something.

Emri had just stolen my room.

“Wait, no!” I shouted, stopping directly in front of the door. I wouldn’t want to walk in on her changing or something after all. Those were some accusations I could really live without. “That’s my room! Let me set up the couch for you or something!”

“Guest!” Her voice called back, leaving me standing at the door for about a minute, completely dumbfounded.

And then all I could do was sigh once again, and walk over to the couch.

As I got to work on trying and failing to turn the couch into its bed mode, I thought back over the day, and a single train of thought looped around in my head.

I really need to learn to stop being such a push over.