𝚃𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚂𝚒𝚡

2.4K 45 32
                                    

Twenty Six

Twenty Six

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

+ + +

THE THREE JONES SIBLINGS had been orphaned for four years. Their father, Brennan, had sold them three children into servitude when Naomi was just ten years old. Liam and Killian, who were only a few years older than her, had tried several times to escape into the free world and leave the ship whenever it was docked. They were always caught.

If the boys couldn't do it for all of them, they had tried to make sure Naomi had the best opportunity at freedom. She was just so young. She shouldn't have to go through the daily pain and labor.

Naomi Jones was fourteen now. The siblings had been trying to escape servitude for four years. She couldn't take it anymore. It was all driving her insane. They were uneducated, and the young girl had really started to hate the seas.

So Naomi devised a plan to leave the ship in a wine crate, one of the ship's only trading goods. She knew it would be a single-person escape route, but the seas were destroying her sanity. Hardly ever did she go to bed with a full stomach and received healthy rest hours. The swaying and rocking of the ship... it disgusted her.

But most of all, she was scared. She was scared of what would eventually happen if they did continued living like this. This was no life.

Telling her brothers of the plan was out of the question. She would be on full watch by those two, which she could not risk. She had to leave that damned ship, and she had to leave now.

How drunk did those men have to be not to notice an extra 100 pounds added to one wine crate while unloading onto one of the busiest trade docks in the kingdom? Did they not notice how the clinking of glass bottles inside the crate was nonexistent? Where did they think the rest of the wine went?

Naomi was set down in the middle of a collection of the finest wine in all of the land, surrounded by hundreds of commoners. She went unnoticed as she stealthily climbed out of the crate and walked through the crowd.

The very dirty, unkempt young girl watched from the docks as Liam and Killian, her only remaining family, drew further and further away from her. She had immediately regretted her decision to escape. An overwhelming sense of loneliness came over Naomi. Many realizations suddenly hit her like a storm.

What had she done? What was she thinking? How would she manage to live on the streets like this? She had been selfish, so incredibly selfish.

Naomi had ruined her own life that day.

+ + +

After many days of travelling, Naomi Jones had finally found a calm and quiet village. She figured she would fit right into the small population of beggers that lived there. What she didn't expect was a temporary home. It sometimes shocked her how good the world could be.

𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 ➶Where stories live. Discover now