Ruby

Chapter 1--- Ruby

A girl with golden hair stared absently out of her window. She watched the clouds lazily floating around the sky as if they had nothing else to do of accomplish that day. Ruby wished her life was like that. But it wasn't. Her entire family had either been hanged for attempted escape from their village or had escaped. She was a quite shy girl of 15 and shouldn't have been living alone. She wished she didn't, but that was just the way things were for her. She stood up and stretched. It was time to head to the barn where she worked.

When she arrived, she was met face to face with the foul smelling breath of Mr. Johansen her boss. He spat on the floor, only around an inch away from her feet. She looked at him in disgust and said,

"What do I need to do today sir."

"My dear he said you know you don't have to work this challenging job. You could just marry me and you would never have to work a day in your life again!"

Ruby said no and went into her favorite horses stall to brush him. Her boss huffed away and into his office. She continued brushing the horse and hummed tunes from the happy part of her childhood under her breath. That was when she heard it. A scuffling and then a loud shatter. She searched the floor for glass and was rewarded with a half cracked milk jug. Weird she thought nobody here drinks milk! And the scuffling?

Chapter 2--- Um

Ruby walked around the perimeter of the barn. Nobody was there. Then She heard the odd shuffling and realized it was coming from the hay loft. She rushed to the ladder leading up to the shelf like ledge and slowly peeked up. There all she saw was hay. She carefully scanned and saw a bit of what she thought was rotting hay, peeking out of the left side of a pile. Ruby climbed up and grabbed the deep brown hay, but jumped back immediately. It was soft to soft to be any kind of plant. She then jumped back in horror as she realized it was human hair.

"Who the blaze are you!"

Ruby bellowed. A voice slightly deeper than hers replied,

"I don't know go away!"

Ruby kicked the hay pile in which the person was strategically laying in. "Geez what was that for!"

Replied the voice.

"Who are you!"

Repeated Ruby.

"I'm, I'm , I'm..... Um."

Replied the voice claiming to be named Um.

"You are Um. Don't be ridiculous Um is not a name."

Ruby screeched at Um. Um replied with

"Well actually I don't really have a name so I guess I have just been going by the name Um."

"How can you not know you own name?"

Ruby asked apparently more curious than annoyed at this point. Um than elaborated.

"After I turned five, my father died of the plague. A year later, my mother was hung for trying to tell our village about the land outside of the wall. My sister works for the prince now. And my brother went to war for our village against my sister. My entire family was split up. One day I just walked out. Nobody noticed or even came looking for me, so I have lived here ever sense. What about you?"

He finished. Ruby just sat there with her jaw hanging open. She had thought her story was tragic, but after hearing his there was no room for her to feel bad about herself. She at least had a loving family before they either escaped or died trying! He had a family but they didn't care enough about him to take care of him!