The Legend of Nakrang

Survive

Imparting claustrophobic tension, sharing no hints of what could be lurking ahead or around, the pitch-black interior of the cave was an unsettling sanctuary in the storm.

Out there in boundless wilderness, rain was still falling, albeit no longer a raging downpour.

Having successfully thrown the assailants off their back, the royal couple had cautiously slipped out of their temporary hiding place in the dark and stumbled upon a cave at the precipice.

Any shelter was better than none, and they had to take their chances.

The steady roar of the rain faded into gentle murmurs with every step they took; echoes, reverberations and other inexplicable auditory illusions gradually joined the mixture of sounds.

"We can stay here for the night. Follow closely behind me, we will go slow." Hyun Bin instructed, his breathing labored from climbing over slippery rocks along the precipice and ensuring Yejin's safety every step of the way.

"Yes, I will."

Plunged into complete darkness, unable to start a fire amid fears of drawing unwanted attention, he could only take a gamble and move ahead in the cave.

Anything could lie in wait— cave-dwelling creatures, falling rocks, flooding risks, pitches and squeezes...the list of potential dangers was endless, and it was his duty to find a safe place for his princess to rest.

Every step of this journey into the unknown was daunting beyond imagination, especially when the ground below them could disappear any moment.

Still, she was by his side, and that was the only spark in the gloom.

For every treacherous step, she was there, breathing in the same space.

Feeling around for small rocks to gather in his hands, the prince cautiously and periodically threw a piece into the darkness in front of him, closely listening for steep drops ahead.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes."

Imaginary monsters in the dark had once kept Yejin in fear as a child, but adulthood taught her that the most fearsome monsters were the ones who looked just like everyone else and wore a smile.

Her emotional structures were burning out from constant overload, and her physical being numbed to a point where she could hardly register sensations.

From what she could hear, her feet and knees were in contact with the ground, but there wasn't any real sense of friction or pain or anything else, for that matter.

To Yejin, nothing in her aristocratic life had prepared her for this.

Running away from assailants in the chilly rain, hiding in a pitch black cave and fighting for her life out here in the Dong Okjeo wilderness— every step was a dive into the forbidden deep.

It was terrifying to say the least, but stopping to grouse or whine just wasn't in her character, especially when it could mean a matter of life and death.

She had been enough of a burden to Hyun Bin, no matter how he might refute that.

The discomfort was starting to feel like invisible weights on her limbs, the cold seeping through her drenched garments to drain the warmth out of her soul.

It was threatening to rob the last whispers of heat from her bones—Yejin didn't know how she was doing it, but her feet and knees were simply shuffling forward.

She didn't know how much she had moved, but it felt like it was too much.

Lethargy and overwhelming relief from their earlier near-death experience left the royal couple largely in silence.