You make your way past hallways with festive colors and shining steel. The air either smells like candles with the scented fruits, or a stale aroma from the men who come and go with sweat. 

All you can see is the shadows of the men's feet, who take you to your demise, as they make their way to the castles dungeon. The thump of their soles on the floor is almost certainly muffled by the red carpet thrown over the halls. Sighing, you try and tell them to let you lift the strands of hair that fell into your face out of your eyes for a clearer sight of your surroundings. Not that it is actually much to begin with. They reply with a haughty tone, saying you may not for the master has ordered none of it. 

Yes, like the master has to even tell you all to breathe before you can do it, you sarcastically think. Sighing, you try and gently blow them off. Entranced in your actions, you do not realize you have reached  the dungeon doors, until you hear keys jingle against a soldier's jackets front pocket. Your heart as you finally realize the true meaning behind your situation. You can't run. You surely can't hide in this heavily guarded place. But above all, you can't take your own life with your pair of hands, because KiBum is still dependent on you. 

KiBum right now is the reason you must stay alive. If you do not,.. there's no telling how many storms and hurricanes you can send to Earth as your anger only seethes in the heavens. Just like your mother. 

Someone coughs to the side of you. Still not being able to lift your head, you can only strain your ear to look over at the direction of the incoming sound. 

You wait. You can feel the soldier loosen his grip on you now but you dare not move for fear of being slayed, belevolently, than and there. 

You do not hear the key's jingle either. Was that cough intentional, you wonder. Before you have enough time to dwell on the possible outcomes and reasons for the sudden noise, a voice speaks up, calming your raging mind. 

The wheels in your mind stop as a soldier nervously asks whether they should offer, you, the peasant, any food or water just as the other prisoner had received. 

When your mind finally processes the words "other prisoner" there's an abrupt yelling in your concious to run. Loose the soldier who has softened his grip on you and just make a dash for wherever you can go. Just run.

But your body always being the slower of the pair stays in place. Sooner than later the deep voices of the man behind you and the few to your side rumble out of their throats. The vibrations echoe of the high ceilings before making their way back to the ground where they resonate off the caerpet and flow into your ears. Your brain pick up the signals and make it seem twice as loud than the typical decibel levels whether out of fear or nervousness. Your mind is still unconsciously thinking about what kind of a human being could lay behind those slightly corner rusted, iron doors. 

One way in. Possibly no way out....

"You think we should do that Wei Mong?" There's a quick silence before the other soldier to your left finishes the sentence. "No. Unless you would like to take her spot in the darkest part of this castle, I would not speak of something like this again. Orders are orders and you seem to be disobeying them Mong." 

You hear a sound to the left of you, but soon discover it's only the sound of the keys jingling again. You were too distracted by the conversation that you did not realize the silent retreat of the soldiers feet away from the area around you. By the time you have the opportunity to take a quick glance back up around you, there is no more man. There is no more Wei Mong. 

The sun is shining now. Ablaze, the dungeon looks like any other room only drenched with a peculiar smell and no souls to rummage about. It seems rather clammed as well, as your eyes adjust to the extreme brightness of the room. 

Strange for a dungeon though. I would always think a demise room would involve death tools and dead bodies.. this room seems odly strange. 

Before you have the opportunity to realize your thoughts, another door opens up behind a solidarity wall. It's wooden so your surprised why the door could have not simply been slammed open by the prisoner inside- or the many other for that matter. Again before you have time to dwell on your own assumptions, your head is pushed inside the room, your body following soon after. You trip over something as you head inside therfore falling flat on your forehead. You groan in pain and as if in response the soldier that had been holding you, steps on you with his right foot. He whistles before you hear no more of him as his foot leaves your back and the door closes behind him. 

The darkness- the pitch black darkness- that you had been expecting envelops the room. It takes over your eyesight and your human instincts kick in making you feel fear. You slam up against something hard and brittle. As you do so the impact of your back causes something to break behind you. A shiver runs up your back and before you can run from the object, a small flame flicks on in the corner of the (suppossedly) room. Your not sure whether it was intentional or another trick up this stupid castles games. 

The light tempts you, with it's shining flame. If you had it you could search around the room. But than what would you... see?

Fear overpowers your senses as you run to- what seems like- the center of the room and craddle into a ball. You put your hands over your head, and rock back and forth silently until you start feeling light headed. It isn't your movements that are causing you to become weary though. You lift your head up, grogriness taking over your mind. The many faces you loved, and still do in the smallest crook of your heart, flash before your mind before you black out completely.

......

"Mmm, nnnn" You mumble as your mind reawakens from your knock out. Your head hurts from being pushed down to the ground so much during your trip to the dungeon. For a second, you almost forget where you are. Not until you the darkness of the room do you remember you were wrongfully kidnapped two days ago. You were taken up out of your own home against your free will. Against who's accord? The stupid tyrant's. The worthless man who destroyed the city you so long yearned to see healthy and striving again from the previous war. He made it worse. He trashed anything and something worth of life left in this city. Everything was 'properly disposed of' the citizens of the Kingdom said at one point. You were still quite young back than but you still remember the heart-wrenching, wanting-vengeance, in-your-heart feeling. The one that made you what you were now: not afraid to kill to strive for yourself. 

Tears start forming in your eyes, but you blink them away. The Kingdom could be watching you now and you would never know while you were still breathing on this Earth. 

That was what they wanted you to believe, but messing with you was another step, TOO large. You would try -and succeed- to make yourself out of this worthless castle with it's even more absurd people. No, it was as if they were not even human anymore. It was more like creatures who dwelled in this place. Heartless. People anoynmous to feelings. To compassion. To love. To caring. To sharing. , all of it was just too much for them. The only thing the females seemed capable of here was to swindle and mingle with as many men as they could book in their night schedules and the men happy to comply. 

You spat on the floor as a sign of protest against the beautifully crafted that was the Kingdom. This place should rot in hell for all I care.

You shake your hands, reviving them from the numbness they slept into from the day's hanging. Or night's. There isn't a way to tell in this stupid dark box. Nothing but a room. Nothing, now get better, you repeat to yourself as you try and pry the locks from your hands. Your head is thrown back over the wall, as you strain to look up at what your hands are trying to accomplish in the piercing darkness. Because without a vision of sight, the task in itself is unaccomplishable. 

Your digging your fingertips in the flesh of your palm, in frustration, when a rumble emerges from somewhere inside the same room as you. Stopping your movements on instinct, you look up and around the room. The blood drains from your face as you look up and down, to the side and floor, your eyes frantically searching for what made that sound. The noise sounded like a giant laughing. Frightened to the core, you raise your legs up high as far as they can go. You close your eyes shut and wait for the sound again. Moments pass; it almost seems like an eternity before you open your eyes again, and your body untenses. You didn't notice your nails were digging deep into your skin until a soft, sticky fluid drips down from the side of your hand. A few seconds pass before you realize it's blood; the irony smell making its way to your nose and filling your senses up. 

Your body is dehydrated so when you gulp, it's only as if your tasting nothing but empty air. You stick your tongue out to your lips but it only makes your mouth water more. Your lips are crakced and as you stomp your foot against the wall behind you, your foot jolts with pain. The wall is thick and in no means ready to collapse. That form of escape is out of the question. Having not eaten, you want to crumple into a ball and hold back the pain that shoots through your body beginning from your stomach. It's the feeling of being ripped apart gently before swaying back to how it was before yet the pain singles itself out back to slightly stay in your stomach. 

You close your eyes for a few more seconds.... and-

A laughter jolts you awake from your tired state of mind. You swallow hard, as you try your best to keep conealed in the darkness. Your survival instincts, at the moment, do not comprehend that no one would be able to see you in this darkness, just as you cannot see them. The voice, this time, speaks up and it frightens you with the deepness of the owners tones ringing through the room. The voice says, "Seems you don't want to be here with me long. Wondering why, oh the moon, to the left is the sun...." The voice drains out from making sense until it's a blunder of words as you try and make out what kind of person the other soul is. You guess, almost most certainly, that it's a man's voice. You can't guess where the voice is coming from since the sounds bounce off against each corner of the dungeon but from the vibrations you receive off the cold walls, he is within the perimeters. 

Being the arrogant person you are, you say "Speak again so I may know where my opponent lays." He laughs before responding, "Aren't you a tough little one. Oh I saw you, but never would have guessed such a fragile looking girl could hold so much determination." Than as if talking to himself, he lowers his voice level down a couple of tones, before rapidly speaking again saying things like, "Than again who would wanna die down here? Not sure anyone would wanna live down here either.. now that I think about it this room does seem like it could be a survival room, but it is rather small"

Sighing, you speak up again, asking rather irritably who is this fool of a man. 

"Bwah? You say something.. dearie?" he questions, straining the last e in the word dearie as he explodes into fits of laughter afterwards. 

The frown you hadn't noticed was on your face, increases in size as you listen to the man having a blast with himself when he knows he's going to eventually die down here. 

"Eh. Sir, you know.. -you take a deep breath in-,  your going to DIE down here, and all you can do is laugh and joke about things!? This isn't a laughing matter! What's wrong with you!" 

Tears form in your eyes, as your mind pictures leaving KiBum alone, to fend for himself. He's only a child; you still haven't taught him the basics to hunting, so how is he expected to defend himself from intruders, nautral disasters... you let out a tiny whimper. Quickly biting down on your tongue to silence yourself, you look up and around once more to see if the man didn't hear you. There is no response so your assuming he didn't. That assumption is shattered though as he speaks up once more, all the liveliness and happiness gone from his voice. 

"You know. There's no need for such a pretty young girl like you to cry. Please don't cry. It tears at my heart to know that such a lovely..."

You furrow your eyebrows at his words as you try and make sense of them. You're trying your best to stifle your whimpers and tears but can't seem to break off all the pessimistic thoughts of what could happen to KiBum if you were to die here. Being wiser by age, you don't even once think about yourself. The only sound that resonates off the walls now is the sound of your cries and weeping of anguish. Soon after the stilfed cries of the man follows, although it sounds as if he laughs to hold back his own pain. You look up ask, "Why- you let out a sniffle- a- are you crying?"-you hiccup as you let out the last letter. 

The man belts out one last laugh before he slams something against the wall. You feel the strength of his body against your own fragile figure as he pushes more and more into you. Although something seems off.. It's only a piece of him on you for only your right leg feels pressed down more into the wall than the rest of your skinny self. You guess it was his leg, since your arms are bound together with rope, to the top of metal brackets. 

Your breathing rate changes rapidly as your brain fogs with an unfamiliar fear that recently has been embeded into your mind.. fear ~

Quietly but with a fierce tone, you shout at him commanding him to let go and why he's doing this to you. 

Shocked, he pulls his leg back. His heart drops thinking he must have hurt you, but he doesn't voice it openly because as soon as he opens his mouth to explain what he was doing to you, your looking over in the direction in which the strangers foot came from and barking orders at him to stop messing with you. 

"You play to much! You might as well be the tyrant's favorite duke or something of the sorts. Such a child, you grown man!"

You let even more tears spill out because as much as you hate the situation you've been in for the past years and how bad you have had to treat people in order to survive and provide for KiBummie, you don't mean most of the things you do (not by choice) and say. It kills you inside because before the war, before your father and mother died & before the epidemic shot rhoughout the streets of Seoul, you were any other normal, kind girl that loved to see smiles. The smiles off strangers, the delivery boys out in the farther lands, and even of your mother. 

If I had a million and one canvases to have someone paint their smiling faces onto each one.. I would be more than rich. I'd make sure their smiles would be able to be seen from galaxies & galaxies away. 

Out of sheer misery you open your mouth to apologize to him for your actions but by the time your forming your first word in your mouth the door to the dungeon opens and in steps two soldiers casked in their traditional training outfits. One nods his head to the other as he steps into the darkness of the stone covered room. The one who steps inside is holding a lamp with a carosine candle inside, lit. The other one turns as he closes the door to the cellar door shut. You think to yourself there's a high possibility the one who closed the door is standing guard. 

Only now as you watch the guard approach you more and more you don't realize there here for a game of stupidity. What they're doing is against the tyrant's wishes. It should be shouldn't it. 

They shouldn't be here.

What he's thinking, should never happen to you.  

You watch and watch but even than your fragile heart still doesn't make sense of the situation. This is what you get for being kind even deep down inside. 

Kind and innocent