My Prince, The Sun Will Rise // Jumil

One.

For young Prince Hyunjae of Danbya, the palace he lived in had always been the loneliest place. For years, he had stared out of his window down to the forest that lay just outside of the walls and wondered what might possibly lie behind it, he'd tried to escape what seemed like an infinite amount of times but each one had ended up a failure.

He had supposed that it was his lack of planning that always let him down. Admittedly, trying to get out through the front gates the first time wasn't the smartest idea he had ever had and trying to climb from his window the second time had proved just a little too terrifying for Hyunjae to bear however this time, on his eighth attempt, the boy had never felt so confident. Failure simply wasn't an option anymore so with an old map in his hand and a heart full of determination, Hyunjae slipped out of his bedroom door.

Sneaking out of his room was easy, there were hardly any guards around at 1pm and through his weeks of endless planning, the prince had figured out that this was the time most of them had their lunch. So, naturally, even the guards that patrolled the halls at this hour were distracted. This played into his advantage, of course, as traversing his way through the east wing towards the back of the palace was relatively simple. It was only once that he had to quickly hide behind a cupboard whilst walking through the main corridor yet otherwise, his escape route had so far been completely clear.

When he finally reached where the secret tunnel was supposed to be, Hyunjae found the first flaw in his plan. The tunnel seemed like it was no where to be found, no matter where he looked, left to right, down the hall, behind cupboards, the boy just couldn't find it no matter how hard he tried. His searching continued for at least 20 minutes, Hyunjae was tapping on various parts of the wall but nothing was happening. To an onlooker, the young prince might have looked like he had gone out of his mind and honestly, that may as well have been true. With the amount of time that he had spent cooped up inside the place, Hyunjae was surprised that he hadn't been tapping at the walls in bleak hope of an escape long before now.

Just as the prince was seconds away from giving up, he noticed something over the other side of the wall. It was so small that the boy was surprised he had even seen it however he was extremely glad he did, the thing itself was almost like a tiny lever, Hyunjae quickly pulled it down and waited with bated breath for something, anything to happen and after a few moments it finally did.

Spectacular wasn't really a word Hyunjae would've used to describe it but still it was one of the cooler things that the prince had seen. Slowly, a few bricks in the wall began sliding to the side, the prince was glad of how quiet and seamless the process was, the last thing he needed when trying to be sneaky was loud noises.

Finally, a small door appeared where the bricks once were. Something about it seemed rather eerie yet Hyunjae's will to escape was far stronger than his fear of what could possibly lie in the tunnel. With this in mind, he reached out to the door handle to pull it open before clicking on his torch to illuminate the dull black path in front of him. Okay, maybe he was a little scared.

The prince looked back to his map quickly, the tunnel didn't seem that long and along the way there were other tunnels that he could take to quickly get out if he wanted. Before walking through the door, Hyunjae took a deep breath as his mind screamed of the fact that he was a prince and he was supposed to be brave and mighty. It seemed stupid that he would be afraid of something as small and insignificant as a dark tunnel.

As always, the first step was the scariest, Hyunjae jumped almost comically as the door shut behind him and the natural light disappeared completely. His plan had been to walk quickly so that he could get back outside as soon as possible yet with how uneven the path was and how many weeds were growing both above and below him, this was borderline impossible. The prince found himself moving at snail pace as he carefully calculated the risk of every step before he took it.