I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

Felix wiped his hand against his shirt and pushed himself up off the floor. "Get up. We still have a job to finish."

"Yes." Dune blinked once before getting back to her feet.

Felix bent down and collected the orb, useless for anything, just enough to light up the hallways, though he’d still paid two silvers apiece for the set and wasn’t about to leave it behind. His gaze drifted to the scattered cards next, and he sighed, crouching to gather them one by one, sliding them back into a neat stack. His pack sat a short distance ahead, the scroll still tucked inside where he’d left it.

"Wait." He glanced back at her. "What happened to Sabrina?"

"She’s gone." Dune pressed a hand flat against her stomach.

Felix nodded, not fully convinced, and finished collecting the last of the cards before lifting the scroll and leaving the bag where it lay. He started down the hallway ahead, straight for a stretch before it cut left, an area he hadn’t searched yet. Dune walked beside him without a word.

A few seconds later, her shoulder brushed against his, close enough that he felt the contact before she pulled back sharply.

"Something wrong?" Felix asked casually, eyes still looking at the walls as they walked.

She didn’t answer right away. He turned left at the corner and found her face closer than expected, inches from his own, and she pulled back again the instant he noticed.

"Are you doing okay?" he asked.

She nodded heavily. Felix studied her for a moment then shrugged it off, and kept his eyes on the hallway as they turned another corner.

Dune drifted close again a moment later, and he didn’t react much, she’d always been strange about personal space. Her head tilted in near the back of his neck, and she took a small sniff.

I’m going to ignore that as well.

Dune slowed her pace and fell half a step behind him. The faint blue glow still pulsing in her eyes started to change colours, blue bleeding into emerald green. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, a small laugh slipping out from behind her fingers.

After being pulled inside Dune, Sabrina spent the first few seconds being frantic, sure that she had been taken to some place where she would have been erased from existence. Yet the place where she was brought was empty, completely silent.

Quickly after she felt someone’s presence and knew whom it belonged to.

Felix...

She followed his presence and came right into the borders of Dune’s own consciousness.

She saw an opportunity.

At that moment Dune was completely focused on Felix to notice the invasion or put any resistance. Slowly, Sabrina spread her influence. Dune’s consciousness started to dim until it was overwhelmed by Sabrina’s presence.

Sabrina opened her borrowed eyes, saliva dripping past her lips, breath escaping in a visible cloud even though the house held no real cold anymore. Her hands crept toward Felix’s back, reaching to touch him, to feel his warmth, to pull him close, and something inside the body resisted, yanking her hands back before they made contact. She gritted her teeth, frustration boiling over, and clawed at her own scalp instead.

Felix, walking ahead and unable to see any of it, still felt something odd behind him. He knew Dune well enough by now to know how she operated, always answering, always processing a confusing question out loud rather than staying silent, and his question a moment ago hadn’t been confusing at all. She followed instructions cleanly too, strange in a hundred small ways but never careless. And yet right now, the person at his back felt off in a way he couldn’t name, some instinct crawling up his spine like an animal had slipped in behind him instead of her.

I’m overthinking this. He shook his head to clear it, and a moment later he stopped beside a table pushed against the wall, a round vase with a painted flower pattern sitting on top. He picked it up, turned it over once and held his free hand out behind him. "Dune, could you hand me the talisman I gave you earlier?"

"Talisman?"

"The white paper I gave you along with the orb."

"Yes." She patted down her clothes, checking her pockets, running her hands along the fabric of her pants, and came up empty. "I may have dropped it somewhere. I cannot find it."

"Dropped it." Felix repeated the words quietly, setting the vase down for good this time. He exhaled slowly, planted his boots firmly against the floor, and bolted forward without warning.

It took Sabrina a second to catch up to what he might’ve figured it out. "Wait! Felix, what happened?"

He didn’t answer or look back, focused entirely on the sound of his own boots hitting the floor and the panic driving every stride.

"No. No. No." Sabrina ran at full speed, the words coming out of her over and over. She closed the distance quickly, hand shooting out to grab his collar, but he ducked low at the last second and her fingers closed on empty air, momentum carrying her a few steps past him before she caught herself and spun around. Felix was already yanking at a door ahead of him desperately.

She lunged for him again, but the door swung open first, and Felix slipped through, pulling it shut hard behind him the second he was inside.

Sabrina’s face twisted with anger as she turned back to the door. She shoved it with both hands, and the door stood firm.

She stepped back and drove her boot into it,the lock gave way, and the door swung wide open.

She took a step forward, then her leg froze mid air, refusing to move any further.

"Stop this." Her voice sounded strained, struggling against something inside her.

"You said I was not human. Now I am. I can be with him now." She gritted her teeth, and the faint blue glow along the cracks in her skin dimmed further, and her green eyes flaring brighter. She forcefully drove her leg down to the wooden floor, and hauled herself into the room.

"Felix." Her voice became gentler when she crossed the threshold. "Now we can be together. Just like you wanted."