Maya was like a deer staring into the headlights of an approaching car—although this car was not a car. It was her old friend, the undead zombie warrior she so dreadfully missed. 

It groaned in greeting and shambled inside Maya’s clean apartment with its muddy and worn leather boots, closing the door behind it.

With another wild groan, the Draugr straightened its back, towering over Maya and scraping the ceiling with its iron helmet. The undead was huge—not big per se, but very long. Tangles over tangles of dead raven black hair cascaded down from its head and over the shoulders. 

His beard was half rotten; Teeth yellow and ridden with carious and other periodontal diseases. Any strong-willed person would hurl out their breakfast. 

It trudged closer to Maya, cracking the laminate underneath its boots. Maya could barely move from shock, even when the former Viking warrior lifted its axe.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” 

“Groooooaaaaar!” 

Maya screamed, and so did the Draugr hacking with its axe at Maya, who jumped out of the way, panicking. Her mirror shattered and covered the floor in glass shards. 

Thankfully, she wore house shoes, or else she would have gotten a shard lodged in her foot as she did as a child—not a pleasant memory; she blames her brother. 

“What are you doing at my home!?” Maya exclaimed in outrage at having her apartment getting demolished. The Draugr turned its head at Maya—only its freakish and fouling head.

What she didn’t expect next was hearing it talk.

“Where? Armament. Of. Power?” The voice was deep and strained and almost sounded as if you put wood and glass pearls through the blender—again, Maya had her phases as a child. But the voice was far more sinister than any exploding blender could manage.

Backed into a corner of her corridor, Maya had only two ways to run. 

First was the kitchen, which meant diving underneath the axe, which was not something she was looking forward to. 

Or second, the bathroom behind her. 

The Draugr rumbled—a rotten tooth fell to the ground.

Maya chose the latter.

She locked the glass door behind her and leaned against it for a breather, steadying herself mentally. 

“Wait a sec.” The gears in Maya’s brain turned. “I have a glass door, and that thing has a frickin’-” 

Maya jumped out of the way right before the axe split her head in half. The door shattered, sparkling her and the bathroom with sharp pieces. She scrubbed her hand and knee on the floor. 

“Cursed- argh!” Maya cried out, holding back a tear. “OH, that hurt! I told my parents replacing the hardwood doors with glass doors was a horrible idea. No matter how much natural light it provides!” 

Scrambling to her feet, Maya had seconds before the Draugr burst through the door entirely. She hid in the second section of the bathroom and closed the second glass door she had in there—that one was on her this time. She liked the extra light in her bathroom. 

“Think, Maya, think. I'm stuck on the second floor with a rotting undead after me! No problem, nooooo. I could jump out of the window and hope I don’t break a leg like last time-” 

Maya shrieked at the shattering door. The Draugr was almost through but tried to open the rest with the handle. “Thank goodness its brains are as rotten as its body!” 

Opening the window, Maya looked down. She gulped. “There’s no way I could make it without a broken leg. I wish Val was here!”

Maya paced around, biting her nail to think of an idea, and remembered the old unwashed sheets she put away in the cabin next to her. 

Raiding it, she tried to make an impromptu rope. She almost dropped it from the Draugr’s laboured rumbling before she could tie it properly. 

Maya held on to dear life as she carefully roped herself down before the Draugr barrelled through the second door. (Side note: Maya knows how to tie ropes thanks to her brother when they snuck out of home. Do what you want with that information.) 

However, she could only do so much as the Draugr snatched the ropes of bedsheets and tried to pull Maya back inside. 

She had only two viable options left again. A) face the Draugr and die, or B) jump and maaaaaaybe not die. 

Neither option was great, but Maya was almost down anyway, and she reaaaaally didn’t want to face the Draugr’s noxious breath. “Not like I’ll break my leg like last time as a child.” 

Maya let go of the rope and jumped.