—ˋˏ✦ˎˊ—

Hooray, I did not break my leg! Celebrated Maya while her brain blew into a party horn.

Instead, she merely sprained it as she fell with a loud thud against the grassy and unmaintained ground. 

Didn’t hurt at all, Maya groaned as she expelled all the air from her chest and rolled onto her back. She looked up to see the Draugr disappointingly examining the rope like an old fisher who had no luck hooking something. 

“Better luck next time, Rotty!” Maya laughed but stopped when the Draugr headed back inside her apartment, probably to resume the chase. 

“OH shoot!” Maya gathered herself up and headed to the nearby lake. She knew there were barely any neighbours around at ‌this time of day—mostly stay-at-home parents. Maya couldn’t pull them into this madness. Or explain why she wore nothing but her nightgown.

That would make for quite an awkward confrontation.

The tall oak trees of the nearby forest greeted her when she arrived at the site where she found Val’s shield, and right where the previous Draugr attack happened. Possibly not the best place to be, but Maya was out of options. 

Her eyes darted left and right. The Draugr was not here yet. She sighed in relief and brushed back her coils from her sweating forehead. “That’s the most amount of running I’ve done since January. I’m spent.” 

Resting her hands on her knees, Maya noticed the sounds of rustling, which was accompanied by a loud, undead groan. “Oh, come on, I need a break!” Maya resumed running with audible sobbing. 

Hiding behind a tree, Maya retrieved her phone, which she had tucked securely in her chest.

Her first thought was to call Val, but she had no phone. She opted for the next best thing: Austin. 

“Come on, come on, pick up!” 

The phone rang, trying to connect to the other party. A few seconds went by, but for Maya, it felt like minutes when she was exposed to danger.

“Pick up your DAMN phone!” 

“Ghostbusters, watcha want?”

“This is not the time for jokes, Austin!” 

Snark laughter followed from his end. “There’s always time for a joke, lol. What do you need? You hate making phone calls.” 

Maya grumbled, “I know, but this is serious. Listen, I need your help. I’m alone in the woods with nothing on me but my nightgown and I need-” 

Her phone beeped. The line was dead as Austin had ended the call. She immediately phoned him again. 

“What the heck!?” she shouted. “Why?” 

“Listen, Maya, I know you want to try out a relationship since you never went on a date-” 

“Ouch, that hurt.” 

“But I ain’t providing this kind of service-” 

“Stop spouting nonsense! I’m in serious need of help—AAAH!” 

“Maya? Maya!?” Austin now panicked. “Hey, what’s going on? I’m sorry for the joke. Talk to me.” 

Maya couldn’t pick up the phone. She dropped it when the Draugr felled the tree she was hiding behind with its axe. 

Wide-eyed, she stared at the Draugr and heard Austin’s amplified voice—she must have accidentally hit her phone on loud before she dropped it. 

“Austin! I’m getting attacked by a Draugr!” She dodged with a loud yelp as the Draugr lashed out at her. “I’m running away into the nearby forest. Please help!” 

The Draugr crushed her phone under his boot. His imposing body towered before her like a rotting, grey tree.

Maya gulped uneasily, hoping her last message went through. “There’s no way you’ll let me go, huh?” 

The Draugr roared. 

“I take it as a no.”

Maya hobbled through the woods again with her sprained leg and only one house shoe on, the other was lost somewhere on her run. 

The Draugr was blissfully slower, trudging after her through the muddy terrain.

Panting, feet aching, Maya avoided the Draugr’s assault the best she could as it uprooted everything in its path. Soon it would deforest the entire place. 

Or not, since the next turn Maya took ended up in an ambush with two more Draugr. They seized her, grabbing her by her arms like last time. 

“Can we please not do this?” Maya begged, trying to wiggle her way out both physically and otherwise. “I have a paper to edit and stuff to read. Can we reschedule? I’m a bit pressed lately.” 

The Draugr returned her pleading with a bored groan. They were utterly unimpressed by her schedule. 

Maya rolled her eyes at her failed attempt and noticed a shadow vault between the trees, then slipped under the shadow of the Draugr.  

“Where is it, woman?” A voice, deep and nerve-wracking to the core, echoed from the shadows. It instilled the question into Maya’s head, singeing her brain with cold needles to compel an answer. “The shield’s gone, where’s the—” 

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re looking for exactly,” said Maya, stunning shadow-controlled Draugr, who didn’t expect to be interrupted. “We’re minding our own business at my home… which you attacked!” Maya stomped with indignation. “How do you expect me to explain this to the authorities?”

The shadow remained silent. The Draugr blinked several times with what eyelids remained, trying to wrap its head around Maya’s boldness. 

It snatched Maya by the jaw. “Where is—”

The heads of the Draugr gonked like church bells as a shield hurtled through the air and clanked against their helmets with the precision of a flying frisbee.

Disintegrating into dust, the Draugr who held onto Maya disappeared. Val caught her in her fall and caught her shield—looking like the heroine Maya imagined her to be. 

“Are. You. Alright?” wheezed Val, sounding winded. In her arms, Maya could hear her frantic breathing and beating heart. “Saw. The.” Val gasped loudly. “Damage. Ran. To find. You-” 

“Woah, hold on.” Maya slipped out of Val’s embrace just in time to catch her as the Valkyrie dropped to her knees, wheezing and coughing harshly. This is bad. Really bad.

Val clutched at her chest, her breathing shallow and laboured. “Hard to... breathe.” Her amber eyes flicked to the half-disintegrated, tall Draugr crawling on the ground, clinging stubbornly to its cursed existence. With a trembling effort, she tried to rise. “Need. To. Finish. It—”

“Leave it,” urged Maya, looping Val’s arm over her shoulder to steady her. “You’re in no shape for this. Let’s just get out of here.”