Cable King vs The Brain Dead

Marcus dragged himself through first period like a **zombie**, eyes half-lidded and brain completely fried. Three straight nights of grinding ranked until 3 AM will do that to you.

"Bro, you look dead," Carlos whispered from the next desk over. Marcus just grunted. The real problem wasn't the lack of sleep—it was the **cable**. His ethernet cable had frayed exactly three days ago, and his mom refused to buy another one until his grades improved. Meanwhile, his WiFi was about as reliable as his ability to talk to Sophia.

Sophia. The actual reason he'd been destroying his sleep schedule. She'd finally started replying to his DMs, but only at like 2 AM when she couldn't sleep either. Late-night memes turned into late-night convos turned into... whatever this was. Marcus had no idea what he was doing.

"That's such **bull**," someone yelled behind him. Marcus turned to see Jordan shoving some freshman against the lockers. Again.

Marcus's stomach twisted. He used to be that freshman. Now he was just another person pretending not to see it. Same as yesterday, same as probably tomorrow. But something about today—about the exhaustion, about how close he'd gotten to actually saying something real to Sophia last night—made him stop.

"Hey."

The word came out before Marcus could think better of it. Jordan froze. The whole hallway went quiet.

"Let him go."

Jordan stared at Marcus like he'd grown a second head. Then he laughed, shoved the freshman one last time, and walked away muttering about how everyone was so sensitive these days.

The freshman mouthed "thanks" and disappeared into the crowd. Marcus stood there, heart pounding, feeling more awake than he had in days. His phone buzzed in his pocket—Sopha, sending a meme at 11 AM.

Maybe things could change. Maybe he could change. But first, he really needed to fix that damn cable.