Connection Lost

The WiFi died at 2:47 AM. Of course.

I stared at my phone, the 'no internet' icon mocking me like it knew I had that history final in six hours. My character in the game—lvl 72, legendary gear, looking fire—was probably getting slaughtered by some sweatlord right now.

'You're doomed,' I whispered to myself.

Buster, my chocolate lab, thumped his tail against my bedframe. He'd been curled up on my rug since midnight, keeping me company like the MVP he was. Dad got him last year after 'the incident' (aka when he found out I'd been skipping math tutoring to play ranked matches).

I scrambled under my desk, fingers hunting through the dust bunny graveyard. The ethernet cable was there somewhere, probably tangled with three years of forgotten charging cords and that fossilized bag of chips I swore I'd thrown away.

'Where is it, where is it, where is it—'

My hand brushed something plasticky. YES. I yanked the cable free, spiderwebs trailing behind it like streamers at the world's saddest party. Jammed it into my laptop port. The lights flickered to life—green, orange, green. Connected.

Buster sat up, ears perked.

'What?' I asked him. 'You wanna carry?'

He just stared at me with those dopey eyes, head tilted. Something about the look hit me different tonight. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking, or maybe it was the fact that I'd spent the last three months grinding for a rank that wouldn't matter once I graduated in a few weeks.

My phone buzzed. Maya: 'u up???'

I'd been ghosting her for two weeks. Ever since she posted that photo with Blake from the football team, captions screaming couple goals while I sat here leveling up fictional characters instead of my actual life.

I looked at Buster. He looked back, then flopped down with a sigh that felt suspiciously like judgment.

'Okay, fine.' I typed back: 'yeah. what's up'

'My dog just ate my history notes. wanna help me rewrite them?'

I looked at my screen— lvl 72, ranked #3 in the server, all those hours. Then I looked at Buster, whose tail started thumping again, like he knew something was shifting.

'sure,' I typed. 'be there in 10'

Sometimes the real zombie apocalypse isn't the dead rising—it's waking up to realize you've been sleepwalking through your life, waiting for someone to notice.

I grabbed my jacket. Buster trotted beside me to the door, like the ride-or-dge he'd always been.

Time to respawn.