Dead Channel Dreams

Maya pressed her face against the doorframe, feeling like a total spy watching her brother pack for college. Caleb was her person—her cable to the real world outside their suburban zombie existence.

Three weeks of freshman year had already turned her into a walking corpse. Same schedule, same people, same dead-eyed hallway shuffle. Everyone moving through the motions like zombies, while her brother got to escape to somewhere real.

"You're spying again," Caleb said, not even looking up from his vintage gaming collection. "Creep."

Maya rolled her eyes but didn't move. "I'm observing. There's a difference. You're abandoning me to the zombie apocalypse alone."

He laughed and tossed her a controller. "First off, you're being dramatic. Second, you think you're the only one who felt like a freshman zombie? I survived. You will too."

"But what if I don't?" she whispered. "What if I'm just... stuck?"

Caleb's face softened. He sat beside her on the floor, their backs against his packed boxes. "Maya, listen. The zombie thing? It's not them. It's you letting yourself go on autopilot. You gotta find your cable—the thing that keeps you connected to what actually matters."

He pointed at his gaming setup. "This was mine freshman year. I found gaming club and realized I didn't have to perform. I could just be."

Maya's phone buzzed—another group chat blowing up with plans she didn't actually care about. For the first time, she hesitated before typing something fake.

"What if my cable isn't a thing?" she asked. "What if it's a who?"

Caleb smirked. "Then you're lucky. Find your people, Maya. The ones who make you feel alive instead of undead. They're out there."

Two weeks later, Maya sat alone in the library during lunch. No fake friends, no performing. Just her sketchbook and the weird quiet kid from art class who'd asked to sit with her yesterday.

"Mind if I join?" Leo asked, holding up his own sketchbook. "I promise I'm not a zombie in disguise."

Maya smiled. For the first time, she didn't feel like she was spying on her own life from the sidelines. She was finally in the game.

"Pull up a chair," she said. "But if you start shuffling and groaning, I'm out."

Leo laughed. "Deal."

The zombie routine could wait. Maya had found something real.