Dead Inside at Sunset Beach

Maya's iphone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. Insta. TikTok. Snap. Her thumb moved on autopilot, brain barely processing the endless scroll of perfect lives and impossible beauty standards. She felt like a zombie—not the cool apocalyptic kind, but the pathetic modern type: dead eyes, hunched shoulders, existing but not actually living.

"Earth to Maya," Jordan said, snapping their fingers. "You gonna put that thing away anytime this century? We're literally at the beach."

Maya looked up. The Pacific sparkled like someone had spilled glitter across the horizon. Her friend group had spread out across the sand—Jordan in their usual oversized hoodie even in July, Chen and Sam already wading into the water, shrieking about how freezing it was.

"Sorry," Maya mumbled, but her thumb hovered over the screen again. The pull was magnetic. FOMO was real, okay? What if she missed something? What if someone posted something important and she wasn't there to like it within the first three minutes?

"You're missing it," Jordan said softly.

Maya locked her phone—actually locked it, a rare act of will—and shoved it deep in her beach bag. "Missing what?"

"Everything." Jordan nodded toward Chen and Sam, who were now attempting to drag each other into the waves while screaming dramatically. "Look at them. They're not worried about their angles or their captions or whether their butt looks good in those swim trunks. They're just... here."

The water called to Maya. She stood up, brushed sand off her legs, and sprinted toward the ocean. The first shock of cold water hit her like pure electricity—better than any notification she'd ever received. She dove under, letting the saltwater erase the digital fog from her brain.

When she surfaced, gasping and laughing, Chen yelled, "Finally! The zombie has awakened!"

Maya flipped them off, grinning so hard her face hurt. For the rest of the afternoon, she didn't check her phone once. Not when Jordan captured a candid shot of her mid-laugh, hair plastered to her face, looking nothing like her curated feed. Not when Chen suggested they build the world's ugliest sandcastle. Not when the sun dipped below the horizon, painting everything in impossible shades of orange and pink.

Later, walking home with sand between her toes and salt in her hair, Maya finally pulled out her phone. Dozens of notifications waited. But instead of doom-scrolling through them, she opened her camera roll and found Jordan's photo.

She looked messy. Real. Alive.

She posted it with the caption: "POV: you were a zombie but your friends dragged you back to life. Today was everything. 💀🌊"

The likes rolled in within seconds. But for once, Maya didn't care. She was already planning tomorrow's beach day.

No zombies allowed.