Digital Dead

Maya's iPhone glowed in her palm, another notification from the group chat she'd been ignoring all weekend. The bonfire crackled ahead of her, but she felt like a zombie moving through someone else's life.

"You're not even here," Chloe said, dropping onto the sand beside her. "You've been scrolling for like, twenty minutes."

"I'm just checking," Maya mumbled, but she knew Chloe was right. She'd been feeling dead inside for weeks—just going through the motions, showing up, smiling in all the right places. The real Maya was buried somewhere under all the notifications and filtered posts and carefully curated everything.

A splash erupted from the water. Some of the guys were wading in, phones left on the sand like sacrificial offerings. Jake turned, hair plastering to his forehead. "Maya! Get in here!"

She hesitated. Her iPhone buzzed again—someone tagging her in a story she didn't care about. The screen reflected her blank expression.

"Leave it," Chloe said, nudging her arm. "Just... come on."

Maya's fingers tightened around the phone. Then she made a choice. She dropped it onto her towel and stood up, heart suddenly pounding like she was about to do something dangerous.

The water hit her ankles first—shocking cold against the August heat. She waded deeper, past the point where she could still see her phone glowing on the shore like a distant star. Jake and the others were laughing, shoving each other, completely present in a way she'd forgotten how to be.

"Took you long enough," Jake called, splashing water at her.

Maya splashed back. For the first time in months, she wasn't performing. She wasn't worrying about angles or captions or who was watching. She was just there—cold water, salt air, friends who'd been waiting for her to actually show up.

Behind them, palm trees swayed against the purple twilight. Somewhere on the beach, her iPhone sat alone with its notifications. But for the first time in forever, Maya didn't care. She was too busy finally feeling alive.