Digital Ghost

Maya dragged herself through seventh period feeling like a straight-up zombie. Three hours of sleep after doomscrolling until 3 AM on her iPhone will do that to you. Her TikTok feed had become a black hole—one minute she's watching dance trends, the next she's down a rabbit hole about conspiracy theories involving时空 anomalies and the multiverse.

"You look dead," Chloe whispered as they trudged toward the cafeteria. "Rough night?"

"Rough life," Maya mumbled, though honestly, her life was fine. That was the problem—everything was fine, which meant nothing was actually anything.

Lunch table drama. Jason's crew was being absolute bulls about the spring formal rumors, spreading nonsense about who asked who and who got rejected. Typical high school theater. Maya usually just tuned it out and opened Instagram, but today something shifted. Maybe it was the way Jason's voice carried, that smug edge of someone who'd never known what it felt like to be on the outside.

Or maybe it was the cat.

A scrawny tabby had been hanging around the school parking lot all week. Some kids left it treats. Most ignored it. Maya had been feeding it her sandwich crusts, naming it Ghost because it appeared and disappeared like magic. Today Ghost sat by the bike rack, staring at her with those ancient, unimpressed eyes.

Maya's iPhone buzzed. New notification. Another post she didn't care about from people she didn't actually like. Another digital ghost.

She pocketed it.

"You gonna eat that?" Ghost seemed to say.

"You know what?" Maya said to no one in particular. "You're right."

She walked over to Jason's table.

"That's bull," she said, her voice shaking only a little. "Nobody asked anybody. You're just making stuff up for attention again."

The table went silent. Jason blinked, caught off guard.

"Whatever," he muttered, suddenly looking smaller.

Maya grabbed an extra milk from the line and headed outside. Ghost was waiting.

"Taking the bull by the horns," she told the cat, sitting beside it on the curb. "Did I use that right?"

Ghost purred.

Her iPhone buzzed again. She ignored it. For the first time in forever, Maya felt actually present. Not a zombie, not a ghost, just a girl and a cat, living in the actual world.