Electric Cat Zombies

Maya's cat, Pumpkin, had been acting weird all week. That's what she told herself anyway. Actually, Pumpkin was fine—Maya was the one operating on three hours of sleep and caffeine, feeling like a straight-up zombie from finals week. Her friends kept texting about Friday night parties, but she was currently surviving on salt and vinegar chips and whatever leftovers her mom hadn't thrown out yet.

"You need to eat something that isn't processed garbage," her mom said, dropping a container of wilted spinach in front of her. "Your brain can't function on air and ambition alone."

Maya stared at the spinach like it had personally offended her. "I'm good, thanks."

"Maya, seriously. You look dead."

"Thanks, Mom. Really selling the confidence boost here."

Pumpkin chose that moment to leap onto the kitchen table, bat the spinach container onto the floor, and stare at Maya with judgment in his yellow eyes.

"Traitor," she muttered.

That was when the sky cracked open. Lightning flashed so bright the whole kitchen went white, then thunder shook the windows. The power died instantly, plunging them into darkness except for the storm outside.

"Well," her mom said, fumbling for her phone flashlight. "That's one way to avoid eating your vegetables."

Maya sat there in the flickering light from her phone, watching rain lash against the glass, Pumpkin now purring loudly in her lap like nothing had happened. And suddenly she started laughing—like, couldn't stop laughing. The exhaustion, the pressure, the weird raw spinach incident—it all hit her at once.

"What?" her mom asked, but she was smiling too.

"Nothing," Maya said, wiping her eyes. "Just. I think I needed this."

"The power outage?"

"The everything. I've been going so hard I forgot how to just... exist."

Pumpkin butted his head against her hand. Outside, another flash of lightning illuminated the whole yard, and for a second it was beautiful instead of scary.

"Eat the spinach," her mom said, handing her a fork. "We're doing this. No more zombie mode."

Maya took a bite. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't great either, but whatever. Small victories.

The power came back twenty minutes later. Maya went upstairs and actually slept for eight hours. Woke up to Pumpkin sitting on her chest, meowing for breakfast like the world hadn't almost ended last night.

Sometimes you needed a storm, a judgmental cat, and some forced vegetables to remember you were human again.