Electric Summer

Maya's life felt like a zombie apocalypse movie where she was the extra nobody noticed. Summer school physics had drained her brain cells, and her best friend Sofia had been drafted into the popular crew, leaving Maya floating alone in the social pool like dead seaweed.

"Come swimming!" Sofia called from the deep end, surrounded by the glossy-haired girls who somehow managed to look perfect while wet. They'd claimed the neighborhood pool as their territory, and every afternoon Maya watched from her lifeguard chair as they performed their synchronized ritual of hair flips and inside jokes.

Maya gripped the metal chair until her palm hurt. She was supposed to be watching for danger, but the only thing threatening was her own dignity.

Then lightning split the sky—a purple-white crack that made everyone scream. Thunder shook the pool deck, and suddenly the underwater lights flickered and died. Someone shrieked. A cable snaked across the concrete, frayed where it had yanked loose from the pool house wall.

"Everyone out!" Maya shouted, her voice cracking. But nobody moved. They were frozen, waiting for someone else to decide.

The cable lay inches from the water, sparking in rhythm with the storm. One more strike, one more surge, and anyone still in the pool could—

Maya didn't think. She grabbed the rescue tube and dove, swimming harder than she ever had in gym class, cutting through the water while something electric and fearless woke up inside her chest. "GET OUT NOW!" She hauled the nearest girl toward the edge, then another.

By the time they all scrambled out, dripping and shaken, Maya was breathless, wild-haired, and absolutely not invisible anymore.

Sofia hugged her, shivering. "That was—that was actually kinda badass."

Maya stood in the sudden silence, rain beginning to fall. The zombie days were over. She'd never been more alive, and she'd never felt more like herself.