Lightning in a Zombie World

Maya's phone buzzed for the seventeenth time in twenty minutes. Another group chat explosion, probably someone freaking about Jason's party tonight or the bio test tomorrow. She groaned and buried her face in her pillow, feeling like a total zombie. Three hours of sleep would do that to you.

"Honey, take your vitamins!" her mom called from downstairs. "And did you finish that college essay?"

"Yeah, Mom!" Maya lied, staring at her ceiling where glow-in-the-dark stars were peeling at the edges. She'd been fifteen last year when she put them up, back when she thought she'd have it all figured out by sixteen. Spoiler alert: she didn't.

Her dog Thunder padded into the room, nails clicking on the hardwood, and dropped his slimy tennis ball on her chest. Because apparently even dogs knew she needed to get a life.

"You're literally my only real friend," she told him, scratching behind his ears. "Pathetic."

Outside, actual lightning cracked the sky purple, rain hammering her window like the universe was trying to tell her something. Her iPhone lit up with another notification - Emma posting from what looked like a VIP club, everyone golden and perfect and living their best lives. Maya felt that familiar twist in her stomach, that FOMO that hit harder whenever she was stuck in her room feeling like an NPC in someone else's game.

But then Thunder licked her hand, and something shifted. The dog didn't care about follower counts or whether she was cool. He just thought she was worth knowing.

"You know what?" Maya whispered, reaching for her phone. She didn't open Instagram or Snapchat. Instead, she texted Leo, the quiet kid from AP Chem who'd been sitting alone at lunch lately.

"Hey, want to study for the bio test tomorrow? My place?"

His reply came instantly: "YES. Thank you. I thought I was gonna fail."

Maya smiled, really smiled, for the first time in days. Sometimes the zombie moments happened before the lightning struck, before everything changed.