Market Zombies

Maya's eyes burned as the 3 AM glow from her laptop screen painted her room in ghostly blue. For the third night this week, she was mainlining caffeine and watching candlestick charts dance like digital fireflies. The Robinhood forum had become her new social life, replacing the actual friends she barely saw anymore since she started day trading with her grandma's inheritance money.

"You look like a literal zombie," Chloe said at lunch the next day, sliding into the booth across from her. "Seriously, Maya, you've been ghosting everyone. Alex asked about you yesterday."

Maya poked at her untouched sandwich, stomach churning. She was up $847 on that semiconductor stock, but somehow it felt smaller than the distance growing between her and her best friend. "I'm fine. Just... focused."

"Focused?" Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Or possessed? You're not the Maya who used to binge-watch terrible horror movies with us until 2 AM. Now you're just staring at numbers and—"

"Bull market!" Alex appeared behind Chloe, dropping his backpack onto the table with a thud. "My cousin on Wall Street says we're entering the biggest bull run in history. You in, Maya?"

Maya should have been thrilled. This was what she'd wanted—recognition, expertise, being the person everyone asked for advice. But as Alex pulled up a chair and started talking about P/E ratios and market cap, she felt something hollow open inside her chest.

The irony hit her like a physical blow: she'd spent months obsessed with bulls and bears—market animals that lived and died in red and green pixels—while becoming something worse than any of them. She was sixteen, and she was already the thing her parents warned about: someone who measured life in quarterly gains instead of moments that actually mattered.

"Actually," Maya said, pushing her laptop bag away from her feet. "I think I'm done with the bulls and bears for a while."

Chloe grinned, relief washing across her face. "So you'll come to the bonfire tonight?"

Maya felt something real and warm settle in her stomach. "Yeah. Yeah, I will."

As they walked out of the cafeteria together, Maya realized the best investment wasn't in stock options—it was in the people who'd still be there when the market crashed.