Riddle Under Lightning

Maya's fingers flew across her keyboard, the **cable** from her gaming headset tangled around her neck like a noose made of expectations. Three thousand viewers watched her livestream, waiting for her to solve the final riddle of the Sphinx—that ancient stone puzzle game everyone obsessed over.

"You got this, SphinxQueen!" the chat scrolled. Someone had donated $50 with the message: "Don't choke like last time."

Outside, **lightning** shattered the sky, thunder rattling her window. Perfect timing. Her mom was probably having another panic attack about the "dark energy" in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, Maya was just trying to maintain her spot at the top of the social **pyramid** at school—being an e-celeb literally meant you sat at the best lunch table.

The riddle appeared: "I run without legs, have no mouth but speak, and when I'm gone, everything falls silent."

Maya's mind went blank. She'd been **running** from something lately—her real self, maybe. The version that liked corny dad jokes and secretly watched baking tutorials instead of gaming montages. But that version wouldn't get three thousand viewers. That version wouldn't be popular.

Another lightning strike illuminated her poster-covered walls. Power flickered.

"Time!" the game announced.

Her face burned. Chat would roast her. Jake would text her saying "tough break" with that passive-aggressive emoji. She'd slip down the pyramid, back to being just Maya.

But then she noticed something—a pattern in the riddle's answer options. The developers had hidden a message. When she clicked them in sequence, the screen glitched, revealing: "You don't have to play their game."

Maya laughed. Hard. Like, actually laughed—this weird, snorty sound she usually suppressed. She disconnected the cable from her computer.

"Stream's over, guys," she said into the mic. "I gotta go bake cookies."

The confusion in chat was glorious. Sometimes the best riddles are the ones you solve for yourself.