Riddles at the Dog Park

Maya felt like a zombie most days—shuffling through high school hallways with headphones clamped over her ears, eyes fixed on her scuffed Vans, existing but not really *living*. Social battery permanently at 3%, she'd perfected the art of being invisible.

Then there was Barnaby, her golden retriever. The only creature who didn't make her want to melt into the floor. Barnaby, who'd somehow become her emotional support animal before she even knew what that meant. Barnaby, who she now walked at 6 PM every single day because it was the only time the dog park was empty.

Until it wasn't.

"Hey."

Maya jumped. Barnaby didn't—he just trotted over to the new guy, tail going ninety miles an hour like this stranger was his long-lost best friend.

The guy sitting on the bench was… weird. Wearing a ratty leather jacket even though it was practically summer, with sandy hair that stuck up in twenty directions and eyes that studied her like she was a particularly interesting specimen of bug.

"I'm Leo," he said. "Barnaby seems cool."

"You know his name?" Maya asked, immediately regretting how defensive she sounded.

"You call him that. Like, a lot. I've been watching." He said it so casually, like that wasn't concerning at all.

Maya should've left. That's what Zombie Maya would do—grab Barnaby's leash and book it. But instead she heard herself say, "That's actually kind of creepy."

"Fair." Leo didn't look offended. He just pulled a sketchbook from his bag and flipped it open. "I draw here. Helps me think."

Maya inched closer, and—that's when she saw it. His sketchbook was filled with them. Sphinxes. Dozens of them. Traditional Egyptian ones, cyberpunk sphinxes, sphinxes made of twisted tree roots, sphinxes with riddles spiraling from their stone lips.

"You're, like, obsessed with sphinxes?" The words escaped before she could filter them.

"They ask questions," Leo said, not looking up from his drawing. "Riddles. If you answer wrong, they eat you. If you answer right, they let you pass."

He finally looked at her, and his expression softened. "High school's just a giant sphinx, isn't it? Answer wrong, and it eats you alive."

Something cracked open in Maya's chest. "Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah, it really is."

"So what's your riddle?" Leo asked.

"What?"

"Your riddle. The one you can't solve. The one that keeps you..." He gestured at her whole vibe. "Like this."

Maya looked at Barnaby, who was now happily sprawled across Leo's feet like he'd chosen him. She thought about the zombie walk through crowded hallways. The panic before presentations. The way she ghosted every text from anyone who actually tried to be her friend.

"I don't know how to exist without wanting to disappear," she said, the words tumbling out faster than she could stop them. "There. That's the riddle. No idea what the answer is."

Leo nodded like she'd said something profound instead of humiliating. He tore a page from his sketchbook—a sphinx with wings that looked like they were made of phone screens and social media icons—and held it out.

"Maybe the answer's that you don't have to solve it alone," he said. "Barnaby seems to think I'm okay with helping."

Maya looked at the drawing. Then at Leo, with his messy hair and sketchbook full of mythical creatures who asked impossible questions.

"I walk him tomorrow too," she said. "Six o'clock."

"Cool." Leo already had his pencil moving again. "Hey, Maya?"

"Yeah?"

"You didn't shuffle once since you sat down."

Maya blinked. She looked down at her legs, crossed loosely on the grass. Looked at Barnaby, thumping his tail against Leo's sneaker. Looked at the sphinx drawing in her hand.

She realized he was right.

For the first time in forever, she wasn't a zombie anymore.

"Huh," Maya said. "I guess not."