Riddles in the Zombie Zone

Maya's brain felt like it had been through a woodchipper. Three days of finals, four hours of sleep total, and somehow she'd agreed to join the escape room squad for Jordan's birthday. She shuffled through the mall parking lot like a literal **zombie**, clutching her iced coffee like it was the last antidote on earth.

"You good, M?" Jordan asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Classic Jordan—buzzing on caffeine and optimism while the rest of them were barely functioning.

"Living the dream," she deadpanned. "Just living the dream."

The escape room was called "The Sphinx's Riddle." Apparently it was the hardest one in the place. Perfect.

Inside, their friend Chen immediately started scanning every surface like a total **fox**—all sharp eyes and quick movements, zero wasted effort. That was Chen's thing: clever, adaptable, always three steps ahead. Maya admired it. Sometimes she wished she could be more like that instead of overthinking everything into paralysis.

"Okay, the clue says 'what has eyes but cannot see,'" read their friend Sam, who was currently **bear**-hugging a stress ball they'd brought along. Sam's anxiety had been off the charts lately, and the bear-themed everything was their coping mechanism. Bear socks, bear stickers, a literal tiny teddy bear on their backpack. It was endearing, honestly.

"A potato," Maya muttered, then blinked. "Wait, what?"

"A potato has eyes but can't see," Chen said, already moving toward a painting of a potato on the wall. "But that's not it. Think bigger."

Maya's exhausted brain stuttered. "A needle?"

"YES!" Jordan high-fived her so hard her palm stung.

But the real **sphinx** moment came later—the final puzzle, a riddle that tied everything together. They had fifteen minutes left. Maya was running on pure caffeine desperation. The room felt claustrophobic. Sam's breathing had picked up.

And then Chen looked at all of them and said, "We're overthinking it. The answer's literally been on the door the whole time."

It was. They escaped with forty-two seconds remaining, collapsing into a pile of exhausted laughter in the hallway. Maya caught Chen's eye and grinned. Maybe she didn't need to be a fox. Maybe being a sleep-deprived, occasionally brilliant weirdo was enough.

"Same time next year?" Jordan asked.

"Only if finals are NOT the same week," Maya said, and they all laughed like it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard.

Sometimes the best riddles weren't the ones on paper. Sometimes the answer was just having friends who got you—zombie brain and all.