Riddles Under the Pyramid

Maya's phone buzzed on her nightstand, the charging cable still tangled around her ankle from falling asleep mid-scroll again. 6:47 AM. Too early.

"Your vitamin supplements are here!" her mom yelled up the stairs. Maya groaned. The whole thing started because her gym TikTok feed kept pushing hair gummy vitamins at her, and now she was the proud owner of a pyramid-shaped bottle of neon orange capsules that promised to make her "radiate from within." Whatever that meant.

She dragged herself to school, where Connor was already holding court by the lockers.

"Did you see Maya's story last night?" Connor whispered loud enough for the entire hallway to hear. "She's trying to become, like, an influencer now? Bold move."

Her face burned. She wasn't trying to be anything. She just posted one video of her cat sitting weirdly on a sphinx statue at the park, and suddenly everyone had opinions.

The pyramid scheme—that's what her dad called her vitamin obsession—wasn't even working. Her hair was still frizzy. Her skin was still breaking out. And she was still awkward.

But that sphinx statue... something about it stuck with her. The ancient Egyptians built those massive pyramids and carved sphinxes that guarded secrets for thousands of years. They didn't have Instagram or Connor's commentary or hair gummies. They just made stuff that mattered.

At lunch, she sat with Sam, who was braiding friendship bracelets with actual embroidery thread like it was 2008.

"You good?" Sam asked, not looking up.

"Yeah. Just thinking about how I need a sphinx riddle to solve my life."

Sam finally looked up. "What if the riddle's just: what actually makes you happy? Not what you're supposed to want."

Maya thought about it. She thought about the hours she spent curating posts, the cable knotted around her ankle every morning, the vitamins that promised transformation.

That afternoon, she deleted the draft of her "influencer journey" post. Instead, she posted a photo of Sam's ridiculous friendship bracelets with the caption: "my friend makes these and she's lowkey an artist. fight me."

Connor probably wouldn't get it. But the sphinx would approve. Some riddles don't have answers—they just have better questions.