Running From the Zombie Inside

Marcus stood at home plate, the baseball bat feeling like a lead weight in his hands. The pressure was crushing — everyone watching, expecting him to be the same clutch hitter his dad was at his age. But Marcus wasn't his dad. Marcus was just a guy trying to survive junior year with half his brain cells fried from three hours of sleep and the other half busy overthinking everything.

"You good, man?" Tyler whispered from the dugout, giving him that look. The one that said I know you're spiraling but I'm not gonna call you out publicly.

Marcus nodded, even though he felt like a zombie — the kind that shuffles through AP Calc, barely alive, sustained entirely by caffeine and anxiety. His mom kept asking why he was so distant, why he never hung out with friends anymore. How could he explain that maintaining his social battery was like trying to keep his phone charged at 1%?

The pitcher wound up. Marcus swung.

Strike three.

The disappointment on his dad's face in the stands was worse than any Coach Miller lecture. That was the thing about sports — you couldn't just delete a bad at-bat like a cringe Instagram story you posted at 2 AM.

After the game, Marcus found himself running. Not away from anything specific, just... running. The night air burned in his lungs, his sneakers pounding the pavement in a rhythm that finally synced with his brain. Tyler caught up to him, easily matching his pace because apparently some people could still breathe while running.

"Your old man's being harsh," Tyler said between breaths. "But he's proud, bro. I've seen how he looks at you."

Marcus stopped running, bent over with hands on knees. "You think he'd be proud if he knew I'm failing Pre-Calc? That I have no clue what I'm doing after graduation? That I feel like I'm faking being a functional human every single day?"

Tyler clapped him on the shoulder. "Same, dude. We're all zombies pretending to have it together. Some of us are just better at the makeup."

Marcus laughed despite everything. Maybe that was the point — nobody actually had it figured out. They were all just running, some with a baseball bat in hand, some without, all trying to survive being seventeen.