The Corporate Walkers

I've been moving through my days like a zombie for months now—since the restructuring, since the divorce, since I stopped being able to remember what I cared about before my life became a series of quarterly targets and meaningless meetings. The fluorescent lights hum their eternal note at 8:03 AM, and I'm already exhausted.

Alex was my friend, or at least the closest thing to one I'd allowed myself in three years at the firm. We'd grab coffee, complain about management, share stories about our weekends that grew increasingly sparse as the months wore on. He had a way of making the corporate death march feel almost bearable, like we were in it together, two survivors navigating the apocalypse.

That was before I found him at my desk, 7:45 PM on a Tuesday, photographing the documents I'd stayed late to finish. The new product specs. The ones I'd spent six months bleeding over, the ones that were supposed to be my ticket back to something resembling passion.

"Don't be stupid, Maya," he'd said, not even looking guilty. "They're going to bury this project anyway. I'm giving us both an exit strategy."

He wasn't a friend. He was a spy—not for the government, but for our competitor, the one that'd been poaching our clients like it was a sport. And he'd used our coffee breaks, our after-work drinks, our whispered frustrations to map exactly where I was vulnerable, exactly what I knew.

The betrayal didn't even hurt, which was maybe the worst part. What hurt was realizing I'd been so starved for connection that I'd let someone into my life without asking who they really were. I'd been walking around dead inside for so long that I couldn't recognize the living from the dead anymore.

I turned him in. Collected the whistleblower bonus. Watched security escort him out like just another termination.

This morning I caught my reflection in the office kitchen microwave—hollow eyes, skin that's seen too many fluorescent nights. I'm still a zombie, still going through the motions. But now at least I know what I am. And I'm done pretending the people here are anything more than fellow walkers in the endless corporate night.