The Last Fiber Between Us

Maya found me in the server room, unwrapping my third vitamin D supplement of the morning. The fluorescent lights buzzed like trapped insects.

"You look like shit," she said, leaning against the rack of blinking servers. We'd been friends since the cubicle days, before I got promoted into this corner office with the better view but worse soul.

"I feel like a zombie," I admitted, swallowing the pill dry. "The kind that shuffles through spreadsheets instead of streets."

Maya's laugh was shorter now. Used to be she'd lean her head back and let it echo through the office. Used to be we'd grab drinks and dissect our terrible dating lives and the way our parents wanted grandkids we couldn't afford. Now she was leaving for Portland on Friday, and I was staying behind to parse quarterly earnings calls that meant nothing to anyone anymore.

"That's the thing about zombies," she said, stepping closer. "They don't know they're dead until they try to feel something and nothing happens."

She reached for my hand, and the static shock between us made me jump. That was something, at least.

"I'm going to miss you," I said, and the words felt like swallowing glass.

"Then stop taking those vitamins and start living." She squeezed my fingers. "Come with me. The Portland office needs a senior analyst. They have actual windows there."

I looked at the ethernet cable snaking across the floor, the only thing tethering me to this fluorescent purgatory. I'd been pulling on it for three years, waiting for it to snap, but it never did. Some things you have to cut yourself.

"What if I'm already too far gone?" I whispered.

Maya's answer was simple: "Then I'll wait. Friends don't let friends stay undead."

I threw the vitamin bottle in the trash. It hit bottom with a hollow sound, like something finally waking up.