The Last Squad Standing

Maya's phone buzzed on her nightstand at 2:47 AM — the universal signal that everything was falling apart.

"Fox," she whispered into her Discord mic, "they cancelled. EVERYBODY cancelled."

Her best friend Leo, whose gamer tag had been Fox since they were twelve and he'd been obsessed with Minecraft, sighed dramatically through her headphones. "So it's just us against the entire server? Again?"

"Just us, a zombie horde, and literally zero backup," Maya confirmed, already queuing up Apocalypse Protocol. "Bear down, Fox. We got this."

That was their thing. "Bear down" — because somehow, during finals week sophomore year, they'd decided that facing impossible challenges required channeling the energy of a grizzly bear defending its cubs. Stupid? Maybe. But it was THEIR stupid.

The match loaded. Their characters — a medic and a sniper — stood alone on a rooftop while other squads' avatars blinked offline one by one. Maya's stomach did that thing it always did when she realized she was about to carry an entire team.

"Fox, you got the shot?"

"Working on it, chill. My aim is impeccable tonight."

A zombie blasted through the door. Then three more. Maya's character went down.

"FOX."

"I'm trying! My stupid mouse is—"

Game Over.

Silence stretched between them, heavy and weird. Because here's the thing: Maya and Fox weren't just gaming buddies anymore. They were whatever-this-was that she couldn't name without everything getting weird. Fox, who'd ditched his senior prom to help her study for AP Bio. Fox, who knew she still slept with her childhood stuffed bear when she was stressed. Fox, who'd seen her cry over SAT scores and never told a soul.

"You know," Fox said softly, "we could've queued with others."

"I know."

"But you wanted it to be just us."

"Did not."

"Did too."

Maya smiled into the darkness. "Okay, maybe. But that's because you're the only person I trust to not completely embarrass me."

"Liar. You just like having me around because I make you look like a pro."

"That too."

She heard something in his voice — that same weird tension she felt whenever they hung up after gaming until 3 AM on school nights. The friend boundary had been feeling fuzzy lately, like maybe it wasn't a boundary at all.

"Maya?"

"Yeah?"

"Next round — maybe we don't respawn. Maybe we just... I don't know. Talk."

Her heart did something stupid and dramatic. Because as any teenager knows, the scariest moments aren't the zombie hordes or the impossible tests. They're the ones where you almost say something real.

"Yeah," she whispered. "I'd like that."