The Last Stream Before Sunrise

I tugged at the cable-knit sweater my mom insisted would "help me make friends" while feeling like a straight-up zombie after pulling an all-nighter. My golden retriever, Buster, nudged my knee with that sympathetic head-tilt—honestly, my dog understood me better than any human ever could. Running late on my first day at Northwood High, I checked my phone one last time.

My group chat was blowing up about Jason's epic horror movie marathon from last night. They'd spent six hours streaming that ridiculous "zombie bear" B-movie everyone was memeing about, and I'd missed it because my parents had enforced "early bedtime for the big day."

The real monster wasn't any fictional creature though—it was walking into junior year without knowing a single person. I'd have to bear the weight of being the new kid alone, or at least that's what my spiraling brain kept insisting at 7:43 AM.

"You got this, kid," my dad called from the kitchen. "You've faced worse things than high school."

Like that time I'd tripped over my own dog during cross country running practice? That memory still lived rent-free in my head.

But then something clicked. Maybe first days weren't about being perfect or having the coolest backstory. They were about showing up authentically—cable-knit disasters and all. Even if I was running on zero sleep and anxiety.

I grabbed my backpack, scratched Buster behind the ears one last time, and headed toward the front door. Zombie-like exhaustion or not, I was ready to face whatever today brought.

The unexpected twist? At lunch, I spotted someone in an equally hideous cable-knit sweater, watching zombie movie clips on their phone. Sometimes you find your people when you least expect it. And okay, maybe Jason's horror obsession wasn't that terrible after all.