The Living Dead of 4B

Marco hadn't really been alive since October. Not since Elena left, taking the cat and the good coffee maker and whatever spark had kept him upright before. Now he was something else—something that moved through its days with mechanical precision, showering and commuting and sitting at desk 4B, responding to emails about quarterly projections and synergistic opportunities.

He'd become a fucking zombie, is what he was. The walking dead in button-down shirts, navigating office politics while his heart beat somewhere distant and irrelevant.

The only time he felt anything anymore was during lunch. He'd started running—literally running—along the waterfront path near their old apartment, lungs burning, legs pumping, the physical pain so much cleaner than the hollow ache in his chest. His therapist called it 'healthy coping.' Marco called it the only hour he didn't want to walk into the bay.

Today he'd skipped lunch again. His mother had sent him a care package—vitamin supplements in tidy amber bottles, little promises of wellness that felt like accusations. Vitamin D for mood. B-complex for energy. Magnesium for, what, not falling apart?

He swallowed three dry capsules without water and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. Same face. Same exhaustion. The guy from accounting waved from the doorway.

'You good, man? You look...'

'Tired,' Marco said. 'Just tired.'

'Walking dead hours,' the guy joked, and Marco almost laughed—almost felt something sharp and real in his throat. But he just nodded, because sometimes the jokes are truest when you don't say them out loud.

Back at desk 4B, his phone lit up. Elena. 'Can we talk?'

Marco's fingers hovered over the screen. For three months, he'd been a zombie running on vitamins and denial. But something shifted—something like waking up, or maybe like finally, truly dying. Either way, it was movement.

He typed back: 'Yes.'

The vitamins could wait. The running would still be there tomorrow. But this—this pulse, however small, however terrifying—was something he hadn't felt in months.

Maybe, just maybe, he was done being dead.