The Morning Sphinx Protocol

Maya's legs burned. Again. Coach Miller was obsessed with everyone breaking their personal records, but Maya was pretty sure her personal record for "most exhausted" had been shattered sometime around third period.

"You're running like a zombie out there, Garcia!" Miller yelled, clipboard pressed against his chest. "Pick it up!"

Zombie. Accurate. Between AP Bio, student council, and her mom's new wellness kick, Maya was operating on permanent reserve battery. Speaking of which—

"Did you take your vitamin D pack?" her mom had asked that morning, holding out the little plastic sorter like it contained actual diamonds instead of supplements that tasted like chalk and regret. "It's crucial for cognitive function."

"Yeah, yeah, got it." She'd practically inhaled the stupid things with lukewarm oatmeal just to escape the kitchen.

Now, bent over near the track fence, Maya spotted it: the sphinx.

Nobody knew who'd put it there—some anonymous art installation from years ago, a cement sculpture near the school's back entrance with its enigmatic face and broken wing. Kids left notes in its stone paws. Sometimes confessions. Sometimes memes.

Maya never left anything. Too vulnerable. Too real.

But today, something shifted. Maybe it was the way the sphinx's eyes seemed to hold actual judgment instead of stone-cold indifference. Maybe it was the post-running clarity, or the fact that Tyler had actually waved at her in the hallway yesterday instead of looking through her like she was transparent.

She pulled a Sharpie from her bag (running bio hazard, honestly) and scribbled on a torn piece of notebook paper: "What if the riddle isn't the problem? What if I'm just scared of the answer?"

Her hands trembled as she tucked it into the sphinx's waiting stone palm.

The next morning, there was a response: "Then you're already solving it. — Z"

Z.

Maya scanned the hallway, heart doing that stupid fluttery thing. Tyler. It had to be. Tyler, with his lazy smile and encyclopedic knowledge of Egyptian mythology, who'd somehow noticed the girl who felt like a zombie but was actually, slowly, definitely, waking up.