The Night the WiFi Died

Friday night at my place meant I was zombie mode—eyes half-open, phone at 3% brightness, doom-scrolling through people living their best lives while I lay in the dark. Again.

The group chat was blowing up. Everyone at Jake's party. Everyone except me.

"u coming??"

"nah fam"

"weird lol"

I tossed my iPhone onto my bed like it physically burned to hold it. Whatever. I didn't need their validation.

Then my whole room went dark.

Power outage. Of course.

No WiFi. No charging my phone. No nothing. I sat there for what felt like forever, actually bored enough to die, before grabbing my emergency flashlight and wandering downstairs.

That's when I found the cat.

A scraggly calico with a chunk missing from her ear, sitting on our front porch like she owned the place. She meowed at me like, "Finally, you're useful."

"You hungry?" I whispered.

She trotted inside like she'd been invited the whole time.

I searched the kitchen for food, came up with some tuna, and watched her devour it like she'd never seen a meal before. My phone buzzed in my pocket—habit, muscle memory—and I reached for it, only to remember it was basically a paperweight now.

Good.

The cat finished eating and jumped onto the couch beside me. She looked me dead in the eyes, then head-butted my hand like, *pet me, human*.

So I did.

And for like an hour, I just sat there. Petting this cat who'd shown up out of nowhere. No scrolling. No comparing myself to everyone else's highlight reels. No feeling like I was missing out on something I couldn't even name.

The power flickered back on around midnight. My phone lit up with notifications like someone had been trying to reach me for hours.

The cat stretched, yawned, and walked to the door like her shift was over.

"Wait," I called after her. "You're leaving?"

She paused. Looked back at me like I should know better.

Then she was gone.

I stood there holding my charging cable, phone finally plugged in and battery climbing. But I didn't unlock it. Didn't check the notifications or see how many likes I'd missed or who was still at Jake's.

The zombie apocalypse wasn't what I expected. The world hadn't ended—my world had just been really small, and I hadn't even noticed.

I texted the group chat: "who wants to hang tomorrow??"

Then turned my phone off for the first time in forever.