The Riddle of Dead Days

Maya dragged herself through the hallway like a zombie—minus the brain-eating, plus the AP Chemistry test that had definitely murdered her sleep schedule. Her mom kept leaving those neon orange vitamin supplements on the kitchen counter with sticky notes: "For your brain, mija!"

"You look like you've been dragged through a graveyard," said Chloe, falling into step beside her. "Backwards."

"Funny," Maya deadpanned. "I feel like I've been haunting my own life lately."

Then she saw him—the new kid, Leo, perched on the stone bench outside the library like some kind of sphinx. He had this impossible stillness about him, like he was carved from patience and mystery. Everyone said he never spoke, just watched with those dark eyes that seemed to see everything.

"Riddle me this," Chloe whispered. "What's up with Sphinx Boy?"

Maya approached him, fueled by three days of sleep deprivation and zero impulse control. "What are you?"

Leo's eyes crinkled. "What are you?"

"A zombie," she said. "Apparently. Dead inside, caffeine-powered, walking through high school like it's purgatory."

He tilted his head. "That's not a riddle. That's a condition."

"Then what's the answer?" she challenged, genuinely curious now.

Leo reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gummy vitamins. "The cure isn't more sleep. It's knowing when to stop collecting things that drain you and start choosing what actually feeds you."

Maya stared at him. "Did you just quote something, or—"

"Or," he smiled, "you could just eat these and tell your mom I said hi."

She took one. Grape flavor. "What's your riddle, anyway?"

Leo's smile widened. "I'm not the sphinx, Maya. You are. You've been sitting on all the answers, waiting for someone to ask the right questions."

For the first time in months, Maya didn't feel dead. She felt... awake.

"Well then," she said, popping another vitamin. "Guess I'm done haunting my own life."

"Good," Leo nodded. "Because this hallway? Definitely not a cemetery."

"True that." Maya grinned. "Though Mrs. Patterson's math class comes pretty close."

And just like that, the zombie walked among the living again—gummy vitamins in hand, sphinx-riddles in her head, and maybe, just maybe, a heartbeat she could actually feel.