The Riddle of Unspeakable Things

You know you've become a **zombie** when you stop noticing the water dripping from the office ceiling—that steady, rhythmic *plink* that's been driving your coworker insane for three weeks. Sarah's threatened to call HR six times. You just sit there, watching the droplets fall like tears from God's own eye, and feel nothing.

That's how Marcus finds you when he drops a **hat** on your desk—felt, wide-brimmed, ridiculously out of place in a cubicle farm.

"For the Halloween party," he says, and you remember: oh right, they're making everyone participate. Team building. Forced fun. You'll have to be a **sphinx** again—riddle everyone with fake enthusiasm while secretly wishing you could just curl up under your desk and never come out.

You've been taking those **vitamin** D supplements Dr. Chen prescribed. She said they'd help with the lethargy, the way you wake up each morning feeling like you've never slept at all. But the pills sit in your drawer, untouched, because what's the point when the problem isn't your body—it's your life, this endless gray loop of spreadsheets and meetings and Sarah's complaints about the water stain spreading like a map of some country you'll never visit.

Marcus lingers, and there's something in his eyes you've never noticed before. Not the usual workplace flirtation, not the boredom you've both been drowning in for years. Something.

"You know," he says quietly, "the sphinx asked riddles because she was lonely."

The water plinks. Your zombie heart does something it hasn't done in months—it stutters.

"What's your riddle, then?" you ask, and Marcus smiles like you've both just remembered a language you spoke in another life.