The Riddle Under the Bed

Maya's fingers trembled as she held the scissors. Three years of growing her hair out—past her shoulders, past her collarbone, a curtain she could hide behind—VS. the electric blue pixie cut she'd been dreaming about since seventh grade.

"You sure about this?" Jordan asked from where they sat cross-legged on Maya's bed, rainbow socks pulled up to their knees. "Your mom's gonna freak."

"That's kinda the point," Maya muttered. She closed her eyes, imagined the weight gone, imagined herself finally visible. But instead, she set the scissors down and grabbed her backpack. "Let's just go."

The abandoned Blockbuster building at the edge of town had become the ultimate hangout spot. Someone—no one knew who—had rigged a projector to the back wall and tangled ethernet cables everywhere like technological ivy. Most people came to smoke or make out. Maya and Jordan came to escape.

"Check this out," Jordan whispered, yanking Maya toward a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Someone had spray-painted a sphinx across it, wings spread like a challenge.

Inside, in what used to be the manager's office, sat an old gaming setup still plugged into something—too many cables to track, all snaking toward a hole in the floorboards. And on the monitor, a single line of glowing text: WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID TO LOSE?

Maya froze. The sphinx graffiti outside had been weird enough, but this?

"Type something," Jordan urged, already reaching for the keyboard. But Maya's hand moved faster.

Her fingers hovered over the keys. She could type anything. Nobody would know. But suddenly she couldn't breathe, couldn't think past all the things she was terrified to lose—her parents' approval, her spot on the cheer squad, the comfortable illusion of being someone she wasn't.

Instead, she typed: MYSELF.

The screen flickered. A response appeared: THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING TO FIND?

"Whoa," Jordan breathed.

Maya's heart hammered against her ribs. She thought about the scissors still sitting on her dresser. About the hair she'd grown like armor, like a promise she'd made to be someone else's version of perfect.

"I need to go back," she said suddenly, grabbing Jordan's hand. "Right now."

"Back where?"

"Home. I have something I need to do."

The next morning at school, Maya walked in with electric blue hair that barely grazed her ears. No curtain to hide behind anymore. When someone asked what happened, she just smiled.

"Finally found myself," she said.

Later, she'd return to the Blockbuster. But the office would be empty—the cables gone, the screen dark. The sphinx graffiti outside would remain though, wings spread across the EMPLOYEES ONLY door like it knew all along that some riddles answer themselves.