The Unliving

Marcus stared at the iPhone on his nightstand, the screen lighting up every few minutes with notifications he couldn't bring himself to answer. Another message from Elena. Another check-in from his mother. Another day since the funeral.

He swallowed his daily handful of vitamins—D, B-complex, omega-3—as if they could somehow supplement what was missing. As if pills could fix the hollow space where his best friend used to be.

"You're like a zombie," Sarah had told him two nights ago, packing her things with efficient, angry movements. "You died when Jordan did, and everyone's just waiting for you to notice."

She was right. He moved through his life on autopilot. Showed up to the job he'd once loved. Ate meals he couldn't taste. Responded to texts with single words. The grief had hollowed him out, made room for something else to take up residence.

The vitamins were Jordan's idea. "We're not getting any younger," she'd said last winter, pressing the bottle into his hand after her diagnosis. "Take care of yourself, Marcus. Promise me."

Her last request, and he couldn't even manage that properly. Some days he remembered. Most days he didn't.

His iPhone buzzed again. This time it was Sarah. "I'm keeping the cat."

Marcus didn't respond. What was there to say? The cat had always loved Jordan more anyway.

He lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes, listening to the building settle around him. Somewhere in the apartment, Jordan's voice echoed in memory—something about how they'd grow old together, how they'd take their vitamins and travel and live to be a hundred.

Instead, she was twenty-eight forever, and Marcus was thirty-two and learning that grief didn't make you stronger. It just made you durable. Flexible in ways you never wanted to be.

He sat up and dry-swallowed another vitamin. Just one. A start.

The iPhone screen glowed in the darkness. A new message from Elena: "I'm coming over. We're getting drunk and talking about Jordan, whether you want to or not."

Marcus typed back, "Ok."

His fingers trembled over the screen. For the first time in weeks, something in his chest stirred. Not much. But something.

A zombie could learn to be alive again, couldn't it? One small motion at a time.