The Vitamin Protocol

Elena's gray hair had been coming in faster since the merger. At thirty-four, she shouldn't be plucking wiry silver strands from her temples in the office bathroom mirror, but there she was, tweezing away evidence of stress while her best friend Sarah waited at their usual coffee spot.

They'd been friends since college, through bad boyfriends and worse apartments, through Sarah's divorce and Elena's miscarriage. Now they worked in adjacent cubicles at Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Sarah in PR, Elena in R&D. They shared everything—everything except whatever Sarah had been hiding these past three weeks.

The office rumor mill churned with stories of a corporate spy. Someone leaking preliminary trial data to a competitor. Elena had laughed it off with Sarah over drinks, but Sarah's laugh had been tight, her eyes darting toward her phone.

"You're like a zombie," Elena had teased last week when Sarah cancelled their Saturday plans for the third time. "Living on those vitamin supplements and ambition."

Sarah's smile hadn't reached her eyes. "Some of us are building something, El. Not everyone can be content with incremental raises and safe little lives."

The words had stung. They'd stung even more when Elena found the encrypted files on the shared server—Sarah's login credentials, timestamped at 3 AM, accessing the cancer drug trial results. Data worth millions on the black market. Data that could destroy everything.

Now Elena sat across from Sarah, watching her friend arrange vitamin packets on the café table—her morning ritual, her wellness armor. Sarah's hair was perfect, glossy and expensive. Her makeup flawless.

"So," Sarah said, not meeting Elena's eyes. "How's work?"

Elena thought about the report she'd filed this morning. Thought about security escorting Sarah out in twenty minutes. Thought about friendship as collateral damage in corporate warfare.

"Fine," Elena said. "Everything's fine."

She watched Sarah swallow her vitamins, beautiful and doomed, and understood exactly how people became zombies. Not the undead kind. The living kind, who hollowed themselves out piece by piece until they couldn't recognize their own reflections.