The Wellness Protocol

At 3:47 AM, Elena stared at her bathroom mirror, counting the pills: Vitamin D for the bones she never stretched, B-complex for energy she didn't have, magnesium for the sleep that refused to come. The wellness protocol, her therapist called it. She called it the maintenance fee for her body, the rent she paid to keep inhabiting it.

She'd been living like a zombie for three years—since the promotion, since Marcus started working late, since something fundamental had calcified inside her chest. Every morning she swallowed the vitamins with practiced precision, a ritual of pretended care.

"Running late again," Marcus muttered from bed, not looking up from his phone.

"Running," she corrected automatically. "I'm going running."

He grunted, already scrolling. Elena laced her shoes in the hallway, the motion so familiar it required no consciousness. Outside, the city held its breath. Her sneakers slapped pavement in a rhythm that matched the throb in her temples—run, run, run, away from the question she'd been carrying for months.

The gym downtown, 24-hour fluorescents and the smell of artificial sanitization. She liked the treadmill at this hour. No witnesses to her zombie shuffle, her half-hearted attempts at locomotion.

"You're here early," said the woman on the next treadmill. Small, unassuming, wearing Elena's same hoodie in gray.

"Always," Elena said, though she'd never seen her before.

"You work at OmniTech?"

Elena's stomach dropped. "How did you—"

"Your badge. The lanyard." The woman increased her speed. "My name's Sarah. I've been watching you."

The word hit like ice water. Watching.

"I'm with corporate security," Sarah continued, still jogging easily. "We've had a breach. Someone's selling proprietary formulas to competitors."

Elena's pulse hammered. Marcus's late nights. The encrypted files on his home laptop. The new car, the sudden trips.

"You think it's me?"

"I think you know who it is." Sarah's eyes met hers, tired and knowing. "You're not a zombie, Elena. You're in shock."

The word shattered something. Behind her eyes, three years of motion-blur snapped into focus: the late arrivals, the cash deposits, the way Marcus's phone always faced down on the table.

"Your husband's been using your login credentials," Sarah said gently. "We traced the IP."

Elena stopped running.

"Why tell me?"

"Because you deserve to know." Sarah slowed to a walk. "And because we need you to confirm it's him."

Elena thought about the vitamins, the care she'd poured into maintaining a body that betrayed her daily. The protocol that kept her present, breath by breath, in a life that wasn't hers anymore.

"Yes," she said, and the word felt like the first real thing she'd spoken in years. "It's him."

She walked home as the sun rose, the city waking around her, and for the first time in three years, Elena didn't feel like she was already dead.