The Zombie Bear Protocol

Maya's phone died at 11:47 PM—exactly forty-seven minutes after she'd spent three hours scrolling through Jordan's story highlights, feeling like a total creep. A spy in her own social circle, documenting evidence of a party she wasn't invited to.

The charger cable was frayed at the end, exposing copper wire like tiny veins. She twisted it around her finger, the same way she twisted every conversation with Jordan into something it wasn't. Friends? Barely. Acquaintances who shared memes and inside jokes that weren't actually inside anything.

"You look like a zombie," her mom had said that morning. Maya almost laughed. The walking dead didn't have AP Chemistry, didn't spend every lunch period calculating the optimal distance to sit from someone without looking desperate, didn't bear the weight of seventeen unread notifications like lead balloons in their stomach.

Her stuffed bear from childhood—Mr. Wubbles, objectively the worst name ever—sat on her shelf, watching with those button eyes. judgment-free. The last thing in her room that didn't demand something from her.

Maya grabbed her old diary from under her bed. The analog spy protocol. Page after page of middle school misery, documented in glitter gel pen. She flipped to the back and wrote:

ZOMBIE BEAR PROTOCOL:

1. Stop checking their stories

2. Find people who actually like you

3. Be okay with being alone

4. Get a new freaking cable

Her phone screen stayed black, and she let it. For the first time in forever, she didn't feel like she was missing something. She felt like she was finally here—just Maya, no spy mission required, no zombie walk through tomorrow's hallways with her head down, bearing the weight of nothing at all.

She fell asleep with Mr. Wubbles squished against her chest, phone dead on the nightstand, and dreamed of absolutely nothing.

And it was perfect.