The Zombie Signal

Maya pressed her face against her bedroom window at 2 AM, feeling like a total zombie from three nights of insufficient sleep. The blue glow from her laptop screen was the only light in her room as she scrolled through Instagram, watching everyone else's seemingly perfect lives unfold in highlight reels while hers felt more like a deleted scene.

Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. Again.

"Who even is this?" she muttered, thumb hovering over the block button. For a week now, mysterious messages had been popping up — nothing creepy, just weird. Random facts about her day. "You wore that same hoodie Tuesday." "You sat alone at lunch again."

Maya had become convinced someone was spying on her. Paranoia crept in during every hallway pass, every glance in her direction. Was it Jordan from chemistry? That quiet sophomore who always seemed to be watching? Or maybe it was all in her head — just another symptom of the social isolation that had settled over her freshman year like a heavy blanket.

Tonight's message read: "Check behind your TV."

Maya's stomach did a nervous flip. She crept across her room, heart pounding, and knelt beside her entertainment center. Behind her cable box, tangled in a mess of wires, something small and silver glinted in the darkness.

A camera. Tiny, almost invisible.

Her hands shook as she traced the cable connection from the wall, following it to her window, then outside into the night. Someone had been watching her. For how long? Weeks? Months? The violation hit her like a physical blow, hot shame rising in her throat. All those private moments — dancing in her underwear, crying over math tests, practicing conversations in the mirror — all seen by some stranger.

But then she noticed something else. A second cable, barely visible, running not away from her house but toward it. From the house next door.

Eli's house. The boy who'd moved in three months ago, the one she'd barely spoken to besides awkward waves across the fence. The one her friends whispered was "weird" because he never went to school functions.

Maya's phone buzzed again. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just — I noticed you always seem lonely. And I'm lonely too. I thought maybe, if you knew someone was watching out for you, you wouldn't feel so alone."

Not creepy. Just socially awkward. Desperately, horribly lonely. Just like her.

The zombie feeling evaporated, replaced by something warmer. Maya typed back, "That's literally the weirdest way to make friends ever."