Three Percent Battery

Maya's phone screen glowed with the ominous warning: 3% battery. At the top of the cafeteria's social pyramid, where Brianna and her minions held court, every snapchat, every text, every carefully curated Instagram story mattered. Missing even five minutes of notifications was social suicide.

"You have your cable?" Maya whispered to Jamal, who sat beside her, blissfully unconcerned with the hierarchy that ruled their high school existence.

Jamal fished in his backpack. "Left it at home. But honestly, Maya, Brianna's whole 'influencer' vibe is total bull anyway."

Maya's stomach did that familiar flip — the one that happened whenever someone called out the absurdity of their high school caste system. Because the thing was, Jamal wasn't wrong. Last week, Brianna had posted a tearful selfie about "fake friends" while simultaneously group-chatting rumors about half the sophomore class. The hypocrisy was honestly exhausting.

But still. Maya wanted to be seen. Wanted to matter. Even if that desire made her complicit in the system she claimed to hate.

"Whatever," she muttered, watching her screen dim. "My dad's got this new goldfish in his office, right? Named him Captain Fin. And I swear that fish has more genuine personality in his little orange body than Brianna has in her entire brand."

Jamal snorted. "Captain Fin? Really?"

"The fish just swims, eats, does his thing. No filters, no carefully calculated captions. Just existing." Maya's phone died completely, screen going black. "And that's it. I'm officially off the grid."

She waited for the panic to hit. The FOMO. The desperate need to know what was happening in the group chats, who was posting what, whose story she'd missed.

But weirdly, it didn't come.

"Hey," Jamal said, pushing back his tray. "Want to go to the library? There's that graphic novel you wanted to check out."

Maya stood up, leaving her dead phone on the table like an anchor she'd finally cut loose. "Yeah. Actually, yeah."

Behind them, at the popular table, Brianna laughed at something staged and fake, iphone raised to capture the moment for an audience who wouldn't actually care by tomorrow.

Maya didn't look back.