Vitamins for the Walking Dead

Martha stood in the pharmacy aisle, staring at the vitamin D supplements like they might answer the question she'd been avoiding for six months: when had she become a zombie? Not the undead kind from movies, but the living kind — the one who goes through motions, who shows up to work, who smiles at her husband David across the dinner table while feeling nothing but a dull, aching numbness.

The baseball trophy sat on their mantel, covered in dust. David had given it to her on their third anniversary, a joke gift because she'd once mentioned playing softball in college. "For my MVP," he'd said, and she'd laughed, genuinely laughed, back when she still could. Now it gathered dust beside photos of a life that felt like it belonged to someone else.

She dropped the vitamins into her basket. Dr. Chen had prescribed them last week, along with a recommendation to see a therapist, to maybe consider the antidepressants. Martha had nodded, taken the prescription, done none of it.

Outside, the rain was coming down hard. She pulled her hood up, then realized she'd forgotten her hat — the gray beanie David had bought her last Christmas, back when he still noticed things like cold ears. She'd left it on the kitchen counter again.

The walk home took her past the park where they'd first kissed, seventeen years ago. She stopped at the edge of the woods. Something moved between the trees — massive, dark. A bear, maybe, though bears didn't usually come this far into town. Or maybe it was just shadows playing tricks on her exhausted mind.

Martha stood there, watching the dark shape breathe, and for the first time in months, she felt something sharp and real: fear. Not the dull ache of depression, not the gray fog of dissociation, but pure adrenaline-fueled clarity.

Whatever it was, bear or not, it was alive. It was waking.

She turned toward home. David would be there. They would talk, finally, or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe the marriage was already over, a dead thing they were both too tired to bury. But not her. Not yet.

Martha pulled her hood tighter and started walking, vitamins rattling in her pocket, toward whatever came next.