What the Sphinx Asked

Maya's thumb was a blur on her iPhone screen, double-tapping pics from Jessica's party that she'd bailed on. *FOMO hitting different tonight,* she thought, refreshing Instagram for the third time in two minutes. The glowing rectangle was her lifeline, her connection, her everything.

'You good?' asked Marcus, leaning against the escape room wall. 'You've been staring at that thing like it holds the secrets of the universe.'

'Maybe it does,' Maya muttered, but she pocketed the phone. The escape room was Egyptian-themed — hieroglyphics, golden statues, and in the center of the chamber, an animatronic sphinx with eyes that seemed to follow them.

The group had been stuck on the final riddle for twenty minutes. Everyone else had given up, scrolling on their phones or complaining about being 'lowkey cooked' from finals week. They were all running on caffeine and three hours of sleep, moving like zombies through the puzzle.

Maya approached the sphinx. The thing was supposed to give a riddle when someone got close, but it hadn't activated for anyone else.

'Hey,' she whispered to it. 'I know you're not real, but I literally have no one else to talk to right now.'

The sphinx's eyes flickered. A mechanical voice rumbled through the chamber: 'What has a screen but no face, a feed but no hunger, connects you to everyone yet leaves you alone?'

Maya's breath caught.

'My phone,' she whispered.

The sphinx continued: 'What walks among friends but feels like a ghost, speaks a thousand words yet says nothing?'

She thought about her automated replies, her 'haha' and 'omg same,' the way she performed being okay.

'Me,' she said, her voice cracking.

'Then answer this,' the sphinx rumbled. 'What must die so you can live?'

The room went silent. Marcus looked up from his phone. The escape room door clicked open.

They'd solved it. But as Maya stepped into the mall corridor, phone buzzing with notifications, she didn't check it. For once, the riddle felt unfinished, the answer still waiting to be found.