When Your Best Friend Goes Undead

I should've noticed the signs earlier. But honestly, between AP classes, cross country, and trying to maintain a GPA that didn't make my parents question my entire existence, I was running on caffeine and denial.

The first red flag? Jordan stopped slapping my palm when we high-fived. That thing we'd done since seventh grade, where we'd exaggerate the sound and yell "YEEEAH" even in the library? Gone. Instead, his hand would just sort of... land there. Cold. No grip. No energy. No Jordan.

"You good, bro?" I asked him after practice one day, sweat dripping down my face. We were sitting on the bleachers, both exhausted, but Jordan wasn't even breathing hard anymore.

He stared at something behind me, eyes unfocused. "Yeah. Just tired."

But it wasn't just tired. Jordan was moving through life like his own personal zombie apocalypse had already happened - shuffling through hallways, barely responding to texts, letting his fade cut grow out into something that looked less like a style choice and more like he'd forgotten what a barber was. The guy who used to roast me mercilessly in our group chat went completely silent.

The thing about having a friend go zombie mode isn't the horror movie stuff. It's the loneliness. It's sitting at lunch watching someone who used to be your person now exist in a completely different zip code mentally.

Two weeks before homecoming, I found him sitting alone in the gym, phone dark, just... staring at the wall.

"Jordan, what is actually going on?" I demanded, letting my palm slam against the bleacher. "Did I do something? Did someone say something to you?"

He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. And I saw it - the exhaustion, the overwhelm, the pressure that had been slowly eating him alive since junior year started.

"I'm just... drowning, man," he whispered, voice cracking. "Everything feels fake. The grades, the college apps, the pretending like I've got it figured out. I feel like I'm sleepwalking through my own life."

A zombie. Not the eating-brains kind. the modern teenage kind - the one where you're so burned out from trying to be perfect that you forget how to be alive.

"We don't have to figure it out today," I said, grabbing his shoulder and actually feeling him this time. "But you're not alone in the zombie state, bro. I'm right there with you."

Jordan cracked the tiniest smile. "Gross.

"

"High-five?" I offered, palm up.

He hit it. Not perfectly, but enough.

"YEEEAH," we both whispered, because some traditions are worth saving, even when you're undead.