Zombie Mode

Maya stared at her iPhone, thumb scrolling through perfect lives that felt like cosmic joke. Six hundred likes on Jessica's selfie, and Maya hadn't even brushed her hair yet.

"You look like a zombie," her brother joked, stealing her cereal. "Full-on undead mode."

He wasn't wrong. The blue light had turned Maya's skin ghostly pale, and her hair resembled a bird's ambitious nest project. Another Monday of sophomore year, another day of performing normal.

Mom placed a bottle on the table. "Vitamin D deficiency, honey. The doctor says—"

"Yeah, yeah." Maya knocked back the pill with cold coffee.

At school, she found Jordan at her locker, looking wrecked.

"Rough weekend?" Maya asked.

"My mom went full wellness queen," Jordan groaned. "Started me on like twelve different vitamins. I think one of them is making me break out."

Maya laughed, but it died fast. Looking down the hallway, she saw it: everyone hunched over phones, thumbs moving, faces blank. Actual zombies. The jocks by the water fountain, the theater kids, the loners by the lockers—all scrolling, swiping, existing through screens.

Suddenly Maya couldn't breathe. The bull in her chest—that pressure, that constant performative BS—rose up. This was it. This was high school: moving through motions, dead behind the eyes, alive only for the likes.

"What?" Jordan asked.

"Nothing." Maya pulled her hair into a messy knot. "Just...done."

"With what?"

"All of it." Maya met Jordan's eyes. "The fake Instagram aesthetic. The pretending everything's fine when we're all just walking around like zombies."

Jordan considered this. "So what's the move?"

Maya looked at her phone, dark screen reflecting her face—tired, real, unfiltered.

"We stop." She pocketed the iPhone. "We just...live."

That afternoon, Maya didn't post a single story. Instead, she sat with Jordan under the bleachers and talked about everything and nothing until the sun went down. No photos, no filters, no audience.

Just two former zombies, finally waking up.