Zombie Mode Activated

Maya hadn't slept. Like, actually hadn't slept. Three days of finals week, her phone blowing up with group chat drama at 2 AM, and now here she stood at the regional padel championships, feeling like a literal zombie. Her eyes burned, her limbs were heavy, and absolutely nothing was okay.

"Yo, you good?" Jake asked, bouncing on his heels beside her. He'd been her friend since seventh period PE, back when neither of them could return a serve to save their lives. "You look dead."

"Coffee hasn't kicked in yet," Maya lied, adjusting her visor. Her hands were shaking.

Her opponent was across the court—Chloe, the senior who'd made freshman year miserable for anyone who wasn't in her orbit. The bull in the china shop, loud and territorial, radiating that intimidating energy that made smaller people make themselves smaller. Chloe was already warming up, her overhand serve hitting the glass wall with authority.

Outside the courts, Maya's golden retriever Max barked at passing players. Her dad had promised to bring him for moral support, which was embarrassing but also kind of everything. Max's goofy face pressed against the glass.

The first game was a disaster. Maya's feet dragged. Every return was late. Chloe smirked after every point, that look that said "you don't belong here" without saying a word. The scoreboard was brutal.

Then lightning cracked outside—a brilliant flash that illuminated the entire indoor complex through the skylights, followed immediately by thunder that rattled the walls.

Everyone paused. The refs blew whistles. Weather delay.

Maya slumped against the glass wall while Jake passed her a water bottle. "She's in your head, isn't she?"

"She's been in my head since eighth grade," Maya admitted. "Some people just... they own spaces, you know? And I've been letting her."

"So stop." Jake sat beside her. "My sister says padel's mental. Like, eighty percent mental. Chloe thinks she owns you because you act like she does."

Max barked again from the parking lot, and Maya's dad waved through the glass, giving her a thumbs-up.

"So what?" Maya asked. "I just stop caring?"

"No," Jake said. "You stop playing her game. You play yours."

The lightning had passed. The refs blew the "resume" whistle.

Maya stepped onto the court, took a deep breath, and stopped trying to be the player Chloe expected. She played small. She played smart. She stopped going for the power shots that weren't there and started placing the ball where Chloe wasn't.

The bull charged. Maya sidestepped.

By the third game, Chloe was frustrated. By the fifth, she was making mistakes. Maya's sleep-deprived brain was somehow sharper now, focused on nothing but the ball, the wall, the angle—everything else falling away.

Final point: Chloe hit it hard, all aggression and power. Maya didn't try to overpower it back. She dropped it soft over the net. Unreachable.

Game, set, match.

Chloe shook her hand afterward, actually smiled. "You're annoying when you play like that."

"Thanks?" Maya said, too stunned to process anything.

Jake high-fived her. "Zombie mode activated."

Her dad met her at the exit with Max, who immediately tackled her with the full weight of golden retriever enthusiasm, knocking her sideways into laughter.

"How was it?" he asked, scratching Max's ears.

Maya looked back at the court where Chloe was packing up, then at Jake, who was already talking about getting food.

"Good," she said, meaning a thousand things she couldn't explain yet. "Really good."

The lightning flickered in the distance again, but the storm was moving away. Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket—probably more drama, probably more things she'd have to deal with eventually. But not right now.