Zombie Mode Activated

Maya dragged herself through the hallway feeling like a total zombie. Third consecutive all-nighter to finish her AP Euro project, and she was running on pure caffeine and spite. Her locker jammed—again—and she yanked the handle till her palms stung.

"Nice zombie walk, Maya." Tyler's voice cut through the morning chaos. The biggest bull at Jefferson High, zero chill, maximum swagger. He leaned against her neighboring locker with his friends, all of them laughing at something on Tyler's phone. "Maybe skip the zombie roleplay and get some sleep?"

Her face burned. Maya hated how Tyler's bull-headed confidence made everything feel like a test she hadn't studied for. She mumbled whatever and grabbed her history textbook, refusing to make eye contact.

"Wait." Tyler stepped closer, suddenly serious. "You play Overwatch?"

What?

He turned his phone toward her—a clip of a tracer player pulling off a insane quad kill. "This account's play of the game. Username 'ZombieQueen95.' That you?"

Maya's stomach did that thing. The username thing she'd made sophomore year, back when she streamed at 2am after everyone else was asleep. She'd never mentioned it at school. Gaming was HER thing—safe, anonymous, nothing like the awkward social minefield of Jefferson High.

"I mean," Tyler shrugged, "we need a support main for our team. Our cable keeps lagging during ranked, but you've got insane mechanics. We're doing a local tournament next weekend. Prize pool's five hundred bucks."

Her brain short-circuited. Tyler—the same Tyler who made fun of her zombie shuffle last week—wanted HER on his team? Because he'd watched her clips anonymously online?

"You're ZombieQueen?" one of his friends asked, like he was meeting a celebrity.

Maya stood taller. The zombie fog lifted. "Yeah. That's me."

"Dude," Tyler said, actually impressed. "We need to talk. After school?"

"After school," Maya said, closing her locker with a solid click. She walked to first period feeling human for the first time in days. Sometimes the most random moments—cable lag, bullies, zombie exhaustion—could flip everything upside down in the best way possible.