Zombie Mode and the Vitamin C Conspiracy

My hair was supposed to be sunset orange. Instead, it looked like a traffic cone had exploded on my head.

"You look like a zombie who tried to get ready for a party and died halfway through," Marco said, not looking up from his phone. We were sitting in his basement, surrounded by empty energy drink cans and the scent of my hair disaster.

"Thanks, best friend ever."

"Literally ever," he agreed.

I flopped onto the beanbag chair. I'd been running on zero sleep and stress vitamins from my mom—who'd decided that because I got one B on my report card, I clearly needed immune system support. The rainbow-colored pills sat in a cheery container on my desk, mocking me.

The hair thing was supposed to be my rebellion. My statement. Instead, it was just—

"Wait." Marco sat up suddenly. "What if that's it?"

"What's it?"

"The zombie thing. What if we're all just zombies?" His eyes widened. "Think about it. We wake up, go to school, scroll through stuff, sleep, repeat. That's literally zombie behavior."

"That's deep, Marco. Really profound."

"No, I'm serious!" He jumped up. "What if we're the zombies? What if the vitamins are actually keeping us from turning full zombie? Like, your mom is actually protecting you from becoming a mindless—"

"Marco."

"—creature of habit who—"

"Marco."

He froze. "What?"

"I need to fix my hair. And you need to stop watching conspiracy theories at 2 AM."

But later that night, looking in the mirror at my ridiculous orange hair, I thought about it. The zombie thing. The routine. The way we all just kind of moved through things sometimes.

Maybe it wasn't about not being a zombie. Maybe it was about being a zombie on your own terms. About making choices—even terrible hair dye choices—that made you feel something.

I texted Marco: *maybe the vitamins are working*

*?*

*because I think I'm actually feeling okay about this*

*you're delusional* came the response, followed immediately by *but also lowkey iconic*

I smiled. Maybe that's all we needed. Someone to call you a zombie and still think you were iconic anyway.