Zombie Mode at Midnight

I'd been running on pure adrenaline and three Monster Ultras since Friday. Now it was Saturday at midnight, and I was deep in zombie mode. My eyes burned, but quitting wasn't an option—not when Liam's basement had become command central for our group's first-ever 48-hour gaming marathon.

"Dude, your dog is literally sitting on my face," Marcus groaned, shoving Brutus—a golden retriever with zero concept of personal space—off the couch. The dog huffed dramatically before flopping onto my feet instead.

"At least Brutus doesn't rage-quit every time he dies," Liam shot back. His older sister Sarah slinked in, looking like she'd rather be literally anywhere else.

"Are you guys STILL playing that zombie game?" She grabbed a handful of chips. "It's been, like, thirty hours. This is genuinely sad."

"We're not just playing," I said, trying to sound casual about the fact that I'd been crushing on her since September. "We're building something."

Sarah's eyes landed on the fish bowl near the TV. "A goldfish? Really?"

"His name is Glitter. He's majestic."

She rolled her eyes. "You guys are unbearable."

Then it happened. The moment that would go down in Ridgeview High history.

Marcus, caught up in an intense wave of zombies, flailed his arms and knocked his controller backward. It caught the TV cable—

—SNAP.

The screen went black. The party stream we'd been broadcasting to, like, forty people? Dead.

Silence.

Then: "NOOOOO!" Liam wailed. "We were on level 47!"

"Your cable," Marcus whispered, horrified. "I snapped your HDMI cable."

But Sarah just started laughing. Not mean laughing—like, actually cracking up. "Oh my god. This is officially the best night ever."

Something about her laugh made everything hit different. The ruined game, the exhaustion, the way Brutus was now snoring on my shins—it was all kind of perfect.

"Whatever," I said, grabbing a handful of chips. "We'll respawn tomorrow."

Sarah caught my eye. Something warm in her expression. "Yeah. Tomorrow."

She didn't leave right away. And that? That was worth any broken cable.