Zombie Mode at Sunrise

I looked like a zombie, felt like a zombie, and apparently, played padel like one too.

"Bro, you're moving in slow motion," Marcus laughed, effortlessly smashing the ball past me. "It's 7 AM on a SATURDAY. Why did you agree to this?"

Good question. The answer: Chloe. The cute girl from AP Bio who'd mentioned she'd be at the padel courts this weekend. Major miscalculation on my part—she wasn't here. But Marcus, Jordan, and apparently half the school's varsity team were.

"I'm operating on two hours of sleep," I groaned, wiping sweat from my forehead. My racquet felt like it weighed fifty pounds. "Been up all night grinding that zombie raid in Call of Duty. We literally couldn't pause."

"That's not the kind of zombie you want to be," Jordan called from the other side of the court. "At least in the game, you have reflexes."

Burn. But valid.

I dragged myself through another point, missing the ball entirely. My phone buzzed in my bag—probably Mom texting about the "big family dinner" tonight where I'd have to bear yet another interrogation about my GPA, college plans, and why I never talk about my feelings anymore. The dreaded "bear your soul" conversation, as my therapist called it.

But then I saw her—Chloe, walking toward the courts with a padel bag slung over her shoulder. My zombie-mode brain short-circuited.

"You okay?" Marcus asked. "You look... intense all of a sudden."

"Game on," I said, somehow finding energy I didn't know I had. I lunged for the next shot, returned it with actual spin, and even won the point.

Later, as I limped home, exhausted but weirdly happy, I realized something: sometimes you have to push through zombie mode to find what actually wakes you up. Even if it's just a stupid game of padel and a maybe-cute girl saying "nice shot" as she walked by.

And hey, at least I survived. That's more than I could say for the actual zombies in my game last night.