Zombie Mode & Fox Eyes

I'd been running on zombie mode for three days straight. Finals week will do that to you — or maybe it was the fact that I'd been staying up until 3 AM every night thinking about how Harper laughed at my joke in chemistry on Monday. The sound was like wind chimes caught in a breeze. I was sixteen going on undead.

Mr. Harrison droned on about quadratic equations while my brain did that thing where it felt like it was floating three inches above my skull. That's when I saw it: the orange tabby cat sitting on the windowsill outside our classroom, staring at me like it knew everything.

The same cat I'd been feeding secretly behind the duplex complex where I lived. The one I'd named Captain Pancake because he was round and majestic and definitely judged my life choices.

"Marcus? You with us?" Mr. Harrison's voice cut through my zombie haze.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry. Long night."

The class snickered. Harper didn't look up from her notebook.

Later, behind the building, I cracked open a tuna sandwich for Captain Pancake. He purred against my leg like a tiny motor, completely unbothered by my social awkwardness.

"She's never gonna notice me," I told him. "I'm just that quiet kid who sits in the back and wears hoodies in May."

That's when I heard it — a yip from the woods line. A red fox stepped out, sleek and bold, looking right at me. Then at the cat. Then back at me, like it was delivering a message from the universe.

The fox bounded off, but something shifted. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking, but I realized I'd been moving through high school like a zombie — existing, not living. Harper wasn't some mythical creature. She was just a girl who liked good jokes.

Captain Pancake head-butted my shin. Sometimes you need a cat to point out the obvious.

Next day, I actually talked to her. Not much — just "hey, that homework question was brutal, right?" — but she smiled. A real one, not polite. And I didn't feel like a zombie anymore. I felt like someone who might just be figuring this out.

Captain Pancake was waiting for me after school. I swear he looked smug.