Zombie Mode Offline

Maya stared at her iPhone, the battery percentage flashing at 3% like a warning signal. She'd been doom-scrolling for twenty minutes, feeling like a **zombie** trapped in an endless loop of TikToks and Instagram stories while everyone else actually lived their lives.

"You coming in?" Liam called from the **water**, his voice cutting through her digital trance.

The pool glittered with late afternoon sun, bodies everywhere laughing and splashing. This was supposed to be the party of the summer. Instead, Maya sat on a lounge chair, her thumb mechanically swiping up, up, up—another mindless undead in the apocalypse of her own making.

Her phone died. Screen black.

Panic flared, then something else—relief? No notifications. No FOMO. Just the muffled sounds of real life: music bumping from portable speakers, someone doing a cannonball, the sharp chemical smell of chlorine.

Liam swam over, dripping wet, hair plastered to his forehead. He'd been her **friend** since third grade, back when the biggest drama was whose turn it was in four square.

"Your phone's dead, isn't it," he said, not even a question.

Maya nodded, strangely embarrassed.

"Good." He pulled something from his pocket—charging **cable**, still damp from his swim trunks. "But I'm not giving you this. Not yet."

"What? Liam, come on."

"When's the last time you actually talked to someone without checking your screen every two seconds?" He tread water, watching her. "You're literally at the coolest party of the year, looking like you'd rather be anywhere else."

The truth hit harder than she expected.

"Get in," Liam said. "Or don't. But your phone stays with me."

Maya looked at the pool, at the people, at her **friend** waiting for her to choose something real. She stood up, kicked off her flip-flops, and dove in.

The water shocked her skin, waking something up that had been asleep for way too long. She surfaced sputtering, laughing, and Liam tossed the cable onto the table—far away from both of them.

" **Zombie** mode deactivated," he grinned, splashing water in her face.

Maya splashed back, not caring about her hair, her makeup, or the three hundred notifications that would be waiting when she finally, eventually, maybe, decided to check her phone again.

Some things were worth going offline for.