Brainrot
memes
The fire alarm shrieked through B-wing, but nobody had pulled it. Maya sprinted down the hallway, her Converse slapping against linoleum as she grabbed Ethan’s backpack strap and yanked him away from his locker.
“Move,” she hissed.
Behind them, the sound started low, a murmur that built into a chorus. “Six-Seeeeven. Six-Seeeeven. Six-Seeeeeeveeeeeeen.” Twenty voices, maybe thirty, all locked in the same monotone chant. The infected shuffled around the corner, eyes glued to their phone screens, bodies moving on autopilot. Their thumbs still swiped, caught in an endless loop of engagement.
Ethan’s face went pale. “Is that Jordan?”
Maya didn’t look back. She’d already seen Jordan in third period, seen the exact moment his eyes had glazed over mid-scroll, seen him stand up and join the others shambling toward the gym. She’d watched her lab partner of two years become something else entirely.
“Cafeteria,” she said. “Dexter and Cam are there.”
They burst through the double doors to find their friends barricading the entrance with lunch tables. Dexter, still wearing his soccer uniform from morning practice, shoved a bench against the door. Cam stood on a chair, her box braids pulled back, phone in hand, filming everything.
“Still streaming?” Maya couldn’t believe it.
“Document or die,” Cam said, but she was shaking. “My followers need to know what’s happening.”
“Your followers are probably infected,” Ethan said.
The banging started. Fists against metal. “Skibidiiiii. Skibidiiiiii Toilettttt. Six-Seveeeeen. Six-Seveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen.”
“They’re not zombies,” Dexter said, though his voice cracked on the last word. “They’re just, what did the news call it, ‘cognitively captured’?”
“They’re gone,” Maya said flatly. She’d seen the studies published last week, back when this was just a weird phenomenon in a few schools in Ohio. The neural pathways hijacked. The dopamine loops weaponized. The memes had evolved past funny into something viral in the worst possible way, something that could root itself in your brain stem and never let go.
The pounding intensified. Through the door’s narrow window, Maya saw them. Classmates. Teachers. All with that same slack expression, phones raised like offerings, the blue glow of TikTok reflected in their dead eyes.
“Kitchen exit,” Cam said, pocketing her phone. “Now.”
They ran through the serving line, past the industrial refrigerators, through the dish room where gray water still filled the sink. The emergency exit waited at the end, blessed daylight visible through the reinforced glass.
Ethan slammed into the push bar and they spilled out into the parking lot. The afternoon sun felt wrong, too normal for the end of the world. A few cars still idled where parents had abandoned them mid-pickup. In the distance, more of the infected wandered between vehicles, that horrible chanting carrying on the wind.
“My mom’s car,” Dexter gasped, pointing to a gray Honda. “She keeps a spare key in the wheel well.”
They made it to the car in seconds. Dexter’s hands fumbled with the key, dropped it, retrieved it. The locks clicked open just as the infected rounded the corner of the building, drawn by the sound. Twenty of them, then fifty, a tide of phone-lit faces and empty expressions.
Maya dove into the backseat as Dexter turned the ignition. The engine caught. He threw it into reverse and they peeled out, the infected shambling after them, still chanting, always chanting. “Six-Seven. Six-Seven.”
They didn’t speak for five minutes, just drove, took turns randomly, put distance between themselves and the school. Finally, Dexter pulled into an empty supermarket parking lot and killed the engine.
“What now?” he asked.
Nobody answered. The silence felt enormous after the chaos, broken only by their ragged breathing.
Then Ethan’s phone chimed.
The sound made them all flinch. Ethan pulled it from his pocket slowly, like it might detonate.
“Don’t,” Maya said.
“It could be my parents.” His voice was small. “They were supposed to pick up my sister from middle school.”
“It could be a carrier,” Cam said. “That’s how it spreads, right? You see the video, you’re done.”
“Just a notification,” Ethan said. “I won’t open anything. I’ll just check.”
He tapped the screen. His lockscreen showed a message preview from an unknown number. No video thumbnail. Just text. Safe, Maya thought. Just text had to be safe.
Ethan opened it.
The message was simple, formatted like those old internet jokes from before they were born, the kind their parents used to share. White text. Impact font. The kind of meme archaeology you’d find in the depths of Know Your Meme.
It said: You’ve Just Lost The Game.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Ethan’s expression smoothed. His pupils dilated. His thumb began to move, opening the message fully, and beneath those words was a string of numbers, repeated: 67 67 67 67 67.
“Ethan?” Maya whispered.
His lips moved. “Six-Seven,” he said. “Six-Seeeeeven.”
He looked up at them, and his eyes were already gone.