Gemotions

"Can't we stop them, Dad?" Leo’s voice cracked. He kicked at a loose piece of concrete on the sidewalk, his gaze fixed on the house across the street. He’d been unusually quiet all day. He had barely touched his breakfast and had been unusually clingy.

His father sighed, resting a hand on his son’s shoulder. The excavator's arm, a mechanical behemoth, loomed in the distance. Leo felt his pulse hammering in his ears. The feeling was a cold, constricting band tightening around his chest. He wished he could rewind time.

He remembered the endless hours spent building forts in the backyard, the scent of his mother’s baking filling the kitchen. He had envisioned his own children playing in the very same yard. The future that he had envisioned was now collapsing before his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the scene, but the image remained seared behind his eyelids.