Gemotions

Dust motes danced in the shaft of sunlight slicing through Leo’s apartment. He’d just finished rereading his favorite passage from "The Obsidian Mirror" – a passage he’d known by heart since childhood. Now, a news alert on his laptop: a plagiarism scandal. The author: Alistair Finch. The specific work in question? A short story Leo had written in college.

He stared at the words, his mouth agape. A cold tingle raced down his spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake. He felt a weird disorientation, as though the world around him had tilted on its axis. He laughed, a short, involuntary bark, then quickly covered his mouth. The absurdity of it all. Alistair Finch, the literary titan, stealing from *him*?

He paced the length of his small apartment, his feet feeling strangely disconnected from the floor. He stopped in front of his bookshelf, the Finch novels a monument to his artistic aspirations. He ran his hand along their spines, a weird sense of detachment washing over him. The world he had built around Finch suddenly felt like a house of cards, ready to collapse.