Gemotions

The email shimmered on her phone screen, the words refusing to fully register. Emptying her backpack onto the worn table, Amelia stared. Her textbooks, the notes she'd painstakingly transcribed, the coffee-stained schedule – all suddenly relics. She had spent the last two years here, carving a niche for herself in the history department. Now, it was… gone. She reread the sentence: *The University will be ceasing operations…* A peculiar tingling blossomed in her chest, a lightness that felt unsettlingly at odds with the gravity of the announcement. Her breath hitched.

She stood abruptly, knocking over her water bottle. The cool liquid spread across the table, mirroring the spreading panic in her stomach. Amelia began pacing the cramped dorm room, the floral wallpaper blurring around the edges of her vision. Every object held a memory, now tainted with the knowledge of imminent loss. She paused, her hand flying to her mouth. Everything, all of it, was dissolving.