Gemotions

The professor’s words, a muffled drone, bounced off the lecture hall walls. Anna barely registered them. Her attention was focused on the tight knot in her stomach. Arcadia College closing. It was a sentence, not a statement. A sentence on her future.

Her hands were clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. Her gaze drifted to the window, where a lone raven perched on the branch of a skeletal tree. The bird, a stark silhouette against the gray sky, seemed to embody the despair she was feeling.

She wanted to run, to escape the confines of this room, to scream until her voice was raw. Instead, she just sat there, rigid, listening to the professor’s continued monologue, feeling the slow, agonizing drip of dread.