Gemotions

He found the freshly-cut section of the oak, its annual rings exposed like some grotesque mockery of history. A wave of nausea, acrid and unwelcome, churned in his stomach. All those summer afternoons spent playing beneath its shade, escaping the relentless sun. Gone. Just… gone.

He ran a hand over the rough surface of the remaining trunk. The sap, still oozing, felt sticky and wrong. Like a betrayal. He spat on the ground.

“Just like everything else,” he muttered under his breath, the words tasting like ash. He’d built a whole world around that tree. Now, that world was gone, and he was left standing in a void.