Gemotions

The studio felt like a tomb. Dust motes danced in the slivers of sunlight that managed to penetrate the grime-coated windows, mocking the vibrancy she used to find in them. She hadn't picked up a brush in weeks, the canvases stacked against the wall like forgotten sentinels. A client's email, a curt demand for an explanation, sat unread in her inbox. It felt like another weight on her chest, heavy and suffocating.

She’d started scrolling through social media, a habit she knew was a mistake. Then she saw it: a photo, a close-up of skin, and there, etched in ink, was her “Sunflower Solitude” piece, the one she’d poured her heart into, the one that had bloomed with an urgency she’d felt so powerfully at the time.

A wave of something unidentifiable, a twisting in her stomach, nearly made her physically ill. The artwork, a part of her, had been copied. She could barely stand to look at the tattoo in the photo. It was a perfect replica. The original, now… was it sullied?