Gemotions

He paced the confines of his small apartment, the worn rug underfoot offering no solace. The phone call. The curt apology from the clinic. His medical records, inexplicably, were someone else's. The world had tilted on its axis, and he was struggling to find his footing.

A cold sweat slicked his palms, and he ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being untethered, adrift in a sea of confusion. He glanced at the framed photographs on his bookshelf – his graduation, his wedding, his children. Suddenly, they seemed to belong to someone else, distant and unreal.

He grabbed his keys, needing to escape the suffocating walls. He had to breathe. He needed to *do* something. The familiar weight of the keys in his hand offered a small measure of grounding, but even that felt fleeting.