Gemotions

He paced the length of his apartment, the worn floorboards groaning under his frantic footsteps. Every click of his shoes on the wood seemed amplified in the tense quiet. The news, plastered across the internet, was a hammer blow to his carefully constructed persona.

He reached for a cigarette, lit it with a shaking hand, and inhaled deeply, the smoke stinging his throat. The ash fell, unnoticed, onto the already cluttered coffee table. He should have destroyed it, burned it.

“This can’t be happening,” he muttered under his breath, the words brittle and hollow. The walls of his apartment seemed to close in, the air thick and heavy, making it difficult to breathe. The world felt wrong.