Gemotions

"Seriously?" Maya muttered, her voice a low growl. The rejection letter from the art magazine had been hard enough to swallow. She had revised her application three times. The feedback she received was that it was "too niche." Now, she had just stumbled across her own work, re-titled and attributed to a woman named Beatrice Sterling, being lauded as a "bold new voice."

She slammed her fist onto the kitchen table, rattling the plates. Her apartment, usually a haven of creativity, suddenly felt like a prison. Paintbrushes lay scattered, unfinished canvases faced the wall. The silence was deafening.

Her shoulders slumped. She wanted to scream. She had spent months honing her craft, battling self-doubt, and now this. A cold dread settled in the pit of her stomach. She felt a profound sense of… futility.