Gemotions

"Did you hear?" The words, delivered with a casual nonchalance from a junior colleague, were a sharp stab. Alex, a senior programmer, was his mentor, the one who had taught him everything about the code, the one who had always encouraged him. And now, Alex was gone, without a word.

He slumped in his chair, staring at the lines of code on his screen. The blinking cursor seemed to mock his confusion. The entire project had been designed around Alex's expertise. He felt a deep, aching sense of abandonment, of being cast adrift.

He pushed his chair back, the wheels scraping against the floor. He wanted to tear the place apart, break something. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears. He wasn’t even given a chance to say goodbye. The injustice of it all felt like a physical weight on his shoulders.