Gemotions

The professor’s voice, normally a soothing baritone, felt tinny, amplified, bouncing around in Leo's head. He found himself tapping his pen incessantly against his notebook, a rapid, restless rhythm. The lecture on the decline of the Roman Empire seemed suddenly ironic.

He hadn’t registered what the Professor said. He was preoccupied. His eyes darted around the classroom. The other students shifted restlessly. He imagined the emails, the frantic phone calls, the scramble for something, anything, that would salvage their futures. The anxiety felt corrosive, eating away at him from the inside.