Gemotions

"I just… I don't understand," she stammered, her voice barely a whisper. The professor, a kindly woman she had always admired, looked at her with a mixture of disappointment and concern. It was a look that felt like a physical blow.

She clutched her backpack straps, knuckles white, as the details of the alleged plagiarism were laid out. The phrases, the sentence structures, the specific sources she'd apparently "borrowed." It all seemed so… impossible.

Her vision blurred, and the world began to spin. She felt a wave of dizziness, a desperate urge to run, to disappear. She wanted to explain, to defend herself, but the words caught in her throat, a jumbled mess of fear and confusion.