Gemotions

He’d driven all the way from the city, a pilgrimage, he’d called it to himself. His stomach clenched when he saw it. The oak, his oak, gone. Just a flattened patch of dirt. He stopped the car, engine still running, and sat there, frozen. His breath hitched in his chest.

The air seemed to crackle with an unexpected energy, a disruptive vibration. He felt a sudden, inexplicable anger, a flash of white-hot heat that had him clenching his fists. He'd poured his childhood dreams, his hopes for the future, into that tree. Now, only emptiness remained, echoing like the vast expanse of a forgotten planet.

He felt the metallic taste of worry in his mouth.