Gemotions

The nurse's apology felt distant, meaningless, a polite formality in the face of her burgeoning panic. "There seems to have been an error," the nurse had said, her voice flat. But her heart was a drum, a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She was adrift, lost at sea.

She clutched the offending paperwork. Her hands were ice, and it was getting hard to maintain a steady visual perspective. The medical jargon swam before her eyes. It was a foreign language, but the meaning hit her like a physical blow. The room twisted, the familiar scent of antiseptic taking on an acrid tang.

She felt a desperate need to flee, to erase what she had seen. But where could she go? How could she escape the impending reality? The floor tilted beneath her feet.