Gemotions

The email sat in Amelia's inbox, bold and accusatory. *Subject: Regarding Your Father.* A coldness bloomed in her chest, a physical tightening that made it hard to breathe. Her fingers fumbled as she clicked it open, the cursor trembling on the screen. The lawyer's message was brief: a name, a city, and a DNA test result. Half-sibling. She felt a sudden, desperate urge to hide, to vanish into the folds of her floral armchair and become invisible.

Her reflection in the darkened computer screen stared back, a stranger with wide, vulnerable eyes. What did this *mean*? She gripped the edge of her desk, knuckles white, and imagined her father, a man she thought she knew, with secrets she never suspected. Her own history seemed to be cracking before her, crumbling at the edges.

A wave of nausea washed over her. She stood, pushing away from her desk, the chair scraping sharply against the hardwood floor. She needed air, needed distance from this… this thing that was rearranging the very foundations of her life. She grabbed her coat and practically bolted for the front door, the digital world suddenly feeling suffocating.