Gemotions

He’d almost missed the notification; a fleeting glance at his feed, a quick scroll. Then, the name – “Elias Thorne” – beneath his article’s title. Liam felt a pressure building behind his eyes, a tightness in his chest that made each breath shallow. His fingers fumbled with his phone, dropping it onto the wooden floor. The impact echoed unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet of his apartment.

He knelt to retrieve it, but the movement was slow, deliberate. Picking up the phone, he stared at the screen, the curated happiness of his friends' posts a stark contrast to his own reality. He felt a wave of dizziness, and had to grip the edge of the sofa to steady himself. This was a violation, a theft of his intellectual property, yet the thought of a confrontation filled him with a bone-deep reluctance.

Liam went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, his hands shaking so violently he almost dropped the glass. He barely registered the cool liquid as it slid down his throat. The words "intellectual property" echoed in his mind, but were instantly overridden by the feeling of being utterly invisible.