Gemotions

"I need some air," Mark mumbled, pushing himself away from the kitchen table. He’d barely touched his dinner. The DNA results had rendered him incapable of even the simplest tasks. He walked outside, the cool evening breeze doing little to soothe the burning sensation in his chest.

The familiar sights and sounds of his neighborhood, the barking of a dog, the distant music from a neighbor’s house, offered no comfort. He kicked a stone across the sidewalk, the sound echoing the emptiness inside him.

He thought of his parents, the people who had raised him, and the betrayal was a physical weight. The world seemed to shrink around him, leaving him alone in a vast, indifferent space.