Gemotions

The world had tilted on its axis. The genetic report, meant for another patient, detailed a predisposition to early-onset Alzheimer's. He was holding it. He was supposed to be reading about a vitamin deficiency. A shiver ran down his spine, leaving goosebumps in its wake. The diagnosis felt like a sentence, a foretelling of his own slow fade.

He gripped the edges of the paper, his knuckles white. The sterile smell of the waiting room, normally innocuous, now felt like the scent of decay. His breath hitched in his throat. He looked around wildly at the other patients, their faces etched with their own anxieties, and felt a profound sense of isolation.

He wanted to scream, to lash out, to somehow reverse the information that had irreversibly altered his view of the future. He felt completely undone.