Gemotions

The laptop screen glared, reflecting Sarah’s face back at her – a face pinched with a familiar tension. The listing for 34 Oak Street. Photos of her childhood home, digitally enhanced to within an inch of their life, mocked her. The manicured lawn, the freshly painted porch swing. It all looked… foreign.

Her fingers trembled as she clicked through the virtual tour. Each room, each angle, triggered a fresh wave of… something. Her breath hitched. She slammed the laptop shut with a sudden, sharp thud, then immediately regretted it. The silence in her tiny apartment felt suffocating.

She grabbed her keys and fled, needing air. The city streets, normally a comfort, felt aggressively bright, the horns and sirens a cacophony against the quiet ache in her chest.