Gemotions

The antique clock chimed noon, a sound that always meant lunch with Professor Eldridge. Or, it *had* meant lunch. Now, the echoing bong just fueled the simmering heat in Elara's chest. She found the empty office, the desk stripped bare save for a dusty photo of Eldridge, younger, holding a cryptic manuscript. A Post-it note, hastily scrawled, read: “Gone fishing. You’ll be fine.” Fine? After all the years, all the painstaking research, all the *secrets* they’d shared? Elara slammed the door, the flimsy wood rattling in its frame. She crumpled the note in her fist, her knuckles white, and headed straight for the library’s restricted section, a place Eldridge had always forbidden her to enter alone.