Gemotions

He’d almost wept when he read the email. His scholarship, the one that meant the difference between staying at university and returning to a dead-end job, was revoked. A clerical error, they said. It should have gone to… Liam stared at the name, a stranger, a rival from his high school.

The next time he saw Liam, in the university cafeteria, Mark's blood simmered. He smiled, a thin, unsettling line. “Hey, Liam,” he said, his voice deceptively pleasant. “Fancy seeing you here. Long time.”

He started small. A whisper to the right professor about Liam's late nights. A strategic bump in the hallway, sending Liam's expensive laptop tumbling. Every slight, every inconvenience felt like a victory, a small repayment for the injustice. The anger fueled him, an icy fire in his core.