Gemotions

Liam ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing on end. He couldn’t sit still, pacing the small confines of the waiting area. His stomach churned with a churning anxiety. The chairs were too hard, the magazines unreadable. He felt trapped.

He kept replaying the doctor’s words: “Unique… unprecedented… potentially life-threatening.” The implications were a suffocating weight on his chest. He felt a deep unease, the kind that made him want to run.

He noticed a young man sitting by the window, his head in his hands. He took a tentative step towards him.

"You… you too?" he asked. The other man looked up, his face a mask of similar despair.