The Descent into Panic
Panic didn’t just hit me; it consumed me, vibrating through my bones like an electric shock. I didn’t even stop to put on a coat before I was out in the yard, my breath hitching in the freezing air. I spent the following days in a frantic, disjointed blur of activity. I shouted his name into the biting winter wind, calling out to the empty woods and the silent streets until my throat was raw and my voice was nothing more than a raspy whisper.
I became a ghost haunting my own neighborhood. I plastered every telephone pole and mailbox with flyers, my hands shaking as I taped his amber-eyed face to the cold wood. I visited every local shelter, walking past row after row of barking dogs and meowing cats, my heart breaking anew every time I realized none of them were him. I sat on the porch for hours, long after the sun had dipped below the horizon, watching the shadows for a flash of black fur that never appeared. My fingers went numb, my toes lost feeling, but I couldn’t bring myself to go back inside to a house that now felt like a tomb.
