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7:00 Am

Literal zombies get more sleep than I did last night.

I’m not going to lie, getting that text message completely freaked me out. I had been restless all night, and after an already unusually stressful day previous, I was completely racked when I woke up. I forced myself to sit up.

You promised Mom you’d go over there this morning. I reminded myself as I fought the urge to fall back into bed. I reached for the extra blanket I kept at the edge of the bed and wrapped it around myself while I looked around for my slippers. It was so cold. Why was it so cold?

I groaned, praying that my heater hadn’t died. My landlord was impossible to get ahold of on a good day. But on a weekend? Forget about it.

I got up and shuffled into the kitchen, but something just felt...wrong.

I stood for a moment, scanning for what was different.

Wallace.

He was usually up at the crack of dawn, meowing and pawing at me until I poured a small cup of kibbles into his little fish-shaped bowl. But now the room was silent, and he was nowhere to be found.

I shivered again.

The heater was a problem for later, right now I needed to find Wallace and try not to panic.

I felt a burst of cold air and looked up to find its origin. And there it was, the kitchen window. Wide open.

My stomach dropped.

There was no way I had left that window open the night before.

No. Way.

I rushed toward it and looked out, holding my breath and praying that Wallace hadn’t tried to jump out of the third-story window to go on the cat’s version of Eat, Pray, Love.

“Wallace!” I screamed out the window, unconcerned about awakening my neighbors.

Maybe he didn’t go out the window.

I scoured every inch of my six hundred square foot apartment with my breath held tight, hoping to find him in some hard-to-get-to hiding place. My eyes started to well up with tears and I angrily wiped them away.

He wasn’t here.

I grabbed my fraying puffy coat and pulled on my snow boots, determined to go and look for Wallace outside. It’s possible he could have survived that jump. I hoped.

And if he had, he couldn’t have possibly gotten very far.

I closed the kitchen window in case he was somehow still inside the apartment. I grabbed my phone and keys and pulled open the front door.

Meow.

A tiny voice said from the doorstep.

I gasped. There, sitting on the doormat, was Wallace.

I picked him up, holding back tears. “Wally, I was so worried about you.”

Then I paused and really looked at him. His normally fluffy fur was matted along his back, and he was wrapped in a soft, velvety green blanket. Weird.

I held him tight in my arms and brought both him and the blanket back inside the apartment.

For a moment I couldn’t think about how utterly strange this entire situation was, and just focused on getting Wallace warm and cleaned up. I furrowed my brow and put him in front of the heater vent, concerned about how long he had been exposed to the low winter temperatures outside.

I moved his little fluffy bed closer to him and the vent and he immediately curled up in it, starting to purr. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of him behaving normally.

I sat down on the floor next to him, leaning my body against the exposed brick wall, and stroked Wallace on the top of the head the way he liked. He chirped and pushed against my hand with his face. His way of asking for, or demanding, more pets. Just as I started to come down from my adrenaline rush I caught a glimpse of a dark mass crumbled by the front door in my peripheral vision.

The blanket.

In my rush to warm Wallace, I had completely forgotten about the blanket.

I picked it up and studied it. It was not mine, but it seemed...familiar somehow. Emerald green and made of what felt like velvet, it was an undeniably cozy blanket.

“Where did you get this?” I asked Wallace.

He blinked in response.

I knew I had seen this blanket before. It even felt familiar, as if I had curled up under it on the couch before. And then it hit me.

I had seen this blanket before. It lived on the back of a small brown couch.

At Emma’s house.

What the actual hell is going on?

I dropped the blanket and grabbed my phone, dialing Emma’s number by memory.

The phone rang once.

The phone rang twice.

The phone rang a third time.

*Beep* Hey it’s Emma… I can’t come to the phone right now because I’m busy – she chuckled – so leave me a message and I’ll call you back when I can.”

I hung up without leaving a message and dialed her girlfriend Nikki.

Nothing.

I left a voicemail for Nikki, asking her to please call me back and let me know everything was alright.

I hung up the phone and took a deep breath, trying to settle my shaking bones.

This has got to be some kind of prank.

I tried Em’s phone again.

And then Nikki’s once more.

I paced up and down my small living room as Wallace snored in his bed.

I could call the police. I frowned. And tell them what?

And then, my phone rang.