It was a quiet Wednesday evening — the kind where nothing feels urgent. My orange tabby, Leo, was curled up in his usual spot on the windowsill. The streetlights cast a soft glow on his fur, and the low hum of the refrigerator filled the silence. To anyone else, it was just another ordinary night. But something felt off.
Leo had been acting a little strange lately. He wasn’t playing with his toys as much. He’d stopped sprinting through the hallway at 3 a.m. — a ritual that used to annoy and amuse me at the same time. His food bowl wasn’t as empty as it should’ve been, and I had noticed he wasn’t visiting his water bowl very often.
Still, I brushed it off. “Maybe he’s just tired,” I told myself. “Cats go through phases.”
That’s when I heard it — a sound that pierced the calm like shattered glass.
A sudden, pained cry from the bathroom.
I rushed in to find Leo crouched in the litter box, his eyes wide with fear, his body trembling. He tried to move, but it was like he was frozen in place. His back legs quivered, and another heartbreaking yowl escaped from his throat.
My heart dropped.
Without thinking, I wrapped him in a towel and drove straight to the 24-hour emergency vet, my hands shaking the entire way.