Gone

He woke up with a jolt, bolt upright in the bed, alone, too early, too quiet.
He listened for the usual sounds, nothing! Something is wrong, everything is wrong. A strange feeling of foreboding.

He jumped out of the bed, pulled on this track-suit bottoms and ran to check the other bedrooms. All empty.

His heart was thumping in his chest as he took the stairs three at a time.
Silence.
Through every room downstairs, all empty. Something was very wrong.
That's all that kept going round in his head, 'something is wrong', on a loop.

His phone. He found in on the bedside locker. Hers was the last number he had dialled, he hit the redial button, almost convinced there would be no answer.

'Hi hon', she said, 'how are you?'

'Is everything..... alright' he could barely speak, 'is everyone ok?'

'Of course, are you ok? Did something happen?'

Silence. The emotion was choking him.

'Are you still there? Can you hear me? I'm coming home', she said, 'I'll be there in 15 minutes'.

'No', he eventually got a word out. 'I'll be ok, it must have been a bad dream, stay at work. I thought you were all gone!'

'I thought I was all alone.'