Our Runaway

This morning when Guy and I woke up...there seemed to be something different in the house. The lump at the foot of the bed wasn't there, and the friendly "Good morning!" meows we get everyday could not be heard. Dexter wasn't there!
We looked through the ENTIRE apartment and in all his usual spots- NO Dexter. This was when we started to panic.
We walked around the yard, front and back- NO Dexter. Guy had to leave for work so I was left to continue the search all by myself while trying to not have a full on panic attack.
Dexter is our baby. We love him. He is an irreplaceable member of the Sundwall family. Needless to say I was really scared and had all of the worst-case scenarios running through my mind.
I set some food outside our door for him and took off on foot. I walked around our entire block shaking his treat can and calling to him. NO Dexter.
I made some Missing Cat listings and put them up online. Frantically called some sleepy friends to enlist them in the search (this was still all before 9 am). And I set out walking again. This time I only made it two houses away when I see the most adorable orange face peeking out at me from a stairwell! DEXTER! He recognized me and just walked all casually over to me like it was no big deal. I scooped that baby up and took him right home.
I am just so grateful that I was able to find him, and find him safe, and relatively quickly. We don't know how he got out, but we think it was sometime in our coming/going last night.
Needless to say I am going to be keeping a very close eye on this little runaway.