Phoenix, Arizona - When Mark stood in the kitchen and looked around for his cat Lucky, his heart sank. Had his kitty just lost a leg?

Lucky indeed!

Mark was about to take his cat to the emergency vet when, on closer inspection, he realized the bizarre truth of the matter.

"I was standing in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and Lucky had been playing with a dog toy," Mark told Newsweek.

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"At some point, I turned my head and saw Lucky lying on the floor with his leg tucked under himself, and the dog toy right in front of his leg."

From Mark's casual glance, it looked like his kitten's leg had fallen clean off!

"After looking closer and realizing what was really going on, I took a photo to share with my wife and kids," the pet owner said. "We all had a good laugh."

To capture the optical illusion for posterity, Mark took a photo of Lucky and shared it on Reddit.

The post went viral and received almost 30,000 views with most users seeing exactly what Mark saw at first glance.

"Seriously I had to take a second look," wrote one commenter, while another said, "That's one way to make your heart skip a beat."

"You must be amazingly calm, he would have run away from me when I screamed at the top of my lungs," added another Reddit user.