CODENAME: A.D.A

Chapter 33

"You look tired" Zoe said to Pius as she sat beside him on the couch.

Pius took a good look at the living room for the first time since he came back. A smile crept on his face when he saw his framed picture on the table. Thinking about it now, he couldn't remember the last time he smiled.

"When did you get my photo framed?'' he asked.

"About a year after you went missing. It was almost as if you didn't exist so I needed something to remind me that you were real. It was as if you vanished into thin air or you were a memory that I imagined"

"Literally"

It was true. He literally vanished into thin air.

The air was tense and filled with unspoken words. Ever since Pius came back, he had been mute.

Luckily for him, Zoandra hadn't changed her number so he was able to call her. He had been in the house for four days now yet he still refused to speak. Zoandra didn't want to push it but it bothered her. Only God knows what he had gone through in the last ten years. He was supposed to be forty-two by now but he looked sixty, as if he had aged an extra twenty years. Something probably went wrong with the stopwatch again.

Anyway, that was the last of her worries. He was still the most handsome man she had ever met.

"Where did you go today?'' she asked him.

When she came back from work earlier, she noticed he was gone.

"I went to a place I once knew as home"

"You did what?"

"I had to see Adaeze. I just had to see her, even if it was from a distance. Unfortunately, she wasn't home"

His eyes looked empty. They were filled with grief and heartbreak, a heartbreak he could do nothing about. He'd been staring at the wall for hours. She knew he was lost in thought.

"How did you even get in without security noticing you?"

"We have a secret escape passage. I used it to get in"

"Oh"

He still stared into thin air.

"What's wrong, Pius?"

She went closer to him and massaged the beard he had grown over the years "Talk to me, please"

He closed his eyes and let the tears drop freely as he recalled what he had previously witnessed.

*flashback*

Pius had successfully entered the house without alarming anyone. He thought the door would be locked but to his surprise, it was open. The sweet familiar smell of vanilla hit him when he entered. Things hadn't changed after all. Vanilla was his wife's favourite scent. He inhaled it deeply and sighed.

He paused for a while in the living room to look at the portraits.

His wedding photo with his wife still hung on the same spot where it was ten years ago. He looked to his right and saw what looked like a recent portrait of Adaeze. He gasped in astonishment.

She had grown up so much. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. He went closer so he was able to trace the picture with his hands, looking at it in admiration. He took a look around the room, nothing had changed. They still had the same red couches that he picked out over the years but he noticed the dining table now had only two chairs.

It felt as if he left the house just yesterday.

His first thought was to show himself to his wife. Oh, how he had missed her. He thought about this moment every day. How would she react when she sees him? Will she run into his arms? Would she be stunned, unsure of what to do? Well, there's only one way to find out.