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Empty chairs. Empty table. No one was sat in the dinning area except him.
The steaming white rice sat untouched at the center of the table, the bowls for the chicken and vegetables beside it. The food has been long cold.
He sighed.
Pushing his chair away from the head table, he stood up to find people to join him for dinner. He went straight upstairs.
The last room at his right was locked. Loud noise of scratching and screaming and weird sounds could be heard coming from it though. He could smell...smoke? He knocked.
"Thirdy." There was no response, and if as if it was possible, the noise only got louder. He knocked again, twisting the doorknob, trying to open it. "Thirdy, pakihinaan ang speakers. May sinusunog ka ba dyan? Baba na, hapunan na."
Impossibly louder noise. He sighed.
He tried the room opposite it. Locked. He knocked.
"Tin, kain na." There was still no response. "'Nak? Celestine Athena, sabi ko kain na." He knocked louder, just in case his daughter was asleep. Nothing.
He was going nowhere.
He knocked on her door for the last time. "May pagkain sa ibaba kapag gutom ka na."
He went back to his first born's door turned the locked doorknob to no avail. "Thirdy, ikaw din. Bumaba ka lang kung gutom ka na."
He sighed.
Head bowed low and appetite gone, he made his way to the first room near the stairs opposite the master's bedroom. A nursery.
The nursery was his third child—Siegfried—'s room. A crib, with a blue comforter and small white pillows in it, was at the center of the room. Drawers of baby clothes, robes and towels, and cabinets of toys and baby books were pushed back by the azure walls of the room. A white rocking chair was at the right by the windows, overlooking the dead garden.
"Ayaw akong samahang kumain ng mga anak mo, Mahal," he started, looking at her face, tracing her features. "Matagal na rin noong huling magkakasabay tayong kumain. Kausapin mo nga."
Silence.
He put her picture down on the side table where he picked it from. Slumping on the rocking chair, he let go of the breath he has been unknowingly holding. Tears fell from his eyes.
"Hindi ako iyakin," he quickly admonished as if his wife's photo was laughing at him for being a crybaby. He rubbed his eyes and tried to dry his cheeks. "Hindi ako iyakin."
