Knocking On Despair’s Door

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Loud knocking voices came causing her to run to open the door. And as she did,

"You are home already?" she asked her husband standing at the door.

"I'll explain later but where's Grimma?" He asked her in a panic and it caused her to step back a little as she pointed at Grimma's room.

He ran to the room and knocked on the door. "Grimma! Open the door!" he yelled. However, there came no response. "Grimma! It's me, open the door!" He yelled again. But still, no response came.

"Hah! Hah! Hah!" Trevor who had also reached the house in a hurry was panting while standing outside as he looked at his group's leader knocking on the door in a panic. He looked at the woman looking nervous because of the tenseness of her husband's face. The two knew each other, but neither had the mindset to politely exchange greetings. They both looked at the man knocking on the door repeatedly.

Soon, Grey and Jessica also reached there. On the other hand, the three children in the house aside from Grimma were also there. All of them were looking at the panicking man with face contorted in anger and terror.

"Open the door, damnit!" He just did not stop yelling as he stomped on the door that just won't open.

Having seen enough of it, Trevor said, "Stop it, boss!"

"Tsk!" The man clicked his tongue and turned to Trevor, "Stop it? What the hell do you mean by that!? Do you want me to give up on Grimma? Do you want me to let her become a rogue or something? Do you-"

"She isn't there." Trevor replied calmly.

"What!?"

"I can't sense her in this house. She isn't here." Even as she said that, Trevor kept her calm for the sake of the man in front of him who had lost all of it.

That man turned to his wife and she just shook her head in denial so as to say that she hadn't gone anywhere, not in front of her eyes at least. He then turned to the other three children and they said the same thing. They didn't know what had made their father so frustrated and were, for the first time, scared of the man who stood in front of them.

"Boss, her room's window is open!" Grey said as he ran back towards them from the part of their yard that the window was connected towards.

"But then, if she's not here, then … then …" his hands started to shake just thinking of what that would mean.

"…" Trevor was unable to say anything but he looked back at Grey and Jessica. The two nodded to him and came to calm their leader down, while Trevor started heading out.

"W-where?" the man questioned him but,

"Make sure to tell her everything too." Trevor said before he stepped out of their yard.

"Hey Trevor, where are you going?" the man questioned, finding himself frustrated again.

"I'm going to Remedy, where your daughter would have gone." He said with a seemingly emotionless voice, "Once you stop being a dimwit and return to being the leader of this group again, come there."

He said and left.

*****

He was the hot-head of the group. Despite that though, when I had lost my mind and my head had become hot, he was the one with the calmness needed in the situation. And with that calmness, he made the decision that going to save Grimma, even if alone, was the best thing to do. He made that decision for my sake, or so I would like to believe. In any case, he didn't stop for a moment as he went on a mission that was pretty much a suicide if done alone.

*****

"Magic? Mage-craft? Are you really serious about all this?" the woman asked as Jessica told her everything. Jessica nodded. "I hope you can forgive him for keeping this all a secret from you for this whole time but, he had no other choice. This world of magic is a dangerous one and he didn't want to drag you into it."

Jessica tried her best to come up with the best words for the situation, but the woman, being who she was, already understood all that and didn't needed it to be spelled out for her.

"So, you mean to say Grimma is in danger right now?" She asked with nervous clear on her face.

"Y-yes! If she has indeed gone to Remedy Corporation in an attempt to destroy them and stop all this, then she would indeed be in danger right now." Jessica said and saw the expression on the woman's face growing even more nervous, so she immediately said, "But don't worry! Trevor is a jerk but he's a total badass too. He'll bring Grimma back safe and sound without any problems."

She tried to put up a cheerful smile to make the woman feel at ease. But, courtesy of being so cheerful all the time was that a fake expression of being cheerful was easy to detect on her face. And so, the woman only grew more anxious.

Jessica, seeing that, couldn't help but feel bad and looked at Grey who was trying to make their leader regain his cool. But, his results weren't much different from her either.

"Come on, boss, you have got to pull yourself together now." Grey said in an attempt to bring some moral back on his face but,

"It's no use, damnit! Even if we four combine our strength, we can cause massive damage to Remedy Corp. but we can't take them out." He said with his hands on his head and his face contorted in despair.

"SO, are you going to let your daughter die?" Grey tried to chide him but,

"If I go after them, they will come after the rest of my family." He said, no, yelled. "Of course I don't want anything to happen to Grimma, but how can I make the sacrifice of everyone else for her? That's just too cruel."

"Tsk!" Grey clicked his tongue but couldn't say anything in return. Even the two women listening to it couldn't think of anything. Jason, who had been listening to the whole conversation, couldn't say anything either. Kylie and Irium, who were also there just stood behind Jason silently.

"It's over. Everything is over." The man said as he scratched at his own hide to give himself some sort of pain, some sort of punishment, anything he could label as his repentance. But,

"Dad!" the cutest voice in the house called out to him. The man turned to that voice, and he heard, "Where's Grimma sis?"

Jason tried to stop him but his mother stopped him from doing so. And so, the smallest person in the house continued, "Whenever there's a problem, sis solves it for me. So, whatever you are worried about, I'm sure sis will solve it too."

So he said, paining the broken heart of his dad ever so more.

"So, you just have to tell her about the problem and then she'll solve it and everything will be fine." He wasn't wrong. Grimma would find a solution to all of the problems this household ever ran into. He wasn't wrong, not at all. And so, "But, where is she?"

Those words pained more than they would have other-wise.

"Tsk!" the man clicked his tongue and got up.

"Boss-" Grey was cut-off by him as he said,

"Make sure these four remain safe!" He said and then turned to his youngest child, Irium, and said as he hugged him, "I'll bring your sis back, okay?"

At that moment, that man had considered the chances of him returning to be near zero. Yet, for some reason, he had gained a will to fight.

*****