There were times late in the middle of the night where Gru wondered why he did what he did. Millions of people dead just because of his unsupportive mother. Yes, he wanted to go to the moon, to be an astronaut but at what cost?

Thinking about it now, what had blinded him to the consequences? Stealing the moon was irrational, stupid. It was a celestial body, a body responsible for natural processes the Earth needed. He adopted three children, three children he was fond of, yes to gain an upper hand against his bitter rival Vector. He should be thankful, then, to his ambition for introducing him to these three children that taught him to love, to care but the happiness he felt around them was always tainted with guilt. Guilt at the millions who died just so he could have this happiness.

And Vector. Poor Vector. His body was found orbiting the earth, cold and lifeless by workers in the ISS alongside one of Gru’s minions who was taken in under the government for experiments, his existence buried under mounds of red tape. Vector’s father, Mr. Perkins wanted Gru dead and if Gru was being honest, he agreed with him. After all, what better fate for a man who had killed millions without giving it a single ounce of thought.

It made Gru laugh sometimes how they had danced the night away after their victory over Vector as if nothing in the world mattered unbeknownst to Gru and his team the cataclysmic consequences of their actions. It was in the news the following day, Gru’s crime was broadcasted for everyone to see.

Around the world, volcanoes had erupted in places such as Hawaii murdering thousands. There were earthquakes in places such as Japan causing huge infrastructural damage and the deaths of millions due to the moon’s gravitational on the earth. Millions of species of fish went extinct and there were thousands of people who died in beaches around the world due to the disappearance of tides.

And unfortunately not even his neighbourhood was safe. In order to silence any witnesses, the Villains Organisation murdered almost Gru’s entire neighbourhood and replaced them with new neighbours. They bribed the police in order to keep him in the clear, after all his crime was celebrated by many of the higher ups in the organisation. He still remembered Mr. Perkins, whose venomous glare as some thugs dragged a corpse of one of his neighbours away. Luckily the kids were asleep during that night. Gru never knew his neighbours all that well but seeing whole families murdered in one night was too much for him to handle. Luckily one of his neighbours Fred had survived and even though Gru had previously despised him he was glad to see him alive and well, his identity a secret from the Villain Organisation.

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Marco, Edith and Agnes had watched it on the news. Agnes was too young to understand but Marco and Edith knew, knew their father was a mass murderer. Knew their father caused the homelessness and ripped away parents from young children making them orphans just like them. There was silence for a few days from Margo and Edith, silence that crushed Gru into an insignificant heap with its weight. However, Agnes, young Agnes was still as enthusiastic as before, looking at him with admiration and love that made Gru’s heart lurch. It came to a point where Gru wouldn’t mind if they left, left him alone and empty with annoying, banana loving creatures for company but they never left. One night, Margo and Agnes cuddled up with him, letting him know he was still loved, he was still cared about and despite his monstrous actions he was not seen as a monster. Gru thought it was some form of Stockholm syndrome, these kids were raised in a cruel orphanage and Gru was the only one who showed them love but time and time again they proved him wrong, proved that they still viewed himself as human. There were his three fireflies, providing light in the fog that the grief had left him in.

Despite all of this, despite all of the love he received Gru still felt the grief. Like droplets from a stalagmite they dripped slowly but surely onto his heart until it finally swallowed him whole. Nightmares plagued his nights, nightmares of dying children and dead fish floating in the sea.  The weight of his actions lay heavy on his shoulder and kept him up at night like an anvil on his heart.

Each night he was reminded of the words by the famous physicist Oppenheimer. Words that echoed in his minds blocking out any rational thought, forever and ever, Gru would be haunted by the words: I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

And that’s what he was. The man who stole the moon, the man that destroyed the world.