A man of madness they had often called him. A man so determined that he was willing to cut a man down if they stopped his dreams. Isabella never cared about his happiness. If she did, she wouldn't have complained about how he never paid attention to her. If she genuinely cared about him, she never would have broken it off. Some nights he could still see her auburn hair. Her golden hazel eyes still haunted his memories. Her sweet laughter that tickled his ears like honey. Like a song, the gods themselves would play to lull their love to sleep.

But now at night, her laughter would be directed towards him. She would call him a failure. Her words were like daggers to his heart. But none of that mattered now, he was on the brink of accomplishing all he had ever wanted.

The sweat glistened on his brow. Three long years he'd been working on this project of his. And after so many years he couldn't believe that he was actually almost done. Many could ask if it worth it? Was it truly worth everything he had sacrificed? Was losing his fiance and getting kicked out of MIT worth this useless machinery he had tinkered with for years? He had often asked himself that question time and time again, but he was willing to sacrifice whatever it took to achieve his dreams.

He pushed his golden blonde hair out of his eyes, he needed to focus. If he wasn't focused, he could have easily blown himself up. The other students had laughed at him for thinking it possible. But what they saw as the realm of possibility was only what they could see and understand, but he, he was a dreamer with determination and the will to act. They wanted to improve the processing power of a phone and accomplish their own selfish goal of fame and fortune. He could improve an entire world, a world humbled by vengeful gods who could only cause pain and suffering to the hidden world. A world unbeknownst to men but often controlled by them. He could teach this world to rise and create a great and powerful society. Where they would no longer have to fear others. A world filled with grace, equity, culture, and above all, humility. That was his dream, and he knew that he was the only one capable of doing such a thing.

He roamed around his garage, searching for what he needed, his eyes lingered past books of witches and wizards where his dreams were already a reality. He knew that tales of myth could not help him now, he needed science and reason.

"Come on, Gilderoy, get it together!" His hands slamming into his head, bumping into one of his favorite books. The Tale of Despereaux laid sprawled out across his dirty gray floor, He read a simple phrase from one passage of the book, "Say the word 'quest' out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope." Time and time again, the book had imparted its wisdom on him, and this time was no different. He needed to accomplish his quest for the good of the world.

He knew it could be done, it had been done before. But none had ever thought to be so bold as he, they had never tried to test it on themselves. Only years prior had they successfully gotten Xi eight to shrink. They refused to give him a name deeming him unworthy. An inhumane organization wanted to see if they could successfully make a normal sized guinea pig three inches tall. Tests would often lead to horrible disfigurement where the only thing was to put it down, or a horrific tragedy would befall the poor creatures too graphic for even them to describe.

He felt a sudden gust of wind as he heard a demonic howling enter the room. He jumped on top of his work station knocking over all sorts of plans and books. He had never been neat, especially when it came to what was important to him. While others saw a mess of paper and trash, he saw patterns. The most important paper would never be stacked on top, no. That's where it would get lost, he would put it at the very bottom of the pile, ensuring a strong gust of wind could never change its fate.

He couldn't believe his own stupidity. He was afraid it was a burglar or something of the sort. But, no instead, it had just been his cat. He cautiously approached the Havana brown cat, not knowing what kind of day it had been having. He knew that if it was a bad day, he could have easily lost an eye. He slowly bent down and reached his hand out towards the cat. It's stark green eyes studied his every move, it approached him and permitted that he could pet her. He laughed at himself, many would think it was weak to need a cat's permission to pet it but most who said it probably hadn't owned a cat.

"Oh Ophelia, you scared me," he whispered in her little ear. Ophelia was a torn woman between her heart and what her family believed pulled so much in two different directions. It drove her mad. To some, Ophelia was one of Shakespeare's greatest creations, and Gilderoy had to agree.

He had only owned Ophelia for half a year, but he loved her with all his might. It was nice to have someone in the house to talk to. He had been lonely for so long before Ophelia had come along, he wasn't much for social gatherings. Really he had only left the house to get the necessary amount of exposure to sun and people for one to survive. Ophelia was truly his greatest friend, and he could never have done anything to hurt her.

He decided to take a small break from tinkering with his machine so he could make sure that Ophelia had all the food and water she needed. Gilderoy walked out of his garage and into the kitchen where he stored everything Ophelia could possibly need or want. He loved to spoil Ophelia and treat her properly. He had even considered writing children's books for her, but he quickly dismissed the idea realizing how absurd he sounded.

After confirming that Ophelia had all the food and water, she needed, he decided that he needed to play with her a little so she could be mentally and physically simulated. He wanted to make sure that she had good reflexes. He pulled out a ball with bells in it, he had been warned that if he bought it would be his own personal hell if he left it out because Ophelia would play with it all night long. He rolled the ball across his carpeted flooring to attract her attention. Ophelia turned her head with her little tongue peeking out of her mouth, her face filled with shock. She pounced onto the ball, pushing it away from her. She chased after it a little more trying to capture it. But the ball was too large for her body. She attempted to sit on top of the ball, but it failed with her falling off the ball. It seemed that she became angry with the ball and turned away from it, unwilling to face it.

Gilderoy laughed at the silliness of the cat. He told her what good reflexes she had because she needed the encouragement. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, it was seven o'clock already? He had been up so early he was surprised that the time went by so quickly. He left the ball out knowing that Ophelia would forgive the ball within minutes after his departure.

As he was leaving his home, he stopped in the hallway by the door to look in the mirror. What he saw didn't look like him by any accounts. This man was frail, his skin so tight it looked like he was merely a walking skeleton. His eyes normally a vibrant blue had become a dim dying blue, almost grey. The bags underneath his eyes, consuming his face. The dark purple resembled a black eye, it contrasted greatly with his ghostly pale skin. The man in the mirror was not him. That was a dying man, and he, he was royalty.

As he parked in the designated parking employees were supposed to use -even though he was the only one who did- he started at the hell land that was his job. Sure, on the front it didn't look too bad, but the people were horrible. Not necessarily his coworkers more so the people who came there. He grabbed the kelly green vest that all employees were forced to wear. They didn't have a strict uniform code letting most people work in a t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Times had been trying for Gilderoy since Isabella had left. It had always been helpful to have someone else help pay rent. And his crushing debt from MIT hadn't helped. He had never even finished his first year before he was so kindly evicted. No one had wanted to hire him so he got work where he could and currently that was as a floor manager at a regional big box store, MegaStore.

He slid the vest on admiring the little pin that had been pinned on to his lapel. It was a grey robot with three red dots for eyes. It had a small yellow grid for a mouth and a ridiculous light bulb on top of his head. He knew most people found the pin to be stupid, but he couldn't help but smile at "Megabot" as they had so kindly named him. Megabot was the face of the entire company, the idea had been for him to be the first thing you think of when you think of MegaStore, but instead, he was rarely noticed by the customers. In the breakroom, they had always joked that the head of the company was close to getting a real robot named Megabot for every store so people would know about him. Of course, it would never happen, it wasn't like they could even afford it.

Their store was so poorly funded that it was basically a joke. The store barely had any air conditioning, and the summers in Mississippi were their own scorching hell. He was surprised no one had gone insane yet. He stopped as he thought about it, insanity due to heat. He wondered if it was a real thing, it probably was people had gone madder for worse reasons. The bathrooms rarely were fully stocked with toilet paper, the store couldn't afford to buy any. The water would flicker on and off, and when it was on, it was hardly more than a trickle. He could complain about the store all he wanted, but the pay was enough that he could survive. It may have been a lousy store, but he could eat, pay the bills, take care of Ophelia, and keep performing his experiments.

It had been a long day. A very long day. It didn't seem like a nine-hour shift. Hell, he was surprised there was still daylight outside. He got in his beat-up scarlet car and turned on the air conditioning. He just sat in the humid car and rested. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. He didn't even want to drive home, he just wanted to stay and relax. But, he knew he had to get home or else no one would make sure Ophelia was okay. He reversed his car and drove away.

He started to reflect on the chaos that had occurred at Megastore. It had all started with the woman and her pool floatie and the man with his rotisserie chicken. Gilderoy wasn't completely sure what had happened, but when he got on the scene, it was nasty. From what he had understood, the woman and her three children - who were all around the age of six - cut the man in line. This made him very angry, and he started yelling at her.

Gilderoy could hear the screaming from the produce section on the other side of the store. He prayed that he didn't have to deal with the screaming, but, of course, he did.

He shuffled to the cashiers and found the two and tried to calm them down. One of the children took a pool noodle his mother had and started to walk Gilderoy with it on the leg. This invited and inspired the other two children to cause more chaos by running away.

In all the chaos, the man started to eat his chicken, and the woman seemed to wear her alligator floatie as a hat. He could see beach balls being hit into the air and gliding down almost crashing into customers. He saw one of the women's children skating down the aisle cackling with glee. He almost couldn't believe this was real, it seemed like it was from some sort of fever dream.

"Um, ma'am. Your children are... well, they're destroying the store. Could you please control them."

"Excuse me?! It is none of your business what my children are doing."

"Well yes but ma'am they're disturbing other shoppers."

"They are just curious and creative, so mind your damn business."

Gilderoy did not get paid enough for this, "I would really rather you didn't speak to me like that, I am in charge of managing this floor, so I need you to-"

If there were any gods out there, they hated Gilderoy. They decided to escalate the situation by adding another woman to the situation. A woman brought the two children and asked if they belonged to anyone. The issues only escalated from there.

He sat in his driveway, preparing to get out. He would first ensure that Ophelia was fine then he would begin work on his project. He needed to be ready for next week. Next week would be his first test. If all went well, he would do four more trials, and then it would be his time. His time to achieve all he had ever wanted. He would finally be able to impart wisdom to the uncultured swine he would then rule. They would be thankful that he came. He would be their hero. No, he would be their god. In their history, they would speak of a holy man who came from the sky as an outsider only to unite them all. He would be remembered. He would matter.

A/N

I wanted to try something new with this book so all bold words in the story make out a message.

I'd also like to thank howto_ for this stellar cover. And I hope you enjoy this story because I know I'm having fun.