Chapter 17

Something moved slowly through the void. It had long forgotten why it was moving, what it was searching for, but there was nothing else to do in the void. So it moved forward.

Hunger was a constant, an acquaintance that never left. He named it Steve. It had stayed with him throughout his journey, unlike Red.

I shouldn't have hit her like that, now she's gone. Maybe she'll forgive me when I find her again. Yes, she'll definitely forgive me.

A rare smile attempted to cross the entity's face, as he continued on his journey, before clutching its head and screaming.

"NO!"

"NOO!"

"Don't forget, your name is Lang Scranton, You're married to Anna. You're a scientist. I'm…"

"My name…"

"My…"

"What was I talking about again?"

"Probably about Steve. I don't like Steve much."

...

Without warning the entity stopped moving. This was the first time he'd stopped in years. Even while lucid, it would still move. What could possibly break that habit? It had smelled something.

Something it could eat.

So it did the one thing it did instinctually for years, it moved.

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Michael could feel the presence of the insurgents he'd infected. Apparently his dimensional traveling abilities worked for them as well. Which was a relief, because being able to bring expendable soldiers with him seems like a good idea.

Although, all five of the infected were scattered throughout the void. He could sense where they were and it wasn't far, but the strange thing was that he couldn't seem to get them to move in a straight line.

Well technically they we're walking straight towards Michael right now, but when he sensed their location it felt like they were moving in circles.

So this place isn't navigable. Good to know.

With nothing else to do, Michael sat down and began to idly think up new ideas for survival.

Maybe next time I should have one of the insurgents carry around a door or something so I have an escape hatch with me. I haven't gotten much use out of the key the manager gave me yet. I'm still pissed she kicked me out of her dimension last time, I almost died! Wait, I did die! That bitch owes me!

As Michael finished up his ranting, he felt one of his soldiers sense danger and quickly shifted his perception to that body.

It didn't take Michael long to find the issue.

"Holy fuck, what is that thing."

If someone was feeling generous, they could call it a corpse. Others would question how it moved at all. Organs, bone and flesh floated in the air, arranged roughly in the shape of a human body. However, every part was stretched out disgustingly far. Warped teeth floated in the air and formed a rough smile.

Michael immediately took control of his soldier's body and fired his rifle towards the creature. Bullets connected, blowing off chunks of flesh, but It didn't seem to care, as any piece blown off would simply float back towards the creature.

It stared at the insurgent, likely confused that it actually came across someone in this empty abyss. So Michael took the opportunity to chuck a grenade at it, sadly this caught its attention as it finally began to do something.

It didn't move exactly, it simply flickered from existence and reappeared in front of the insurgent without warning, violently tearing into its body.

Michael didn't have much time to respond, as the beast shoveled his flesh into its mouth. Michael was able to keep control of the body, despite the damage, and quickly came to a decision.

This thing is made of flesh, that's my domain. I can beat this. The power he'd obtained from the flesh that hates was instinctive in nature. If he felt he could do something, he probably could. So he began to shift the insurgents flesh into spores.

As the monster ate, spores dug into the exposed organs and flesh making up its body. Michael could feel the process working, albeit slowly. Apparently the infection speed wasn't near instantaneous whenever it wasn't his main body applying the disease.

Nevertheless, the creature was working under a clock. It would eventually be pulled into the hive mind of the flesh that hates. The only question was how long it would take.

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Off in a remote building, in an unknown town, under a secret name, sat a large table surrounded by strange people. The 05 council, the leaders of the foundation had gathered for a discussion.

The man at the head of the table spoke, "That concludes the topic of the sentient rubber duck that eats drywall. Moving onto the next topic at hand, SCP-507, also known as Michael Stevens and his recently accumulated strength."

A woman with dark purple skin laughed, "Isn't that the nerd who travels between dimensions? What's he done now?"

The man sighed, "Samantha, please read the dossiers before coming to these meetings. This is becoming a habit."

With that he continued, "As most of you are aware, 507 has gone through an alarming amount of changes in these last four months. The most recent one being his bonding with the flesh that hates during one of his dimensional shifts."

A blindfolded man spoke up, "And what do you suggest we do about this?"

He smiled, "I say we encourage the behavior. Every day we're adding more end of the world scenarios to our lists. Having something this powerful on our side is an asset we can't afford to lose."

Samantha laughed, "This coming from the guy who thought sending Able out on missions was a good idea."

He glared towards Samantha, "This and that are different. Able is unreasonable, this one is not. He simply wants to explore, we can easily accommodate this, no?"

"This is a bad idea."

He scoffed, "No, it's not. All in favor?"

The majority of hands in the room raised.

"Great, motion carried. Our next topic is over a chain of pizzerias with extremely violent sentient animatronics."

Samantha piped up, "Um, what was it with those again?"

The man sighed, this was going to be a long meeting.

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Three of the insurgents had died. The spores were doing their job, but it was taking far too long. This thing could move anywhere in this dimension almost instantly, and it ignored any conventional forms of damaging it. This didn't exactly give the spores much time to settle in.

Michael felt the fourth insurgent die, before releasing a large amount of spores into the entity as it was consumed.

Barely any time passed before the entity flickered through space, and stood before Michael.

This thing's anatomy was strange and unique. Too many parts of its body weren't connected, making the process of spreading the infection tricky. Some pieces of the creature had already gone through the infection process, while others had barely started.

It doesn't matter though, it should still be enough for what I have planned.

The monster's eyes locked onto Michael, but before it had time to act, fleshy wires violently shot out of the infected parts of its body and burrowed into the uninfected parts of the creature, before contacting in on themselves. It bound the creature tightly and spread the infection at an extremely heightened rate.

It rolled around on the ground, howling in pain as the wires burrowed. Screaming for someone named Red.

Moments later the infection process finished, and the monster was assimilated into the hivemind of the flesh that hates.

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Michael sifted through the monster's memories with distaste. This man had lived a sad life. He'd apparently been a genius, and used his intellect to create marvelous inventions to aid the foundation in protecting the world. He was one of their smartest members, and that's saying something. Sadly his most recent invention, the Scranton Reality Stabilizer had gotten him trapped in this empty world. He was alone here, with nothing but the blinking red light of the stabilizer to keep him company, and he eventually lost even that.

He couldn't even die, he had tried, and his hunger and thirst only got worse over time. It'd been thirty years since he'd been stranded here, and it took a toll on his mind and the dimension itself changed his body.

It's sad to see a good man brought low like this.

I want to help him.

No, I will help him.

Michael looked down upon the scientist with a sad smile, "You're in luck Scranton, you've managed to get caught by the best plastic surgeon in the world. I have an entire third of a planet as my reference page. We'll pump you with some amnestics later and you'll be fine...probably."

With that, Michael began to reshape the man's body back to normal. It never hurt to have a genius in your debt.