The young boy looked down upon Michael’s corpse, broken and battered as it was. The human had been smart, strong and quite honestly entertaining. The most surprising thing however, was that his soul was still inside his corpse despite him clearly being dead. Or more accurately, his soul was still inside that crown. 

That was beyond abnormal. Souls are fickle things, if their vessel is too heavily damaged they tend to abandon it and flee to whichever afterlife has stake in them. To disregard this rule is quite interesting. 

“Yes, I have some questions for this one, a conversation is in order!” 

With less than a thought the flesh surrounding Michaels corpse began to churn as it straightened him up and roughly pushed his broken limbs back into place. However, to the boy's surprise the infection wasn’t taking hold. 

“How curious.” 

The boy examined Michael’s body until he found a likely culprit. A jade ring was donned upon the corpse’s finger, and it was clearly rejecting his presence. 

He reached down and pulled the ring from Michael’s finger before tossing it aside.

It was an interesting tool, but nothing he cared for.

Michael’s skin immediately began to show signs of infection, and with the boy's help shifted and fixed itself into a livable state. Seconds later Michael gasped out a breath and went into a coughing fit.

The boy smiled, “Oh, it seems you’re finally awake. It’s nice to have company every once in a while, though falling asleep like that is quite rude you know?”

Michael looked around wildly, the flare still burning off to the side gave him a clear view of the boy and the eyes watching from within the walls. 

Hesitantly, Michael spoke. “I honestly thought I was going to die, so I guess I should thank you for saving me, but who are you exactly?”

“Well I have several names, but the one your foundation gave me quite honestly suits my taste the most. You can call me the flesh that hates.”

Michael sighed, “Yeah, that would have been my first guess.”

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Michael looked down toward the tendrils of flesh holding his legs and arms in place. He could see signs of infection on his skin, and it was spreading insanely fast.

“God, this whole situation is fucked.”

“Ha, I bet it is.”

The boy leaned in towards Michael, “So how did you get into my territory without me noticing anyways?”

Michael scoffed, “Why would I tell you that?”

“Well I mean, I could torture you.”

…

“Alright, you’ve convinced me. I’m a dimension hopper, and I just kinda ended up here.”

“By random chance? Well that’s boring. What about this mace of yours?”

The boy smugly lifted the weapon before swinging it into a nearby wall causing a deafening explosion to echo out. Large fractures appeared alongside a deep indent in the flesh covered wall that quickly began to regenerate. 

“Did you know this weapon works by feeding it the residual energy your soul produces? Typically, its strength would be miniscule, something barely noticeable. Do you know why it’s so much more powerful in our hands?”

“Nope, but I don't like what you're implying.”

He laughed, “No one ever does. You’ve been feeding it complete souls, each swing of this weapon was fed by a life, or two.”

Michael didn’t respond, so the boy continued.

“I am fully capable of this, as the souls of the people I’ve melded with are now part of my domain, but what about you? How do you manage it?”

Michael continued to remain silent.

“Oh, let me guess? You don't even know, do you?”

The boy broke out into laughter. You destroyed the very existence of so many people, denying them an afterlife without even knowing it? Ha, and they called me a monster.”

The boy slowly stopped laughing and looked back towards Michael.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to respond. Not that you could if you wanted to, I can tell that the disease has spread to your throat.”

“You shouldn’t worry though, the flesh will take you just like all the others. You’ll die and I’ll take over your body, then I can simply take my time reading your memories like a book. We’ll be one entity, doesn’t that sound interesting?”

“Oh, let me guess? You want to know why I even bothered talking to you when I’d just find out all the information eventually anyways?”

Michael stared toward him blankly, he honestly wasn’t paying much attention to the monologue anymore. 

“It was simply a passing urge, just like making this whole world mine. Oh, the flesh is almost done changing you.”

The boy clapped his hands together, “You know what, let's do a countdown!”

“10…”

“9…”

“8…”

…

…

“2...”

“1...”

"Ah, you look much better now."

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The flesh that hates immediately felt the connection to Michael’s body form. It took only seconds for the somewhat interesting man to be pulled into the hivemind of flesh.

Simply another drop in the bucket of his consciousness, he felt Michael’s body perish as he assumed complete control over it. 

…

Something violent abruptly ripped upon the boy’s soul.

He fell to the ground, coughing up blood. What in the hell, what could have even done that? His eyes darted throughout his surroundings, quickly finding a likely culprit. The scarlet crown sat atop the man’s head was glowing an incredibly bright red.

He’d assumed that the crown simply stored souls and used them to enhance the users body, but apparently it had other purposes. The body had been assimilated, so he technically was currently wearing the crown right now. He hadn’t put much thought into how it would affect him. 

He quickly decided to cut Michael from the hive mind, thousands of minds being used to come to that decision within fractions of a second. 

It didn’t matter however, as before he could do anything he felt the control over his body slip as the crown fed upon his soul.

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When Michael awoke he felt different. Like really different. Looking around he could see that he was still sitting at the bottom of the pit, but he could feel the flesh around him. It was weird, like his perception had spread all throughout the planet. He could feel it covering the surface of the world and buried deep within the earth, he could even feel the spores blowing in the wind. 

I think I understand what happened. That dumbass really shouldn’t have tried wearing the body stealing crown.

Michael looked down towards his body and was instantly disgusted, it looked like he was covered in melting flesh, but not long after the disgust took hold his body began to change and shift back into its usual form. 

Huh, neat.

Michael tried to stand up and the flesh that had been holding him in place easily made way for him. He instinctively knew how to use his new abilities, and a sense of disgust for just how messed up the flesh that hates had made this world. He could see and feel everything it had done and it made Michael slightly nauseous. 

Maybe I can fix this? 

Michael immediately sat down and closed his eyes. He focused on the infected beings of this world and came to a conclusion. 

I can save these people. It’ll be tiresome, but I’d feel pretty bad if I just left them like this. 

Michael focused and used the billions of minds connected to the hivemind in order to begin reshaping people’s bodies.

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By the time he’d felt that familiar sense of weightlessness, he’d managed to revert roughly a third of the infected people back into humans, and before the transport could finish he killed every other being in the hivemind and nullified the effects of the spores.

He’d done all he could. Humans are tenacious creatures, they should be fine. 

Many, many souls got pulled into the crown in the process, but there wasn’t much Michael could do about that. He couldn’t really leave the meat boys walking around if he wanted humanity to actually have a chance to recover. Besides, what if they got transported back with him. That would be a disaster.

With everything done, Michael was unceremoniously pulled back into his dimension as space shifted around him.

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When the shift had ended, Michael found himself standing alone in a wooded area. He could faintly hear the sound of cars driving, so he was probably close to some roadway. 

Michael leaned back against a tree. Whatever, I guess I’ll just wait for the foundation to come pick me up. I should get them to install steam on my laptop for times like this. I miss my games.

Suddenly Michael heard the sound of walkie talkie chatter not to far from him. It was soft, likely something a normal human wouldn’t have heard. Good thing I’m not one of those. 

He heard a rough voice speak into the walkie talkie. “The target has been spotted, permission to engage?”

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AN: If y’all are enjoying the story, I’d appreciate it if you left a rating. They give me dopamine. Other than that, thanks for reading!