A child’s voice rang out across the room “Cousin Johnny, can I go next?”

Michael looked in the child’s direction and immediately took a step back.

A large gathering of people were inside what looked to be a single roomed church. However, the concerning thing was the human sized cicada standing out in front of a coffin.

It continuously made screeching cicada-like noises that the other guests seemed to understand perfectly, but all it did for Michal was slightly hurt his ears.

Does this world have Cicada’s running funerals? Weird, but who am I to judge, I guess.

The cicada continued to ramble, as a well dressed man walked up to the casket and pulled a ritualistic knife out from within, before holding it to his throat.

Wait a minute.

The man slit his throat, allowing blood to flow freely down into the coffin. However, despite losing so much blood, he didn’t die and simply continued talking to the cicada. A bright smile on his face.

Is...is this normal for them?

Michael continued to think as several children began to make their way up towards the coffin. They skipped and smiled, before reaching into the casket and each grabbing a knife.

Michael didn’t wait to see what was going to unfold. He rushed towards the children and pulled the knives from their hands. He wasn’t about to watch two kids slit their throats in front of him. It’d be bad for the old psyche.

Michal tapped the man on the forehead, infecting him and healing his slit throat in an instant, before turning to the people in the church.

“What in the fuck are y’all doing?”

Now that he saw what was going on, Michael had some hunches about where he was. He’d made a point of attempting to memorize all the SCP files he had access to, and the ritual suicide over a coffin definitely rang a few bells.

The only difference from what he remembered is that in this anomaly, the giant cicada, is supposed to look human. Worse yet, this is a funeral, meaning I should have been swept up into the anomaly. If that had happened, I’d be one of the people slitting their throats above a coffin.

Michael grinned, “Well good thing I showed up, you people were about to have a pretty bad day...and life. Considering the aftereffects of this thing.”

Michael snapped his finger, and one of the infected in the back raised their rifle and shot the cicada in its head.

It immediately crumpled to the ground, very much dead.

Seconds later the Cicada’s body disappeared and reappeared sitting in a pew, perfectly healthy.

It released a long screech, before more people began to walk up to the casket.

“So that’s how we're going to play this huh?”

Michael’s soldiers immediately opened fire on the Cicada, who would simply reappear each time it died.

While this continued, Michael walked around to each person in the room and tapped them once on the forehead. Immediately they stopped their approach towards the casket as the flesh that hates took over their bodies.

Michael then gave them a simple order, “Leave the building.”

Moments later, the only people left were Michael, his soldiers, the Cicada, and Shy Guy.

He didn’t try to infect the Cicada for the same reason he didn’t infect Shy Guy. He didn’t know what would happen.

Also the foundation would be absolutely pissed if he infected Shy Guy back and brought him back with him.

Regardless, he chose to learn from the original flesh that hate's' mistake. Don’t bring random anomalies into the hive mind. It’s just asking for trouble. I mean, it got him killed, didn't it?

The only reason he’d brought in Scranton was a lack of forethought and options at the time, but for now he’d just continue doing what worked.

So he kept killing the bug.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Michael continued the target practice for roughly twenty seconds before something he’d been worrying about finally happened.

The Shy Guy stood up, his ever present crying ceased for the moment, as it began to walk towards the coffin.

Glancing towards the Cicada, Michael could almost swear it was smiling.

“Goddamnit, why does everything have to be difficult.”

Michael ordered one of his soldiers to drag the Cicada away from the church. Maybe the whole hypnosis thing would stop once enough distance was made.

In the meantime, Michael decided to slow the Shy Guy’s progress towards the casket. He knew he could ignore the monster and leave the building if he wanted to, but what would happen when the ritual was done to something like the Shy Guy.

He didn’t know, but one thing he couldn’t allow was people needlessly dying because of something he'd caused.

Two of Michael’s soldiers clung to the Shy Guy, wrapping their arms around him as they began shifting their flesh. Their bodies rooted into the ground and wrapped around the monster tightly, as Michael clicked his tongue in annoyance.

The Cicada was back in the pews. Once the soldier had gotten far enough away from the church it simply teleported from his arms.

Although every time it came back, it seemed to reappear in the pews. Maybe I should just destroy them?

His soldiers began to wreck the church, as the Shy Guy ripped the flesh holding it in place as it single mindedly moved towards the casket.

The Cicada continued to die and reappear, when Michael had an idea. He rushed past the Shy Guy and pulled out his crowbar. He stood above the casket, looking down at the poor guy who’s funeral was definitely ruined.

“Sorry mate.”

Michael swung the crowbar down upon the coffin once, and then again, and again. Not ten seconds passed before the coffin and body within we’re in pieces on the floor.

Immediately the Cicada released an ear shattering screech so loud that Michael temporarily disconnected the hearing in his ears.

After the screeching had stopped, the Shy Guy once again stood still and the Cicada had disappeared.

After a full minute of nothing more happening, Michael sighed in relief.

“Well this turned out well enough. I was a good couple seconds away from just collapsing the whole building.”

Michael shifted the two soldiers that slowed down the Shy Guy back into human forms, when he suddenly felt his connection to the soldier he’d sent outside get severed.

There was no warning, it was simply running its way back to the church and then dropped dead.

He had a hunch who'd done it though, the foundation tried very, very hard to be at each one of these events, and they have a general disliking for the flesh that hates.

Concerningly enough, there's also a precedent for foundations to kill and dissect any Tommys that happen to shift to their dimensions. As I am technically Tommy, I don’t support this behavior.

“Why can't it ever be easy."

Michael quickly released his control over the humans he’d evacuated, he didn’t want them getting needlessly killed.

He then regrouped his soldiers and had them take up strategic positions throughout the building, and shifted three of them into a form capable of digging an escape tunnel before setting them off to work.

I guess I should try to negotiate first. I’d probably would’ve killed that soldier too if I didn’t know what it was. They’ll probably hang back after a show of force.

Michael went over to one of his soldiers and shifted around several parts of its body until he got his desired result.

He then took over the body and walked in towards the front door and took a deep breath before yelling with the volume of a concert speaker.

“ATTENTION EVERYBODY!”

“I understand why you killed one of my soldiers! I get it, I really do, but if you continue to attack me and my men, I will kill every foundation member in a two mile radius! Well that’s about it, anyways hugs and kisses, love SCP-507!”