Chapter 36 Teeth: 01010101……

Chapter 36 Teeth: 01010101……

That was one seriously weird video.

Right at the start of the video, there was a continuous shot moving forward along a circular passage. The passage was red at the bottom, and the walls were lined with white bricks that bulged outward. The camera advanced in a first-person perspective; you couldn't see whoever was walking, just the low, jumbled murmurs in the background and the sticky, dragging sound of footsteps.

Don't look, don't look...

Everly kept telling herself not to look, but the images on the screen were so simple and yet so aggressive, like a tightly woven net that snagged her gaze and wouldn't let go.

She couldn't help but keep watching.

The passage spiraled upward. Though the bricks on the ground were white, they actually appeared faintly yellow due to years of erosion, and each one looked slightly different upon closer inspection. As the journey progressed, similar but not identical images appeared countless times on the screen, accompanied by strange background noises and the white static of low image quality, which stirred a strong sense of irritation and discomfort in the viewer.

This went on for what felt like forever. Having her eyes forced open for so long left Everly's eyeballs bone dry, and she desperately wanted to blink, but the metal clips had her eyelids pinned wide open. No matter how hard she tried, all she could do was roll her eyes up and down—the more she rolled, the drier they got, and the drier they got, the more she rolled... When the pressure in her eyes kept building and her dread finally hit a breaking point, a burst of static hissed out, and a second of white flashed on the screen.

The white static flashed and was gone. When the image returned, Everly saw a bright white light at the end of the passage.

The exit was finally here!

Don't... don't look... don't look!

...But what would be outside the exit?

Caught up in curiosity and excitement, Everly forgot her earlier resistance. Her neck unconsciously craned forward as she stared at the screen, greedy and mesmerized.

One step, two steps, three steps... The person holding the camera finally crossed the stretch of white bricks and stopped at the exit. The circular passage lined with white bricks suddenly widened here, expanding into a large circular cavern. The floor of the cavern was covered with a thick red mat, somewhat like a carpet, but softer, damper, and more slippery. It squelched underfoot, like it was soaked in some kind of liquid. The mat was also coated in a thick layer of white, fuzzy gunk—damp, sticky, and pretty gross.

Beyond the mat, the entire inner wall of the cavern was dark red, with a texture somewhere between dirt and rock, damp and spongy. Its surface was densely covered with round bricks that were smooth on the outside and concave in the center. In terms of shape and color, these bricks resembled the white ones in the passage, but they were noticeably larger, and their sheer abundance was somewhat nauseating.

The person filming let out a rough gasp and muttered an incomprehensible term under his breath. Holding the camera, he walked step by step—at a painfully slow pace that annoyed Everly—across the mat and arrived at the exit.

Beyond the exit was a blinding white, obscuring everything.

At the edge of the exit stood two rows of towering, yellow-white boulders. The ones near the center were wider at the top and narrower at the bottom—trapezoidal, with thick bases and thinner tops. The inner faces had vertical grooves, and for some reason, their shapes looked weirdly familiar. The ones near the left and right ends, though, were squat and round, wide and bulbous, with hollows in the middle—like the white bricks from the passage blown up a million times.

So familiar, really so familiar... The shapes of these stones are so familiar...

Everly stared without blinking, still glued to the screen. The person holding the camera had reached the big trapezoid boulder in the middle and climbed over it, slow and struggling.

Then, out of nowhere, he started falling.

"Buzz buzz," the screen flickered again. When the image returned, the passage and the person holding the camera had vanished. The murmuring in the background suddenly grew louder, and before Everly appeared a yellow-white tooth. Its shape was incomplete, with blood and bits of flesh still clinging to the root, and it was tumbling out of someone's open mouth.

From slow to fast, it fell downward.

Falling, falling, falling...

Because of the speed, the background behind the falling tooth smeared into streaks of color. The thin ribbons of color twisted, coiled, and spun like rippling water. At times, they looked like grinning human faces with mouths stretched wide. The faces packed together, swallowing and merging into each other, until they became one giant, chaotic, multicolored mouth that filled the screen and gulped the tooth down.

When the eye-searing colors completely flooded the screen, the murmuring in the background abruptly ceased, and the entire room fell into an eerie silence. Everly sat there in a daze, staring blankly at the screen. Her mind felt like it was being sucked into a vortex, completely cut off from the outside world.

After a moment, a sharp "click!" rang out, the image jolted, and the mess of colors vanished from the screen, leaving Everly staring at a blank white.

In the blankness, the slightly yellow, blood-caked tooth from before was the center of it all again. It hit the ground, splattering like a drop of water, bursting into countless smaller white molars that clattered across the floor.

From here, the video went completely off the rails into something beyond human understanding.

One second, a tooth was buried in the dirt; the next, a bone-white sprout punched through the soil and, in the blink of an eye, shot up into a towering tree. A bright red apple hung from the branches, and a hand reached out of the darkness, grabbed it, and took a "crunch" bite. The camera then cut to a close-up inside the mouth—just a flash—showing that the whole oral cavity, from the cheeks to the palate down to the throat and esophagus, was packed with yellow-white molars! They writhed and ground against each other like centipedes with every chew, making a constant faint "tap tap" sound.

The image then cut back to the bitten apple.

Its bright red surface rotted and shriveled before her eyes, wrinkling up like old skin, then dried and crumbled into sand even faster. As the sand fell away, there was a human head inside the apple. It had black hair, yellow skin, and bright paint smeared across its face. Its eyes were wide open, but there was no white in them—just pitch black, so you couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman.

The head's mouth was stretched wide, all its teeth bared, wearing the exact same terrifying smile as the nurse.

The camera held on the smile for a moment, then suddenly zoomed into the head's eyes, diving through the pitch-black pupils into some deeper, stranger space. As the jumbled murmurs and anguished screams kicked back in, a barrage of bizarre, dazzling images flashed by.

In ancient times, a bunch of savages who ate raw meat stood in a row before a dead animal, grinning to show their broken, yellow-black teeth, smiling silently at the camera; on an altar, a beautiful girl stood naked, her skin covered in strange totems, all her teeth bared in a weird smile, as a crowd with knives cut her open and tore her apart alive; in a cave, a miner with a headlamp dug through a pile of dirt, his shaking hands lifting out a handful of glittering gold. When he turned, his eyes were already stained black, the muscles at the corners of his mouth twitching stiffly as he flashed the exact same smile...

From there, the images flashed faster and faster—mountaintops, villas, laboratories... All the images finally blurred into a blinding white glare that stabbed into Everly's retinas. Tears streamed down her face uncontrollably, but she stayed seated like a puppet, until finally, reflected in her forced-open blue eyes, was a string of repeating numbers.

010101010101...

...

"Click," the door lock turned, and the nurse appeared in the doorway in her high heels.

"Everly Manas, the doctor is free now. Please follow me."

She walked over to the high-backed chair, quickly took off the eyelid speculum, undid the metal restraints, and helped the dazed, doll-like girl to her feet.

"Here's your examination report. Take it and follow me."

She shoved an X-ray film into the girl's hands, gave her shoulder a firm push, and propelled her out of the room.

"Click," the door clicked shut, firmly closed. In the corridor outside, the white lights flickered, then suddenly turned a vivid red, gradually dimming over time, darker and darker... Soaked in this unsettling light, Everly shuffled forward, dragging her feet, one step, two steps, three steps... By the time she reached the end of the corridor, all the lights had just gone out. Standing in the pitch black, Everly placed her hand on the door handle before her.

"Click," the sound of the door closing echoed.

Everly shuddered and looked around. She was holding the printed film, standing in a strange corridor, with Old John and a blonde nurse in white in front of her.

She was...

Her memory clicked back together like puzzle pieces. Everly suddenly remembered: she'd come to the clinic for her teeth, just had an X-ray, and was now heading in to see the dentist.

She glanced down at the film in her hand. On the black film was a silver-white, semi-transparent image of a human jawbone. Teeth arranged in a neat row packed the upper and lower jaw, even the thin, root-like roots clearly visible—dense and kind of gross.

"Come on, don't keep the doctor waiting." The nurse smiled and nodded at Old John, giving Everly's shoulder a gentle squeeze.

Everly looked up and met the nurse's gentle smile, and for some reason, a chill crept up from deep inside her.

She obediently followed the nurse, walking with Old John into an exam room and sitting down. The doctor was named Antonio—a thin, forty-something guy with glasses who looked cold as ice. He took the film from Everly, studied the spot where the canine was missing, then had her open her mouth and took a look. Finally, he told Old John, "Nothing serious. Her teeth are very healthy. Just be patient—it'll grow in."

No meds, just wait.

The two went to the window to pay. It was cheaper than expected—only 150 Mido, X-ray included. As they left, Everly glanced back. The nurse stood at the door watching them go, her bright red lips parting to show a row of snow-white teeth. She was smiling, but something about it made your skin crawl.

...