Chapter 38 Teeth: A Good Tooth

Chapter 38: Teeth: A Good Tooth

Everly looked down at the dried toad in her hands, examining it carefully. Its four legs were spread wide, its body covered in dense bumps, and symbols painted in yellow and red unknown pigments adorned its back. It looked quite ominous—perfectly fitting the stereotype of an evil object.

Compared to her, a transplant American, Old John clearly knew better. He stared at the dried toad for a moment, then nodded at Everly, telling her it was a specialty of Bolivia. In local tradition, dried toads are thought to ward off evil and bring blessings, serving as a medium connecting humans and the divine.

"I once had an identical amulet, even with the same patterns. During a mission to arrest a criminal, it took a bullet for me—oh, don't look so surprised. I don't understand the mechanics either, but it did its job. Take it. It, and she, seem harmless enough."

Everly's sixth sense didn't raise any red flags either.

All things considered, Everly hesitated for a moment, then rolled up the bag with the dried toad and stuffed it into her kid's frog-shaped wallet.

After a busy day of shopping and selecting, it wasn't until evening that Everly and Old John returned to the gas station with a pickup truck half-filled with new furniture and a dried toad.

After being out all day, Everly was exhausted. After washing up, she did as usual—leaned close to the dressing mirror to check the bare gum where her tooth should be, then, hoping for new teeth to grow, went to bed, turned off the light, and slept.

Early the next morning.

Everly woke from a night of restless dreams, feeling a bit weary.

She chalked it up to fatigue from the day before and didn't think much of it. She got up, slipped on her slippers, and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. As she brushed, she suddenly noticed something felt off. She raised her cup, took a sip of water, spat out the foam, and pulled open her upper lip to look in the mirror—holy cow, she had grown a tooth!

Talk about bad timing. She'd just spent 15 bucks at the dentist's yesterday, and today a new tooth had pushed through the gum, showing a tiny white tip the size of a grain of rice. If it had come a day earlier, she could've saved the gas money and the 15 bucks!

Everly was a bit annoyed, but the thought of finally having a tooth again lifted her spirits.

Nice, nice. Good tooth, good tooth. Hurry up and grow.

Everly said a heartfelt prayer to the heavens.

Maybe the heavens heard her. Over the next few days, every time she looked in the mirror, her new canine had visibly grown a bit more. Within days, the tiny tip, the size of a grain of rice, had grown halfway out.

Weird—had her teeth ever grown this fast?

Everly was puzzled for a moment, but then she thought: at age ten, she was in the middle of a big growth spurt. Girls could change a lot in just a couple of weeks. Maybe her teeth were growing faster because of puberty?

Everly had long forgotten her experience with losing baby teeth from her previous life, and with no one else around to compare, after a brief moment of doubt, she brushed the thought aside and stood before the mirror, mesmerized, admiring her new tooth.

It was so beautiful.

White as snow, glossy enamel, the curve of the tip smooth and perfect, like a crescent moon, like fresh ivory. She couldn't help but stick out her tongue and keep licking it, feeling the slight sting as the rounded tip scraped across her tongue's surface inch by inch...

"Everly, don't keep licking your new tooth—it'll grow in crooked." Old John, passing by, noticed her little habit and spoke up.

His words snapped Everly back to reality. Not wanting a crooked tooth, she quickly pulled her tongue back.

But some things, the more you tell yourself not to do them, the more you want to do them. Like licking the tooth. After the hundredth time reminding herself not to lick it, which only made her want to do it more, Everly pursed her lips like a little old lady, looking for something to take her mind off it.

It was still summer break, so she didn't have school. Old John had bought a new batch of apocalypse supplies and was reorganizing his shelves. With no one to keep her company, Everly thought it over and decided to head to the doghouse, planning to go for a run with Buddy. But the moment she got near Buddy's spot, the dog lowered its body, bared its teeth, tucked its tail, and let out a fierce bark at her.

"Woof! Woof woof!"

"Buddy, what's wrong? It's me..." Buddy had never barked at her like this before. She called out, trying to remind him who she was.

Hearing Everly's voice, Buddy's ears twitched. He stopped baring his teeth, walked up to Everly with a confused look, circling her legs and sniffing her over and over.

After a while, the agitated dog finally calmed down, tucked its tail, and played with Everly with less enthusiasm than usual.

It wasn't a satisfying play session, so by the time Everly finished walking the dog and got home, she found herself licking the new tooth again.

No, can't lick. Stop it. Stop it...

Everly looked around, grabbed a lollipop, and popped it into her mouth. She figured that as long as something occupied her busy tongue, it wouldn't cause trouble and affect the new tooth's growth.

With the lollipop in her mouth, Everly went upstairs, sat at her desk, and picked up a book. Not long ago, Old John had mailed her a box of Greek language tapes and accompanying textbooks. Everly planned to teach herself the language, because the Sea Hag Lamia was a creature from Greek mythology, and she suspected the gibberish the hag spoke was Greek.

Everly was good at focusing. Once she started studying, she got completely lost in the book before her. Until, as she studied, she noticed that besides the sweet taste of the candy, a familiar metallic taste rose in her mouth.

This is...

Everly went to the mirror, opened her mouth, and looked. She saw the lollipop, licked down to a thin layer, had sliced diagonally into the gap left of her new tooth like an axe, its sharp tip deeply piercing the soft gum, carving a wound that kept seeping blood.

Why did eating candy end up like this...

Everly spat out the candy, instinctively stuck out her tongue, and licked the wound on her gum with the tip.

It hurt, it throbbed, it was awful...

The flowing blood mixed with saliva, forming a thin reddish film that covered Everly's newly grown canine. Beneath the pale red, the tooth's curve remained perfect, its smooth glaze against the blood—not ugly, but possessing an eerie beauty that was hard to look away from.

Such a perfect tooth. So lovely. So wonderful...

As she stared, Everly couldn't help but reach out, pressing her fingertip into the wound and smearing the flowing blood thickly over the new canine, until the entire tooth was painted a vivid red.

Bright red, beautiful, one-of-a-kind tooth...

Without realizing it, Everly moved her tongue again, licking her new tooth in blissful absorption—sucking, pressing, rubbing—until her fragile tongue tip, worn down by the rounded canine, finally broke.

The bleeding tongue tip became a new source of blood. Generously and fervently, it wrapped around the new tooth like a devoted worshipper offering the best tribute to its master, tirelessly smearing the tongue's blood onto the new tooth, over and over.

Once. Again. And again...

Inside her mouth, gradually, it was all the taste of blood.

...

"Everly, time for dinner!"

Who knew how long had passed, until a call came from downstairs, snapping Everly out of her overly absorbed state.

Time flies. She'd only studied for a bit, and it was already dinner... Oh, can't lick. Why am I licking again!

Completely ignoring the blood filling her mouth, Everly sucked on the itchy, painful wound, then trotted down the stairs with a clatter.

Tonight's dinner was all her favorites, but as she ate, Everly found it hard to swallow. After forcing the food down, she licked the wound on her gum and made a request to her grandfather.

"Grandpa, I want steak."

Old John was surprised. "Steak? Sure, but why the sudden craving? Don't you not like beef?"

"I don't know, I just suddenly want it... Preferably medium-rare, still with blood streaks." As she spoke, it felt like she could already sense the salty, bloody texture of meat pressing against her. Everly licked her canine restlessly, a flicker of excitement rising in her heart.

With anticipation for bloody food, she arrived at the next day.

Her body felt tired, listless and lacking energy—maybe she'd run too hard yesterday.

After a night of growth, the wound in her mouth had healed somewhat. That was good news; Everly didn't want a mouth full of injuries affecting her eating.

But while brushing her teeth, in a moment of absent-mindedness, Everly's hand suddenly moved with force, the toothbrush head jabbing hard and striking the tender gum. A sharp pain shot through her. Everly hissed, opened her mouth, and saw the foam in her mouth was all blood—a bright red mass, the strong smell of blood rushing straight up her nose.

Oh crap, how clumsy can I get!

She quickly stopped brushing her teeth, rinsed her mouth with water, and then opened her mouth wide in front of the mirror, peeling her upper lip back to examine the bleeding wound. When her eyes happened to drift to the back of her throat, Everly paused. Around her uvula, in the bright red flesh of her upper palate, a few white molars had sprouted?!

Wait, what was that!

Everly jumped, rubbed her eyes, and looked again—no white molars, just some leftover foam she hadn't spit out.

She patted her chest, figuring she'd just seen things.

After pulling herself together, Everly headed downstairs, feeling uneasy, sat at the dining table, and picked up a slice of bread to nibble on.

She still didn't have much of an appetite today, and the bread was dry and hard to swallow. As she ate, she picked up her glass of milk, took a sip, and set it down. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a tooth in the glass again.

The tooth was soaking in the milk, about the size of a peanut, fully formed, with red bits of flesh and nerves clinging to its root. As the liquid in the glass swirled, the tooth gently clinked against the glass, making a crisp "tink-tink" sound.

Everly was so grossed out she almost spat out the milk in her mouth.

Even though she quickly realized it was just a trick of the light from milk foam on the glass, she immediately lost all interest in drinking milk.

The shock of seeing things twice must have gotten to her, because Everly started getting paranoid.

For lunch, she had a medium-rare steak. She cut the beef with her knife, and as the blade sliced through a lump of white fat, a random thought suddenly popped into her head—what if there was a molar hiding in that fat?

After lunch, when she was walking the dog, Buddy barked at her again, acting like he didn't know her at all. Everly tried to play fetch with Buddy, so she bent down and grabbed a stone off the ground. But the second she grabbed it, she felt a sharp sting in her palm. Looking down, she saw the stone had grown two molars, top and bottom, that were clamping down on her palm and biting hard.

Everly let out a silent scream and hurled the stone away.

Once she'd calmed down a bit and worked up the courage to look again, what lay on the ground was clearly just an ordinary white stone, and there was no trace of a bite on her palm. She'd imagined it again?!

The whole day had been so weird that Everly felt wiped out. She lost interest in walking the dog, so she headed back to her room, opened her books, and tried to study.

But the hallucinations weren't done with Everly yet.

As she studied, she frowned, feeling a weird itch on the back of her head.

No way...

Feeling uneasy, Everly's hand trembled as she reached for the back of her head.

Her fingers slid through her thick blonde hair, feeling around, and brushed against a few hard, smooth, round bumps on her warm scalp. They'd pushed out of her skull, poking through her scalp and sticking up stiffly. Everly shivered, grabbed a hand mirror, and held it up to the vanity mirror, using the double reflection to get a closer look. She saw a row of white molars sprouting halfway out, their tips gleaming with a pearly sheen...

"Ah!"

No matter how beautiful teeth were, they were still teeth. The sight of teeth growing on the back of her head was utterly horrifying. Everly screamed and threw the hand mirror to the ground.

The shatter of glass caught Old John's attention. He hurried upstairs to ask Everly what was wrong. By then, Everly was covered in goosebumps from disgust. She whimpered and asked her grandfather for help, asking him to check the back of her head.

But Old John told her it was clean—there was no problem at all.

"Is... is that so?"

Everly reached out, summoning her courage to touch the back of her head again.

Indeed, just as Old John had said, the back of her head felt smooth and clean, with no teeth.

"Is it possible that you're so focused on your canine teeth that you're having hallucinations... You've been looking pale lately. Have you been resting well at night? Even if you're immersed in studying, you can't neglect sleep." Old John said with concern.

Is that so... is that how it is...

Everly returned to the mirror and looked at her face. She had been having strange dreams lately, and when she woke up in the morning, she forgot them all, unable to recall anything except a vague sense that they were nightmares. Even after sleeping a full eight hours, she still woke up with aches all over her body, a deep exhaustion seeping out from her very bones.

Indeed, her complexion was terrible. In the mirror, her once rosy, full cheeks had sunken in without her noticing, turning pale. Heavy dark circles hung under her eyes, the corners of her mouth drooped, her expression was haggard, and she looked utterly lifeless and dejected.

Looking at it that way, she seemed a bit off... did she?

Just as the thought of self-doubt flashed through her mind, Everly's gaze suddenly went hazy. When her focus returned, she shook her head, forgot the doubt that had just arisen, and convinced herself that she must simply be overtired.

She'd better turn off the lights early tonight and get some more sleep.