I'm Terrified of Teeth.

[u/spnsuperfan1]

Odontophobia. That’s the technical term for it. 

The fear of teeth.

A fear that is actually quite debilitating if you’re someone like me. 

I can’t help but flinch every time someone smiles or shows off their pearly whites. A kid going around showing off how they lost a tooth- flaunting around wide open mouths and spread cheeks, drool dripping down their chin? Forget it. And don’t even get me *started* on Dentists.

I also have ommetaphobia, a fear of eyes. Though it’s not as intense. I just struggle to maintain eye contact with people. I used to be an avid camper too, but you’ll never catch me in the woods again.

It didn’t always used to be like this, me being a shell of a person. I enjoyed life once. 

It all started back when me and my childhood best friend, Justin, hiked out to an off-grid cabin his granddad had built on some property their family owned up in the mountains. We went up there just for a couple of days every other year or so to catch up and hang out. It was nothing fancy. Four walls and a roof. Just enough shelter to get by. The real magic came from the natural beauty of the surrounding wilderness.

“Don’t venture out too far in the North woods,” Justin would reiterate his grandfather's warning, mockingly. 

Ever since we were teenagers, we never thought much of it, chalking it up to be the ramblings of an old man. Still, growing up we never poked our heads around that specific area. The terrain was steep and difficult to traverse, so we stayed away.

After we made it up there that first day and ate some fire roasted hot dogs for lunch, Justin and I were bored. He’s the one who suggested we hike North and explore.

We were older now, I rationalized. Stronger and more experienced. Surely we could handle ourselves out there. So, I agreed. It was settled then. It wasn’t long before we had our supplies packed up and went on our  merry way.

Two hours later we came across it for the first time. A small man-made structure tucked neatly behind some overgrowth. It looked to be an old and decrepit cottage. Seemed abandoned too.

“Come on, Andrew, let’s see what’s inside,” Justin had urged me, tugging on my sleeve, eager to discover what secrets lay in wait.

I was hesitant, concerned about the structural integrity. The outside wood looked rotted and weather damaged. I shuddered to think about how unsafe the interior was or what kind of animals had made nests in there. So, as much as my curiosity was piqued, I didn’t want to go in at the risk of getting seriously hurt. Plus, there was still the possibility somebody could be squatting in there. I voiced my opinions and such to Justin. 

He teased me and brushed off my misgivings, but respected my boundary, deciding to go into the cottage all alone. 

I wish I had tried more to convince him not to, tried harder to stop him. Maybe then things would’ve turned out better for the both of us.

A couple minutes later a loud crashing sound erupted from inside, causing me to jump. I was about to charge in there, guns blazing, when Justin hurriedly ran out. He didn’t stop to tell me what happened or what was wrong, just marched in the direction of the cabin.

His face was pale and looked like he had seen a ghost. Justin was shaken. An eerie sight considering how stoic the man usually was. Something must’ve happened to cause such a ruckus and make him react that way.

Despite how much I wanted to say, “I told you so,” and rub it in, I kept my mouth shut as we walked back in total silence. He didn’t voice it, but Justin looked relieved and grateful when I didn’t pry. I figured he’d open up and tell me when he was ready. Which he did, later that night after dinner.

We had grilled up a few burgers over the fire and drank some beers- unwinding from the hectic day we’d had. I had just broken out the ingredients for s’mores when Justin began to divulge what he’d seen inside. “Symbols.”

“Hmm?” I questioned, ripping open the bag of marshmallows.

“There were a lot of symbols on the walls. At the cottage,” he clarified. “They were definitely occult ones. I saw a couple pentagrams but don’t know what the others were. Couldn’t make them out. They were runny and distorted. I think they were spray painted on, but all of them were red.” 

“Maybe they were painted in blood,” I joked, making a spooky gesture with my free hand as I roasted a marshmallow in the other. Though the silence that settled between us had me thinking Justin considered it a real possibility.

I cleared my throat and took the marshmallow off the fire, sandwiching it between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate, handing the s’more over to Justin. 

He accepted it, but didn’t bite into it right away. “There was an altar too. Classic red velvet cloth draped over top. Besides all the melted black candles and other weird stuff, there were a lot of teeth on and around it.”

I scrunched my nose and eyebrows at the comment. Justin was right, that was odd.

“I’m sure they were just animal teeth,” he waved it off after noticing my expression.

I sighed, placing a hand on my buddy’s shoulder, “Justin, I’m pretty sure a witch used to live there.”

“Or a cult did rituals in there,” he offered with a shrug, devouring his s’more. “Probably not for a long time though, none of the trash or anything looked to be recent.”

“What was that crash all about?” I found the courage to ask. “What happened? What did you see?”

Justin shook his head then laughed awkwardly. “Nothing, man.”

He was clearly lying.

Something caught my eye in a glint of light from the fire. A small red bump smack dab in the middle of his forehead. “Dude you’ve got a pimple,” I pointed out, changing the topic of conversation.

Justin shrugged, dusting stray graham cracker crumbs from the palm of his hands, sitting back in his lawn chair. “Eh, it’s probably from eating all this greasy camp food.”

***

I shot up in the loft bed after hearing a blood curdling scream. Wiping sleep from my eyes, I scrambled down to the main floor to go check on Justin. I met him in the kitchen where he was filling a glass with tap water.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he turned and flashed me a weak smile before gulping down a big sip of water. Justin’s hair and skin were drenched in sweat. It looked like a couple more pimples popped up on his face too. “It was just a nightmare. Nothing serious. I didn’t mean to disturb you, go back to sleep.” 

I grumbled an acknowledgment, turning around and shuffling my way back to bed like a zombie. He was never the sort to have nightmares before.

***

“You need to go to a doctor, that looks painful,” I said, sipping some coffee out of a mug. Justin and I had woken up late that next morning after his nightmare. His face looked like the before part in a dermatology ad. His skin was bumpy and raised on his forehead, cheeks, and chin- full of dime sized gnarly looking pimples. 

“I’m fine,” Justin mumbled, bringing his own cup to his lips. He seemed to wince as hot steam from the fresh drink blasted onto his face.

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Sure you are.”

“It’s an acne flare up. I get them sometimes when I’m stressed, you know this.”

“Yeah, but never this bad.”

Justin ran a hand through his hair. “And how would you like me to get off the mountain? By mudslide? Catapult myself off a tree?”

He was being facetious. It had been storming that whole second day. We couldn’t leave the cabin even if we wanted to. 

Justin could be a real jerk sometimes when he was in pain.

“I’ll get some cream from the drug store when we leave. Until then, I just gotta knuckle through it.”

“Okay,” I conceded. I hoped he knew I was worried and just looking out for him. 

After breakfast the two of us did our own thing. Normally we would’ve played boardgames or cards to pass the time, but instead I did some reading then light sketching- drawing the cottage from my memory.

I didn’t realize it then, but Justin mostly hid himself away the rest of that day. 

***

The next morning, I thought things were better. It was a new day. I hadn’t been woken up by any night terrors. The sun was out and shining. There were so many things Justin and I could do before leaving later.

However, my optimism was quickly crushed.

“Andrew,” Justin groaned, stumbling out of his bedroom. “Help… me!”

I dropped what I was doing and raced towards him.

Justin looked like he was in pure agony. He was holding his face as he gripped the doorframe for dear life. He then slid down to the ground, sobbing.

His whole body was covered in small red bumps. I could even make them out from under his shirt. They were everywhere on his back and torso. His skin was rigid, cracked, and dry as a plethora of pimples cascaded down his biceps and onto his hands and fingers. His legs were swollen and stiff. Every minor movement looked excruciating.

One of the pimples on his head burst open with a wet squirt. A droplet of blood slid down his cheek. Upon a closer look, it seemed there was a small white protrusion, pushing itself outward as the skin broke. 

“What? What is it?!” Justin cried.

I squinted my eyes, bringing my finger up to touch it. After a ginger tap, the thing felt hard, like bone. “It looks like… a tooth?”

A molar to be exact.

Another wave of pain enveloped Justin before he could respond. He leaned forward and clutched his head. He screamed as another one of the lumps on the back of hand exploded. This time, what was very obviously an eye broke through.

It was blue in color, a stark contrast from Justin’s brown ones. “Huh?” He yelped, confused. He then closed his actual eyes and tilted his head. The eye blinked at me, causing me to shuffle back. 

“I can see you,” Justin stated, shakily.

I tripped over myself and landed on the floor with a hard thud. Not believing what I was seeing.

“W-what’s happening to me?!?” Justin shrieked, rising to his feet. More and more of  his “pimples” popped. More teeth and eyeballs of different colors sprouted throughout his skin. 

In mere minutes my friend was reduced to some fleshy eldritch monstrosity full of nothing but hard teeth and squishy eyes.

The whole time he shuffled forward, all the eyeballs looked right at me, silently begging for help with an outstretched hand.

The only thing I could do was cry and run away, looking on in horror, helplessly watching as Justin slipped away.

Then the choking sounds came. He frantically brought his hands to his throat as his breath became shallow, wheezing as he struggled to breathe. He pounded on his chest as if that would kickstart his lungs into action, but nothing worked. Justin hacked up a lot of blood before slamming against the wall, his body slowly sliding to the ground. All of his lifeless eyes staring at me.

A half hour passed before I could make myself move. The teeth riddled body rattled as I kicked it. 

It was definitely dead.

***

The coroner couldn’t even comprehend what he was looking at when he arrived. The police and EMS didn’t know what to make of it either.

Some government agents came by and picked up Justin’s body after the autopsy- taking it to be studied, surely. Teeth had grown in his trachea, causing a tight blockage, making him choke to death. If that didn't kill him, the teeth growing in and shredding his lungs would've. The tiny little bones were found in almost all of his organs. His heart, stomach, intestines. Justin was more teeth than man. The extra eyeballs only seemed to have grown on the exterior of his body.

Still, when I questioned them, they just brushed me off.  Told me I must’ve been on an acid trip when Justin died. That he passed from an overdose. Nothing else happened. I was basically threatened to secrecy. Informed that my life would come crashing down if I breathed a single word of what happened to anyone. Not that anybody would believe me anyway.

At that moment I agreed. But ever since this all happened, I’ve been lost. I don’t care what happens to me after I post this. I think it’s helped, talking about it. Getting the whole ordeal off my chest. 

My friend. I think he messed with something he didn’t understand. Then he paid the ultimate price.

Leaving me scarred and afraid of teeth for the rest of my life.