Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

" Dentist Bane "

Submitted by Hisham H.

I wake up.

Something's not right.

I realize my mouth is wide open, so I try to close it.

I can't.

My face is numb. I'm drooling all over my pillow.

I'm literally slack-jawed.

Maybe I pressed down on a facial nerve or something, I think to myself.

I get out of bed, a long dribble of spit trails from my bottom lip to the pillow. I probably look like an idiot.

My teeth itch. Wait, what?

My teeth itch? I feel around the inside of my mouth with my tongue.

My teeth feel slimy and foreign to my tongue.

I rush to the bathroom. Turn on the lights. Look in the mirror.

Look into my gaping mouth.

My teeth are all brown. A sickly, mottled rotten-looking brown. Only last night they were pearly white.

How did this happen?

Suddenly, a sharp pain shoots through my jaw. Soon, I feel an icy stab of pain in each tooth. It almost feels as if my teeth are wiggling.

Wait.

My teeth ARE wiggling.

I look in the mirror in disbelief as each tooth starts to wiggle and shake in its socket.

My gums start to bleed. The drool that streams from my mouth is now flecked and streaked with bright red blood.

I'm too scared to think or do anything. I stand there, frozen in shock, as I keep staring into the mirror with a mixture of pure terror and awe, looking at my vibrating, rotting teeth as they dance and jiggle.

Then, the pain peaks in one of my incisors as it cracks. It breaks open, revealing brownish mush. And something else.

Something that wiggles and falls to the sink.

I take a closer look. It's some kind of insect, maybe only a centimeter long. It starts cleaning itself.

More stabs of pains as I feel molars and canine bursts open like overripe fruit. I feel them wriggling inside my mouth.

I hack and cough, splattering the sink and mirror with gobs of brown goo and flecks of rotten enamel. And the little things continue to clean themselves, like houseflies; rubbing their bodies with their hind legs and cleaning their heads with their forelegs, combing off the slime and gunk.

And as they start crawling up the faucet and mirror to air out their wings, I see them clearly now.

They're actually quite beautiful. They look like tiny, very skinny wasps. They have clear wings tinted pink. They have huge eyes, gleaming gold and red, and their heads are a milky white. Their antennae are black. Their thoraxes and slender abdomens are pale mauve.

Some of them have what appears to be a long, thin, wire-like tail, metallic blue in color and almost twice as long as the body.

Ovipositors?

Then it hits me.

It really is hilarious.

My laugh causes the little flying gems to take off in a glittering cloud.

I walk back to my bed, my ruined mouth dripping the rotted remains of my teeth and bloodstained saliva.

I lift up my pillow.

I see a small pile of gold coins.

I start laughing again.