John

“Statement of…” The Pearlcatcher glared down at the Mirror seated in front of him. After yet another moment of silence, he bared his teeth, “Listen, you’re either going to give a recording or you’re going to leave. The institute has forms for written statements for a reason.”

Bolting upright, the young four-eyed dragon gave a worried smile, “Miller sir. Valon Miller.” He flicked his tongue between his teeth, “I’m terribly sorry. T-This all happened yesterday and my mouth still doesn’t feel right. They did something to me and I refuse to believe it can be anything less than malicious.”

The archivist sighed again, pinching his forehead. Damn teenagers coming in to give statements was always a hassle. They often had little knowledge of the world, so of course anything unusual they encountered could leave them fearful and turning to places such as the institute for answers. Lifting his head back up, he continued, “And what am I giving a statement on today?”

“A-A trip to the dentist sir,” the young dragon looked away bashfully, aware of what he had spoken of.

The archivist gripped his desk in frustration, but allowed the recording to continue. At worst all he lost was time, “Statement of Valon Miller regarding a trip to the dentist. Statement begins.”

Valon caught his cue, “S-So I want to go into this letting you know that I’ve never been afraid of going to the dentist or getting my teeth checked out and worked on. I mean, I’m a Mirror and a member of our hunting pack at that. I’ve seen and dealt with far worse than a dragon making sure my teeth are healthy.”

“I never saw the reason behind why my clan insisted on regular visits to a dentist. I get that we bite through shells and bones and other tough material, but dragon teeth are meant to withstand that. Still, ever since I was a hatchling I visited to ensure they grew in healthy and in the right places. That the food I ate never got stuck in my teeth and began to rot. You know, trivial matters that eventually made me self-conscious about what they’d find in my maw.”

“I’ve also had a couple dentists over the years. As time passed and previous ones moved on to new clans to help, I got used to seeing new faces. I had a very kind Pearlcatcher for a while. Used her Pearl to remember her favorite patients or those that needed the most work. Another was a Skydancer I wasn’t fond of. He wasn’t afraid to stick his claws in your mouth to look around, using his light magic to illuminate where he pried.”

“So when I was greeted to a charming red Tundra yesterday as opposed to Elen, my previous dentist, I took it as simply another shift in staff. Elen was a charming old Skydancer by the way. The kind to give all her patients candied treats. I digress though. The Tundra was wearing a mask already, which I took as unusual, but not unheard of. Sometimes I was seated in a chair before it could be changed, so I dismissed it.”

“I’m not sure when I started to realize something was off about my visit.” The Mirror paused to lick their teeth again, rubbing their claws together, “My new dentist was friendly enough, introducing himself as John, and said he’d be with me shortly. I met his assistant during that time. She was a quiet Fae named Jane, who said little while she started work. Can’t blame her if I’m honest. I’d be bashful if I worked her profession with the eyes she had. You know the Plague eyes I’m talking about.”

“Anyways, I’m zoned out while she carefully picks through my teeth when I gradually pick up on the smell of apples. It was a soft, faint scent in the air, and at first I thought it was perfume of sorts belonging to the Fae. She brushed off my comment, saying it was an incense in the room. With my sense of smell I would have picked up on such a thing immediately, but I agreed with her and moved on, not wanting to start an argument of any kind.”

“Then…” the Mirror took a moment to take a few deep breaths, “Then came the drowsiness. Again, I called out to the assistant, who had since left to prepare for John to take a look at me. And again, she ignored my concerns, stating that if I was worried about falling asleep I should move my body. But...But at that point I couldn’t move my body. I called out weakly for help, but by then it was far too late.”

“I passed out briefly, waking up in a separate room. The smell of apples remained, as did my inability to move. Being unrestrained almost made the feeling worse, as I knew that if I could break whatever was keeping me in place, I could escape.”

The creeping fear in the Mirror’s face now spread to their body as their body shuddered briefly, causing him to spread his wings some. He began to tap on the desk, eyes wide, “T-Then I was greeted by John. He wasn’t wearing his mask. He was smiling, unnaturally wide. He wasn’t wearing his mask. It didn’t go away when he spoke. By Lightweaver’s eyes why wasn’t he wearing his mask?”

He gripped his head, trying to shake away the image with little success, “Even after he put on his mask that smile. Didn’t. Go. Away. I could tell in his eyes and the movement where I knew it ended. It never went away as he pulled out his tools and began to dig into my mouth. I felt no pain but I could still feel him pull at my teeth. He called for Jane to help and after that I...I...why did I have to be conscious for this?”

The archivist waited a minute for Valon to attempt to regain their composure. He was certain this was something now, but it relied on his subject’s ability to keep themselves together. And as they struggled, he was forced to play his hand, “Valon,” he began, drawing their attention. Eyes locked, he took a deep breath, already mentally apologizing for the act, “What happened in that room?”

He watched as their body relaxed, but their eyes remained wide with fear, unaware of what they had fallen under. He hated the disingenuous emotion that came with their much calmer words, but he needed to know what happened. “They began to tear out my teeth sir. In the way dentists do. There was no pain but I felt every second of it. They didn’t stop until there was nothing left to remove. I wanted to scream but all I managed was a tired groan.”

“John had set aside my teeth on a tray beside him, leaving Jane to look them over while he examined my mouth further in search of anything else he could pull. Jane commented about how there were four ‘good ones’ among my teeth, holding them out one at a time to the dentist. What happened next I still don’t believe, but I was there. I was conscious and saw it all happen before my eyes.”

“John and Jane sprouted teeth. Not from their mouths but along their bodies. I watched them look over each other, slowly locating and plucking these unnatural growths. And once they had gathered what they wanted, they grabbed the four teeth they had separated from mine, impaling them into their bodies. Once absorbed, they commented something about how ‘she will enjoy these’ and that ‘good Mirror teeth are hard to come across’. I’m not sure if feeling them place my own teeth back in my mouth is worse than having them removed. The teeth that weren’t my own felt incorrect, which of course they would. They didn’t belong to me. I don’t want to know who they belonged to.”

“I passed out again soon after. When I awoke, I was back in the previous room. John looked over me with his assistant right by him as if nothing happened. They finished examining and cleaning my teeth, giving me a small bag with a few small things inside. A small piece of honey-encased meat, a small ‘easy to use’ cleaning kit for getting food out of teeth, and a sticker.”

At the mention of the sticker, the Mirror snapped out of their trance, rummaging in their pockets. “It’s a strange thing,” he commented, “I’m not sure what to think of what’s printed on it. For something you’d give to young dragons, it’s quite morbid.” Pulling out a small square, Valon slid it over to the archivist, “Consider it a piece of evidence. I’m certainly not going to keep it around or use it.”

Holding off on looking at the sticker handed to him for the time being, he gestured for the Mirror to finish. Snapping him back into what had happened, he rushed to finish, “T-There’s little else sir. I’ve been feeling my teeth since for abnormalities, but no one believes my story. But something’s wrong. I know what happened to me wasn’t a nightmare or a hallucination. I’ve never feared dentists or what happens while I’m there. But yesterday,” they swallowed, “Yesterday was the worst day of my life. I’ve never felt such terror. I-I don’t think I’ll be going back as long as those two are working.”

“Statement Ends.” The archivist knew the Mirror had fled his office the instant he flipped off his recording device, turning around to find the chair knocked aside and door wide open, he expected this. No one took to compulsion well, especially teenagers who didn’t understand the beginning of these things. At least adults tried to reason through it as some sort of light magic. He flipped up the sticker, scowling at what he found adorning the other side.

Forcing himself to calm down, he gripped his head in his claws as it struck him as to what this meant. He thought he and his assistants had dealt with all of the members of that group, killing off the last nearly five years ago. He had his suspicions as Valon continued his statement, but the archivist refused to believe that this was what he was dealing with. Yet there was no mistaking the image in front of him.

On the sticker was a cut open apple, decorated with varying types of teeth arranged in a crude smiling face. A symbol he was all too familiar with. And a sign of dangers to come.