Day 8

We all know the tradition of leaving your tooth under the pillow for some fae being to collect in exchange for monetary compensation.

We've all left a tooth or two behind and woken to find it replaced.

What if you left a tooth under your pillow and found more teeth in the morning?
What if all those teeth were yours?
What if they weren't human?
What if they kept coming?

Day after day, month after month more teeth. Bigger teeth.
Soon a whole jawbone of some creature under your pillow.

Then the rest of the creature arrives, creaks and groans under what's left of its body.

You should have stopped leaving it teeth.
It ran out of anything else to give.

With one dull eye it stares balefully at you, no, at your pillow.

You weren't supposed to be awake for it.
You weren't supposed to see its insectoid wings twitch as it reaches inside its grubby coat.

You'll never un-hear the loud crunch, never un-see it wince and hold back a sob.

It gently places a sharply pointed rib under your pillow and limps off with your coin.

You never leave money for the tooth fairy again, choosing instead to bury your teeth in the schoolyard.