The Hollow Tooth of Serrano Creek

It was a Thursday in late October, and the air in the cafeteria tasted of sour milk and desperation. My best friend, Mira, and I were in the middle of our usual lunchtime argument over who had the better mother’s cooking—her kimchi jjigae versus my mom’s spaghetti—when our other friend, Elias, stumbled in. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide as if he’d seen a ghost. He grabbed us by our sleeves and dragged us outside, ignoring our protests.

He led us to the old soccer field behind the gymnasium, a patch of dirt that had been neglected since the district cut funding for lawn care. Without a word, he fell to his knees and started digging with his bare hands, clawing at the dry earth like a desperate animal. Mira and I exchanged nervous glances. ‘Elias, what the hell are you doing?’ I asked. He didn’t answer, just kept digging until his fingers hit something hard. He pulled out a tooth. It was massive—as long as my index finger—and curved like a dagger, with a serrated edge that glinted even in the weak sunlight. ‘Look at this,’ he whispered, holding it up.

We were all staring at the thing when our teacher, Ms. Vance, appeared behind us. She was a wiry woman with a penchant for floral dresses and a voice that could cut glass. She saw the tooth and her face went white. ‘Where did you get that?’ she demanded. Elias pointed to the hole. Ms. Vance grabbed the tooth and threw it as far as she could into the field. ‘It’s a vampire fang,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You kids stay away from it. Bury it if you find it again.’ We all burst out laughing. Vampires? That was ridiculous. She had to be joking.

But then Elias, still grinning, ran to where she’d thrown it, picked it up, and hurled it high into the sky. As the tooth arced upward, a thin line of red bloomed across his palm. He looked down, and his smile vanished. Blood was pouring from his hand, a steady stream that soaked the ground. He screamed, and Mira and I rushed to him. It looked like a gash had been torn open, but when we grabbed his wrist, the skin was perfectly unbroken. There was no wound, no cut—just blood, flowing as if a faucet had been turned on.

We half-carried him to the nurse’s office, leaving a trail of crimson behind us. The nurse, a gruff woman named Mrs. Delgado, cleaned his hand and wrapped it in a bandage, but when she removed the bandage, his hand was clean. No mark. No scar. Just pale skin, as if nothing had ever happened. Elias kept staring at his hand, his face ashen. ‘It bit me,’ he kept muttering. ‘It bit me.’ We thought he was in shock, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

That evening, I couldn’t stop thinking about that tooth. I decided to go back to the field after practice. The sun was low, casting long shadows across the dirt. I found the tooth where it had fallen, half-buried in the debris. I picked it up, and it felt cold, unnaturally cold, like it had been sitting in a freezer. I turned it over in my hand, and I noticed a strange symbol etched into the root—a spiral that seemed to shimmer. As I stared at it, I heard a sound behind me, like a low growl. I spun around, but there was nothing there. Just the empty field and the fading light.

I brought the tooth home. I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted to study it, to prove it was just a fossil or some animal tooth. But as I held it over my kitchen sink, I felt a sharp sting on my finger. Looking down, I saw a drop of blood well up from a tiny cut—and that’s when I realized the tooth had moved. It had turned in my hand, slicing me of its own accord. I dropped it on the counter, and I swear it let out a faint, high-pitched sound, like a bat’s cry. I bandaged my finger and tried to forget it, but the next morning, I found the tooth lying next to my pillow. It had followed me. It wanted to be near me.

Classes became a blur. Mira and I tried to talk about what happened, but every time we mentioned the tooth, Elias would go silent, his eyes glazing over. He’d started wearing long sleeves, and I noticed he was losing weight. One day, during lunch, he pulled me aside and whispered, ‘It’s feeding on me. It’s drinking my dreams.’ I thought he was going insane.

Then things started happening. The tooth turned up in my locker, in my backpack, even in my shoe. I threw it out three times, but it always came back. And with each reappearance, my dreams grew darker. I’d wake up gasping, with a metallic taste in my mouth, and I’d find small bloodstains on my sheets—but no wounds to explain them.

Mira suggested we get rid of it for good, so we drove out to Serrano Creek, a sulfurous waterway on the edge of town, and dropped it into the deepest part. We watched it sink into the murky water, and we felt a wave of relief. But as we turned to leave, Elias grabbed his neck and started choking. His face turned blue, and he collapsed to his knees. We screamed for help, but no one was around. Mira performed CPR, and after a tense minute, he coughed up a mouthful of black, viscous fluid. The tooth floated to the surface, bobbing like a cork, and then it shot out of the water and embedded itself in the trunk of a nearby willow tree.

We staggered back to the car, but when we got in, the tooth was already on the dashboard, gleaming as if it had been polished. I felt a cold dread creep up my spine. This wasn’t just a tooth. It was something ancient, something with a will of its own. And it had chosen us.

That night, I had a vision. I saw a figure made of shadows, with a mouth full of those serrated teeth, standing over a girl who looked exactly like me. It whispered in a voice that wasn’t a voice but a vibration, ‘You will feed the hollow, or the hollow will feed on you.’ I woke up screaming, and I knew what I had to do. I packed the tooth in a lead box and drove to the mission ruins on the edge of town, a place rumored to be built on old Aztec burial grounds. I buried the box beneath a twisted juniper tree, and I spoke words I didn’t understand, words that felt like they came from another language.

The next morning, Elias was himself again. His color returned, and he laughed for the first time in weeks. Mira and I tried to forget about the tooth, to pretend it never happened. But sometimes, late at night, I hear a faint scratching at my window, and I see a small glint in the darkness—a tooth-shaped glint. I think it found its way back. And I fear it will never let me go.