The Curse of the Tooth Demon

A family is haunted by a demon who collects the fallen baby teeth of the children, and who soon hungers for more and more teeth, even when there are none for them to offer.

Genre: Horror

Excerpt: Many doctors and healers had tended to him. But the family he left behind, to whom he was beloved, blamed only one. The doctor of teeth. For before he came, the patient appeared to be suffering some pain but in general was in good spirits. It was poor luck, on the part of the doctor of teeth. The infection had already taken hold. None could have stopped it. But the family did not know this. And perhaps would not have cared if they did. For even if the man had lived, the screams he uttered during the surgery upon his teeth, those screams alone would have earned the doctor of teeth an enemy or two in the family.

What’s the Writing Prompt that inspired the story?Set limits—time limits, page limits, rules of rhyme or meter.

Source: The Observation Deck. Naomi Epel. Copyright © 1994. Chronicle Books.

The exercise or rather the challenge is merely this…write a story that is between 2500 to 3500 words, and no more.

MY FIRST BOOK IS OUT!Ever wonder how I’ve gotten all these hundreds of stories written?  I have a method. And I talk all about it in my book called Fictioneer’s Field Guide: A Game Plan for Writing Short Stories.

It’s now available as an eBook, paperback, and hardcover.

The book title takes you straight to the book on Amazon.

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CREDITSStory: “The Curse of the Tooth Demon” Copyright © 2019 by Nila L. Patel Narration, Episode Art, Editing, and Production:  Nila L. Patel

Music: “Trip-Hop Lounge Abstract Background” by Digital Emotions (Intro/Outro)

Music by NICHOLAS JEUDY (Dark Fantasy Studio)* “Inspector” “Evidence” “Unsolved” “Mourning day” “Under my bed” “Just behind” “Demon at the door” “Killer escape” “Dark Secret”

*These tracks were part of a music and sound effects bundles I purchased from Humble Bundle and sourced from GameDev Market.

Music by Nicholas Jeudy licensed from GameDev Market Sound effects from AudioJungle and GameDevMarket Changes made to the musical tracks?  Just cropping to align with my narration.

Find more music by Digital_Emotions at audiojungle.net Find more music by Nicholas Jeudy at gamedevmarket.net Find more stories by Nila at storyfeather.com

Episode Art Description: Digital drawing. Crouching amid shadows, tilted to the left of vertical, a humanoid figure with pale green mottled skin, white, bloodshot eyes with no irises, and a wide smiling mouth filled with long sharp teeth. The clawed left hand rests on the figure’s knees, and the right hand extends forward toward the silhouette of a sleeping human figure seen in right profile at bottom foreground. Watermark of “Storyfeather” along the bottom of the demon’s palm.