The only proof of the tale was a grainy black-and-white photo, posted online by an anonymous hiker. It showed a woman holding something in her palm—something that looked like a freshly uprooted plant... with human teeth instead of flowers.

“We’re going,” said Mira, slamming the laptop shut. “One weekend. In. Out. We bring back photos, evidence, maybe a tooth-plant or two. Instant viral fame.”

Five friends agreed to join. Mira (the thrill-seeker), Jay (the skeptic), Lena (the biologist), Omi (the horror junkie), and Sagar (the quiet artist). They loaded a van with gear, maps, and some overconfidence, and by nightfall they were driving through the skeletal trees of Drahma Forest.

By morning, they found it: the village.

It had no name. Just a cracked wooden sign:

“ROOTED IN SILENCE.”

They stepped out. It was dead silent.

Crows hovered, but didn’t caw. The villagers moved slowly, their faces pale and thin. Mira waved at a child, but the girl didn’t smile. None of them did.

“Do they not want us here?” Jay asked.

“No,” Lena said, voice shaking, “they can’t smile. Look at their mouths…”

The villagers’ lips barely moved. Their mouths were dark hollows—gums as smooth as marble. Even their elders, with wrinkled skin and brittle hands, had no dentures, no false teeth. Just emptiness.

Still, they seemed content. Unbothered.

Then Mira saw it. In the center of the village was a small greenhouse. Inside, a dense cluster of plants swayed, despite the still air.

They had stems like vines… and blooming from them were human teeth. Molars, canines, incisors. Some yellowed, some pearly white. All real.

The villagers were harvesting them.

A woman stepped from the greenhouse, her robe stitched with what looked like flossed sinew. She had no teeth either, but her voice was calm.

“You came from the outer world,” she said. “You must be hungry. Stay for the festival. Tonight, we thank the Toothroot.”

“The what now?” Omi whispered.

The woman smiled—gum against gum. “It feeds us. Protects us. It grows our smiles.”

Sagar, meanwhile, was sketching furiously. He stared at one of the plants.

“Guys…” he murmured. “They’re… pulsing.”

Indeed, the plants shivered like they had heartbeats. Some of the teeth seemed to gnash on their own.

Jay chuckled nervously. “Probably hydraulic movement. Carnivorous mimicry.”

That night, they stayed.

The village square lit up with lanterns made of old jaws. The villagers gathered, forming a silent ring around the Toothroot greenhouse.

They began to hum. Not with voices—but from their throats, the humming rising like a swarm of insects. Then came the sound: grinding, crunching. Roots tore through the soil like worms.

One by one, the villagers removed their shoes and stepped into the greenhouse barefoot.

The plants turned toward them.

Mira gasped. “They’re moving toward them!”

The roots coiled around ankles, pulling the villagers to the ground. The plants pressed their toothed buds into open mouths. A symphony of crunching echoed.

Omi turned green.

“They’re being… fitted.”

Teeth. From plants. Into human mouths. No anesthesia, no resistance. And yet, none screamed. Their faces twitched, but they bore it.

And smiled. For the first time. Gory, unnatural, bloody smiles.

Sagar vanished in the night.

His sleeping bag was full of soil and his sketchbook was gone. The others searched until sunrise. No tracks. Just tooth marks near the greenhouse.

Lena wanted to leave. “We saw what we came for. This is unnatural. It’s parasitic.”

But Mira wouldn’t leave without Sagar.

They asked the villagers, but none spoke. Not even the gardener.

That night, Omi disappeared.

His phone was left on the ground, recording.

They huddled around the screen, watching Omi’s last moments.

He was alone. Whispering to himself.

“I hear them… they’re… calling me.”

The camera jolted. Rustling. He crept into the greenhouse.

“Hello? Mira? You there?”

Crunch. Wet, slithering noises.

A tooth plant twisted toward him.

Then... a whisper. Barely audible.

“Smile for me.”

The plant lunged.

The screen went black.

Mira, Jay, and Lena packed to leave. But the van tires had melted. Literally—like the rubber had been chewed off. Roots slithered around the axles.

“Foot,” Jay said. “We run.”

They sprinted into the woods. But the forest had changed.

The trees had mouths.

Wide, yawning cracks in the bark, filled with teeth. Roots shot from the earth like jaws snapping shut. One grazed Mira’s ankle—bit clean through her shoe.

“We’re being herded,” Lena panted.

They found an old shed. Locked themselves inside. Mira’s foot bled—two teeth embedded deep.

They pulsed.

Mira began to smile.

At first it was a joke. “Hey, maybe I should become a villager too, right?”

Then her gums bled. Her mouth twitched even when she wasn’t talking. She muttered in her sleep.

“They want to bloom.”

Jay begged Lena to pull the teeth out. She tried. But every time she extracted one, another grew in.

“They’re rooting into her jaw,” Lena whispered. “These aren’t just implants. They’re... spreading.”

That night, Mira attacked Jay. He fought her off and locked her in the shed.

By morning, she was gone.

Only her teeth remained. Still chewing the air.

Jay and Lena found an old journal in the abandoned schoolhouse.

“Project M. A. W.” it read.

Modified Agricultural Weapon.

The entries detailed a failed bio-experiment. A parasite crossbred from fungal root systems and human stem cells. Designed during wartime to grow organs for the toothless soldiers of nuclear fallout.

It worked. Too well.

The parasite craved gums. It made symbiosis with hosts who lacked teeth. It bloomed teeth for them—but burrowed into the brain. Took control. Created smiles. Eternal, grotesque smiles.

The village was its containment zone.

It wasn't a village. It was a prison.

Lena was infected next.

A root sliced her thigh. Days later, she was vomiting teeth. Her tongue split in two. She begged Jay to leave her.

He didn’t.

He lit the greenhouse on fire.

It didn’t burn.

The roots extinguished flames by spitting sap. The air was full of moaning now—not human, not plant. Something else.

Jay saw them. Dozens of villagers—mouths wide, teeth chattering in unison. Worshipping the central plant.

It opened.

The Toothroot Queen. A massive pod. Inside, faces twisted under transparent skin, their mouths full of hundreds of teeth.

Sagar. Omi. Mira. Lena.

All part of it now.

All smiling.

Jay was never seen again.

Weeks later, hikers found a new path through the forest.

A signpost read:

“WELCOME TO THE VILLAGE OF ROOTED SMILES.”

A new greenhouse had grown, just off the trail.

Inside, a new kind of plant bloomed.

Its teeth were small and perfect.

One had a gold cap, like the one Jay always wore.

And below it, written on a stone slab:

“COME. GROW YOUR SMILE.”

End.