Seventeen-year-old Lena breaks into the abandoned White Lab and finds signs that Dr Mandible’s strange dental experiments were never as dead as the city believed.
That evening, Lena should have been buried in midterm notes. Instead, she stood on the edge of the city, staring at the old building everyone called the White Lab.
From the street it still looked like a shut-down dental clinic, but the longer she watched it, the less ordinary it seemed. The place had been abandoned after a fire years ago, yet people still lowered their voices when they mentioned Dr Mandible, the dentist who was said to have fixed the worst smiles in town. Then came the rumors no one could prove: shining marks on the walls, the smell of mint drifting out into the cold, and a few brave kids swearing they had seen light moving behind the boarded windows.
Lena told herself she was only there because she needed material for a health film competition. That was the excuse. The truth was simpler. She was curious, and curiosity had a way of winning when the night was quiet enough. She slipped through the broken fence, tightened her grip on the flashlight, and stepped onto the porch boards as they gave a low, tired creak beneath her shoes. On the door, half-hidden under peeling paint, a faded sign still hung: Remember to floss.
Inside, the air was cool and damp, carrying a sharp trace of mint under the dust. Her flashlight beam slid over rusted drills, cracked mirrors, and a small fountain set into the wall. It should have been dead, but water still bubbled through it in a slow, steady trickle, as if the building were breathing.
The waiting room was lined with old posters, the kind that had once tried too hard to be cheerful. On one, cartoon teeth fought a swarm of yellow bacteria. Lena fished a notepad from her pocket, ready to jot down anything useful, and then froze. Somewhere deeper inside the lab, something moved. Not a draft. Not the building settling.
She followed the sound to a closed door and leaned toward the narrow crack. What she saw made her pulse jump: in the middle of the room stood a strange display of toothbrushes, while small silver shapes circled it in smooth, silent loops like tiny machines with a purpose. But it was the man at the table who held her attention. He wore a white apron, his face half-lit by her flashlight, his teeth unnaturally bright.
He slowly поднял his head and smiled as if he had been expecting her all along. "I knew someone would come back," he said. "You’re looking for the secret of the perfect smile, aren’t you?"
Before Lena could answer, something scraped through the air ducts above her.