The past few weeks I’ve been feeling strange. My whole life, I’ve struggled with my weight. Name any diet, I bet I’ve tried it. Nothing seems to work. But recently, the weight has been falling off. I’ve hit my goal weight, and gone past it. Now, I’m starting to get a bit worried.

It all started with a trip to the dentist. One of my teeth had been hurting pretty badly, but my dentist had been on a trip abroad. He was a thrill junkie, and he’d gone to some really exotic place. Indonesia, or Malaysia, or somewhere like that.

When I got to the office, Dr. Swanson was there. At first, I didn’t recognize him. He’d lost a lot of weight on his trip. Like I said, he was a thrill junkie, and was pretty well built. He ran marathons and stuff like that. Now, he looked sickly and pale. His hair had begun visibly thinning, and he wasn’t doing much to hide it.

He was also wearing a surgical mask. I figured it must’ve been because of Covid, since he’d just traveled internationally.

“How was your trip?” I asked as we stepped into the exam room.

“Good!”

“Where did you go again?”

“Indonesia. My friends. We went hiking together on Sumatra. Beautiful. It was just beautiful.” Dr. Swanson said. His speech was oddly stilted. Something seemed off, but I chalked it up to jet lag. When I went to Korea, it took me a week to get back on a regular sleep schedule.

“Glad you had a good trip. But, I’m also glad you’re back. This tooth is killing me!”

He laid me back in the chair and began examining my teeth. His sharp instruments poked and prodded. At one point, I could tell by the metallic taste in my mouth that he’d drawn blood. He used one of his tools to suck it away.

“Sorry about that,” he said, eyebrows furrowing. I got a good look at his eyes then. His blue eyes had grown pale and glassy. That made me nervous. Did he have vision problems? Cataracts or something? No, didn’t you have to be old to have cataracts?

“Oh no, oh no, no, no. Not good. This is not good at all.” Dr. Swanson shook his head and my eyes went wide.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart starting to beat a bit faster now.

“Sugar. You’ve been eating a lot of sugar. Haven’t you?”

“Uhh, yeah,” I admitted, feeling slightly self conscious about all the snack cakes I’d been eating lately. Like I said, dieting was a struggle.

“And flossing. Have you been flossing?”

“Well, when I remember.” He just kept shaking his head.

“Too much sugar. Not flossing. Well, it certainly shows,” he said, wagging a finger at me. “Nine! You have nine cavities! In very bad condition! We need to fill them very soon!” The pain in my tooth made me think I had at least one cavity for sure. I hadn’t been ready for nine.

“Oh man. Well, when can we get them filled?” All of my distrust and discomfort was overshadowed by the anxiety of having nine rotting teeth.

“Today! My schedule is open today. If that is suitable for you?”

“Sure! If you’ve got time, let’s get it taken care of.”

“Very well. I will prepare my instruments.”

He wasn’t gone long. When he came back, he had a tray full of sharp looking tools. I tried to stare at the ceiling. The noise the drills made were bad enough. I didn’t want to know what they looked like. He also wheeled in a tank labeled “N20.” Laughing gas.

“This will help. The procedure will take some time. Have you had nitrous oxide before?”

“Only once. I had my wisdom teeth removed when I was young.”

“It will help with the pain. But, it may also make you hallucinate. Relax. Whatever happens, just relax. Don’t worry about anything. I have everything under control.”

He put the inhaler over my nose and I took a few deep breaths of the gas. It didn’t take long for me to feel the effects. A local anesthesia was injected around the affected teeth. Clamps were placed in my mouth to keep it open and make sure I didn’t bite down during the procedure. Dr. Swanson got started drilling, that distinctive whir of the dental drill piercing my ears. I didn’t feel anything though. Whatever doubts I had about his abilities were alleviated by the care he took while drilling.

The laughing gas was strong. I felt like I was in a dream. Sure enough, I did start having hallucinations. A small creature crawled out of Dr. Swanson’s ear. Slowly, it unfurled its wings. It was a beautiful butterfly, one of the largest butterflies I’d ever seen. It’s wings were bright orange and purple. But, what struck me most were the creature’s eyes. They were bright red and quite large.

Soon, another one emerged from the doctor’s other ear.

The first butterfly took flight as more sets of wings seemed to emerge from underneath Dr. Swanson’s surgical mask. Soon, the room was filled with fluttering butterflies. They seemed to circle around us. Some landed on me, their tiny feet tickled me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You need to lay still. This will help.” Dr. Swanson used straps to hold my arms and legs to the surgical chair. This seemed unusual, but in my loopy, dreamlike state, I didn’t really care.

“They’re so beautiful!” I tried to say, but instead just let out a gargling sound.

At this point, Dr. Swanson put his instruments down and turned around. It was difficult to see exactly what he was doing because the bright surgical light was shining down on me. It looked as though he lifted his white coat. Part of his abdomen was missing. In the cavity of what had once been the doctor’s abdomen, there was something else. Tiny little growths, wiggling around.

He reached down and grabbed one of the wriggling things.

“Shhh. Shhh. Daddy’s got you.” He said reassuringly. He plucked the thing out of his skin. It writhed between his fingers. The butterflies became erratic. They had been flying in a circle. Now, they were flying around in all directions. They seemed to be making a soft squeaking sound together, like voices joining together in a chorus.

I tried to say something, but only managed a groan. Dr. Swanson turned back toward me.

“It’s okay. I’m almost finished now.” He came back into the light. I could see the creature between his fingers better now. It was fat and white, covered in bloody goo and little bits of viscera. It had two bright red dots on its head. As the doctor brought it closer to me, I realized what it was. It was a caterpillar.

I started to scream. The butterflies flitted about more frantically now, seemingly disturbed by this.

“Shh. Shh.” The doctor tried to quiet me, “We’re almost done now. Just a little bit more.”

The butterflies swarmed all around me as he moved the insect toward my mouth. I tried to shut my mouth, tried to bite down on his fingers. But, his surgical clamps were still there, holding it wide open. I tried to move, tried to reach up and slap him, but the straps held me to the table. I thrashed about, trying to do anything to stop him.

He put the caterpillar was inside my mouth. I felt it crawling on my tongue, inching it’s way down my throat. I was the one squirming now. It made its way down my throat and into my stomach. The butterflies seemed to buzz in approval. I screamed once more, and then the laughing gas was back. The doctor was pushing the inhaler down on me. And soon, everything went black.

When I came to, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. I was laying in the chair still. Dr. Swanson was staring at me. He reached out toward me. Gripped with fear, I jumped, ready to bolt out of the office.

“Wait. Wait!” the doctor said, “ It’s not safe! You’ve had a very bad reaction to the nitrous oxide. It’s not safe for you to leave.”

“No! I’m leaving right now, you psycho! What the fuck did you do to me? What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he protested, “Cavities. I simply filled the cavities. When the surgery was over, you were raving about butterflies and worms. You seem to have had a very bad reaction to the gas. I wouldn’t suggest using it again. I’m going to make a note in your file.”

“You- You put that thing inside me!”

“My boy,” he said, reassuringly, “I simply filled your cavities. Here, look.” He showed me a mirror. To my surprise, I could see multiple silver spots on my teeth where the cavities had been filled. I couldn’t remember. He’d been drilling before he’d stuck that thing inside of me. But, I didn’t remember him filling them. Maybe, maybe it really had all just been a hallucination.

“Just lay down,” the doctor told me, pushing me gently back down into the chair, “Rest. Just rest.”

I laid there for awhile, recovering from whatever had just happened. As the gas wore off, I started to doubt my memory more and more. It had seemed so real. Real to the point where if I concentrated, I could almost feel the thing wriggling around in my stomach. The butterflies had felt real too. They had tickled when they landed on me.

Before I left, Dr. Swanson reassured me it had all been a hallucination.

“Get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

I did get some sleep. The next morning, aside from my gums feeling a bit sore, I did feel fine. I went to work, and I didn’t think about what had happened. It must’ve been a hallucination.

Over the next few weeks, I hit the gym pretty hard. I started restricting my calories. Like I said, I’ve struggled with my weight for a long time. To my surprise, the weight started to come off. I lost twenty pounds that first week. I’d heard about people losing that kind of weight on shows like “The Biggest Loser.” I’ve also heard you can lose a lot of water weight when you start a new diet or exercise routine. So, I wasn’t too worried.

The next week, I lost twenty more pounds. Then twenty more. I’ve lost around 70 pounds in 3 1/2 weeks.

I got up this morning and felt horrible. My head felt like it was being split open from the inside. My stomach was like a black hole. To hell with the diet. I’d already lost what I wanted to anyway. I ate everything I had in my refrigerator.

As I got dressed, I noticed how baggy my clothes had become. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize the person I’d become. My eyes were sunken and my cheeks were gaunt. I went straight to the emergency room.

At the hospital, they had the news playing on a TV in the waiting area. The news anchor was reporting on the disappearance of a local dentist. The picture they showed of Dr. Swanson was not the sickly man I’d seen a few weeks before, but a photo of when he was healthier.

His body had been found at his office. He’d been completely hollowed out. All of his internal organs, even his brain had been removed. Police were investigating it as a homicide. Anyone with any information was urged to contact a special hotline.

The report ended, and the news anchors moved on. They began talking about sightings of a new species of butterfly in the area. The room started to spin. I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of the report. I raced into the bathroom and threw up.

I’m back in the waiting room now. They’ve taken blood and done X-rays, but I haven’t talked to a doctor about the results yet. I’ve noticed some of the nurses pointing at me and talking together in huddled masses. I’m afraid. I feel like I have butterflies in my stomach.