Ema was an excellent biology teacher. She loved her job and knew how to pass on her enthusiasm to the children. With passion, she told them about the animal world, the mysteries of nature, evolution, and adaptation. That day, they were discussing parental care in fish.

"Children, some fish take care of their offspring in a very special way. The female gathers her fry into her mouth and carries them there until they are big and strong enough to survive outside. Such a mother literally shelters her children in her mouth to protect them from predators."

The class listened in fascination.

Ema smiled and thought of an innocent joke: "Imagine how big my mouth would have to be to protect even one newborn!"

The children laughed. Their imagination immediately set its silent magic in motion.

And at that moment, something impossible happened.

At first, she felt only a slight pressure in her jaw. Then her mouth began to expand on its own. The skin on her cheeks stretched, and her teeth spread apart as if her skull was yielding to an unknown force. Panic grew inside her when she realized she could no longer close her mouth. Air flowed in and out with an unusual rasp, her tongue trembled in the newly acquired space. It was unnatural. Unreal.

The classroom fell silent.

Some children laughed, thinking it was another one of her tricks. But their laughter soon faded when they noticed that Ema was no longer smiling. Her eyes were wide with terror, her hands trembled as she supported her own face, which was growing larger and heavier. Frightened and shaking, she ran out of the classroom.

She rushed to the sink by the school blackboard. Above it hung a small mirror.

And when she saw herself in it, she screamed.

Instead of her smile, a giant mouth grinned back at her from the shiny surface. Huge, unnaturally wide open, full of white teeth and the dark abyss behind them. It was monstrous.

Crying, she ran to the principal's office. She burst in, her eyes filled with tears, desperate. The principal stared at her in absolute disbelief. She tried to say something, but her new mouth wouldn't allow it. Only inarticulate growls emerged. Desperately, she grabbed a pen and wrote on a piece of paper: "HELP ME."

An ambulance took her to the hospital. The doctors had no idea what to do with her. X-rays showed that her skull had adapted to the new shape as if it had never been different. No one could explain what had happened. She was a sensation but also a nightmare. Patients were afraid of her, nurses avoided her, and doctors looked at her as a strange experiment beyond their understanding.

At home, after several weeks, she desperately tried to eat. She was starving. But how? Small bites disappeared in her enormous jaws, large ones she couldn't swallow. Drinking was a disaster—water spilled from the corners of her mouth, ran down her chin, choked her. She was exhausted, desperate, broken.

It took months before she learned to eat, drink, and somewhat speak again. But it was never normal. She never felt human again.

She never returned to school.

Her story became a legend. The children who had been in her class that day carried the memory for life. And for decades, rumors spread that once every hundred years, when enough children's imagination converges at the right moment, reality bends to their fantasies.

And someone else becomes a victim of their innocent dreams.