inflation · balloon transformation · virus · surreal horror · body horror · euphoric · slow burn · giant · pop fetish · grotesque
The living room was warm with late afternoon light, your friends scattered across the furniture in their usual postures of relaxed indifference. On the television screen, a news anchor's face appeared, her expression unusually stern as she described a new medical anomaly: a virus that hijacks the body's systems, filling it with gas until the victim bloats into a monstrous, balloon-like sphere over a slow, grueling timeline of weeks or months. You chuckled, elbowing the friend next to you. Just another absurd story from a world that loved its morbid jokes. Pushing yourself up from the couch, you felt a sudden need for space and quiet, and stepped out through the back door into the shaded yard.