Happy Burstday!

Content Warning: a gory death

Art by Shane

"Happy Burstday!" the crowd cheered at me.

"Thanks," I said. "But it's not my birthday?"

"Not his birthday! Not his birthday!" a smaller man with red hair and a green-and-yellow striped shirt cackled.

"Not his birthday!" the crowd echoed, then broke into laughter.

"I'm serious though! It's not my birthday!" I tried.

"We never said it was," answered the strange man.

"But you-"

"It's your BURST day!" the man said, grinning from ear to ear.

"What's a-" I started.

"Happy Burstday!" the crowd cheered again before I could finish.

"What's a burstday?" I tried again.

"He doesn't know what a burstday is!" the ringleader let out a peal of laughter that the crowd echoed. After the laughter died down, he cried out to the crowd again. "Let's show him!"

I wasn't so dumb as to stand around and find out, but I hadn't been so smart as to get moving as soon as the danger had become apparent. Plus, of course, I'd been neglecting any exercise beyond walking to and from the car for the better part of a decade. My sprint to freedom lasted about ten yards before I was tackled by a more spry member of the crowd.

"Let me go! Let me the fuck go!" I screamed.

"It's your burstday!" I heard the strange man yell out in reply over my screams and struggles against the people pinning me down. I struggled harder when he said his next few words: "Bring out the machine!"

Over the course of a few minutes I was bound and gagged and had a plug shoved up my ass and a hose shoved down my throat. I heard the growl of a diesel compressor firing up and smelled the exhaust fumes. Then I felt the pressure.

Immense pressure filled my gut as I was pumped full of air. The most surprising part of the torture - beyond the distention of my abdomen - was my inability to breathe as my lungs were squeezed from within. It was ironic that I was suffocating from being too full of air.

With a sickening rip I felt relief as my intestines broke through my stomach wall and landed on the pavement. I felt wet. I looked down at the carnage as best I could and had one last thought: that's a lot of blood.

"Happy Burstday!" the crowd cheered as everything faded.