There was a loud “pop” and a giggle, and Severin knew that one of his fellow prisoners had just exploded.
Severin bobbed at the end of his string, looking straight ahead—all he could do without a neck to turn his gaze—and seeing the terrified expressions of the balloons adjacent to him.
All around him, both inside his field of vision and outside, were other human balloons: once men, now inflated versions of themselves. To the casual observer, they appeared as latex toys, with the barest of human features to indicate their former shapes.