It was a disgusting habit, but Renee just couldn’t help it as she clicked on the next video.

There was something inherently satisfying in watching popping videos. Seeing people evicting the parts of themselves that were not meant to be there. As a result, Renee often found herself looking resentfully at her own growth.

She was certain she’d seen every video available online in just the last few weeks, watching them under covers so that the roommate lying next to her wouldn’t see. Renee knew she would be upset and repulsed.

Still, she needed to see more. She watched more serious removals. People gouging out larger pieces and repairing the patches left with stitches or filling them with superglue. Salving pieces until the flesh burned and pucks fell out. Her roommate noticed how tired Renee looked, but when she claimed to be feeling fine, her smile was very convincing.

Eventually she found herself watching surgery videos. People had operated on themselves before, in desperate circumstances: caesareans and appendectomies in remote locations with no other options. She felt along the edge of her growth and made a decision. She began gathering the necessary materials in secret.

The hard part was making sure that her roommate wouldn’t disrupt her. A blow to the head sorted that easily.

With all the tools at her disposal, Renee looked at the flesh that connected her to her growth, which was now mumbling as blood pooled from her head.

It didn’t matter what the doctors had told them. She could do this, she repeated as she made the first cut.

Pete had never been a slim man, so when he gained a few kilos he hardly noticed. A few more and he started to blame Christmas and New Years celebrations. Weirdly the only physical change was a swollen stomach, but that was not large enough to justify the extra kilos on the scales.

A few more weeks and even his most polite friends started expressing their concerns. He just slapped his expanding gut and joked about needed to run off some baby weight at the gym.

In private, he chose to ignore the growth. He hardly looked in the mirror, walking directly from the shower to cupboard to find some previously baggy clothes to wear.

He had convinced himself that it could not be too bad, as he had felt no pains, although he could swear he felt it shift sometimes. He refused to see a doctor, telling loved ones not to worry, that he would go if it got more serious. In his mind, the uncertainty that only flared up when he thought about it was better than living with the constant reminder of a death sentence that a doctor might give him.

The pain started below dawn. It was quick.

Pete lay in his bed, on his side. His stomach had burst, but he was unable to moved. He lay in a pool of his own cooling blood, paralysed by the pain. He looked at the phone on the nightstand, and impossible arm’s reach away. He heard skittering beneath the bed and saw a glimpse of something that stared back at him, before hiding again.

It had his eyes.