He slurred the words, his face all flushed. Cseszi sat with her eyes closed, rocking herself gently, like a child about to fall asleep. Daniella smiled. Mihály scratched his chin. Boss leaned back in the chair.

‘Yeah, this is really cool,’ he said.

‘Can I ask for some more of this later on?’ Cseszi asked.

‘No, my dear,’ Zanó shook his head, ‘you cannot go back to a complex, you can only go straight ahead or stay with the last one you had.’

‘I’d like to have some more of this.’

‘No problem, my dear. There is more. But then unfortunately you cannot taste the other ones.’

‘I’ll do that next year.’

‘All right, my dear. I’ll bring you more Lily. Is everyone else ready for the next one?’

Alex quietly fell off his chair. His unconscious body was dragged into a room where a mattress had been prepared for guests who fainted. Gábor thought that maybe now was the time to stop, to give up this binge-drinking race, but he had given up too many things already. What could he lose by continuing? His health? His self-respect? His future? He had already lost these things long ago.

Zanó showed up with a new bottle.

‘This is the Indigo complex. It will be slightly heavier than the previous one, but just as exciting, I hope. If you’ll allow me . . .’

Then he poured for everyone. Gábor shivered from excitement and knew he had made the right choice.

Red mist.

The senses are still virgin. You are at peace with silence and darkness. No reflection of the self, no distinction between the waking world and dreams. You don’t even know that you’re alive, because it’s the only state you know.

Life is a kind of wriggling, a constant fidgeting deeper into a world that is welcoming, compassionate, soft and warm, a machine that works for you and for you alone. There are others of your kind in this darkness. They are all happy, without understanding what happiness is.

In the womb, before birth, your body moves. You hear a heartbeat, a rhythmic, deep rumble. That is all you have ever known.

Time is of no importance. You could stay here forever, but you are overtaken by a new sense of adventure. You wriggle in the space that now seems to be growing too cramped for you. You later identify this sensation as hunger.

You are isolated in a bubble, but outside another reality awaits, wilder, unpredictable and exciting, providing enough food to kill off this new feeling.

You start to flail, to scratch the wall of the bubble, instinctively drilling yourself ahead. You realize you have a mouth, so you bite and tear your way through this wall. The smell of food pours in through the cracks. Your hunger grows. You are overwhelmed by the excitement of a new world as you struggle, without reflection or reason, just to get out as soon as possible from your former shell.