The creature adopted every characteristic of its victim: tastes, moods, illnesses. And since Mr. Kővári’s wife loathed alcohol the creature declined to be present at the tasting. But had it drunk from the Emerald complex it would have found what it had been seeking for such a long time: its true self.

Mr. Kővári stared ahead, his eyes glassy and empty, like a dead animal’s. He slowly slipped off his chair and spread across the floor unconscious.

Gábor felt a desire to lie down beside him and just let go. He burped but didn’t vomit. He let the complex wash through him like a wave, purify him, then retreat. He stood up from his chair, which tipped over with a loud clunk. He felt dizzy. He took a hesitant step and grabbed on to the edge of the table. He looked around the room timidly. Mr. Kővári appeared dead. Cseszi was feigning sleep in a corner, but every now and then she would lift the bottle up to her lips and take a sip from the Lily complex. Boss was snoring in a corner. Daniella was drinking the Indigo and masturbating on the floor. The telepathic noise was only a murmur now. Everyone had temporarily lost their conscious self either in sleep or in the trance of a complex.

‘It’s only the two of us now, my friend,’ Zanó smiled. He was the only sober person in the cellar.

Gábor wanted to say something but his tongue wouldn’t move. He felt ants running around in his mouth.

‘Come with me,’ Zanó said. ‘Our friends will be just fine here.’

Zanó left and Gábor stumbled behind him through a tunnel. His hands scraped against the wall, seeking support; he remembered his alcoholic grandfather, who could only move around if he was touching a wall the whole time. A few times Gábor lost sight of Zanó, then started to panic, thinking that he would get lost in the cellar system, that he would stroll drunkenly in the darkness forever, until he eventually found the room with the bottomless black hole in the middle, into which he would tumble, falling endlessly as if death were nothing but a soft bed.