In 1983, everything changed in Hungary. In one of the woods, a new kind of animal appeared, clinging to the tree branches with their long tentacles. Nowhere in the world had they seen anything like them. Their way of life is incomprehensible - they don't need food, but they love sugar, you can touch them, but you can't photograph them. Their digestive secretions are believed by many to cure cancer. But what is perhaps the most unusual: they cannot be taken out of the country.

Did a miracle happen, or did we just not notice something that was right in front of our eyes all along?

After nearly exterminating them, we established colonies to keep the remaining ones safe. Gábor comes to work at such a plant. It seems like irresponsible work: feeding and shoveling manure in the morning, then long, boring afternoons in the company of lukewarm beers and young foreigners, who, like Gábor, are all running away from something, be it an old love or the responsibility of growing up.

De Gábor was chosen by the animals. No one thinks it matters... but what if it does? What if a simple summer job soon turns into a bizarre, horrifying, death-filled nightmare, the stakes of which are much higher than anyone could have imagined?

Attila Veres mixes Lovecraftian horror and Vandermeer surrealism in his first novel, simultaneously paying tribute to the past and future of speculative fiction.