I’m standing outside the pharmacy with my dad, chewing my nails off while I wait for the test result. This morning I got an email from the government telling me to stay home for the next two weeks. The reason? A passenger on the flight I took a couple of days ago tested positive for Covid.

Well, no fucking way I’m staying home and missing New Year’s Eve in Budapest with my friends, especially after already paying for everything. Hotel, flights and all that shit. Let’s be honest, who would?

I deleted the email. Go ahead, report me. And here I am, rushing to the pharmacy to take a test.

Negative. The anxiety fades, and I’m free to go.

It’s December 26th, 2021.

I spend amazing days with my friends, New Year celebrations, saunas, and ice skating. A week in the Hungarian capital, and for the first time we’re this many, about ten of us. I brought my laptop with me because I plan to stay a few extra days after they leave. I’m a graphic designer, and I want to try the digital nomad experience.

Budapest, Hungary
January 4th, 2021

For our last dinner together, I decide to experiment and order a different kind of goulash, trout this time. Terrible choice. It felt like I was eating straight out of an organic waste bin left in the sun in the middle of August. Absolutely disgusting.
Result? I feel awful and spend the evening throwing up.

Even though it’s our last night together, I’m not exactly missing anything epic: while I’m locked in the hotel room spraying rainbows from my mouth, they’re locked in a bar watching the darts championship on TV.
When I finally start feeling better, I join them, but I stick to water. I couldn’t care less about darts, so to pass the time, I open Tinder.

I match with a girl, and we start chatting right away. Her name is Anita, well, not really Anita, but for this story, I’d rather not use her real name. She speaks excellent English, and after less than ten minutes, she invites me to her place.

And that’s when things start to get weird.

She tells me she doesn’t live in the city but more than forty kilometres from Budapest, in a small village near Lake Velence. And she asks me to go there now. It’s almost midnight.
In my head, I can already see my body floating in the water, one kidney missing.

Obviously, I refuse.

But she insists. She says she wants to talk on the phone. So, against every survival instinct I have, I give her my number.

And she calls.

She’s drunk. She says she feels lonely. Something bad just happened, and I need to come over so she can stop thinking about it. I explain that only a crazy person would agree to that. We stay on the phone for about twenty minutes. In the end, let’s say she half convinces me. “Okay, if you don’t come tonight, come tomorrow during the day.”

Still crazy, but more acceptable.

I tell my friends: huge mistake.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“She’s going to chop you up and sell you in pieces!”
“Have you seen Hostel? You’re an idiot!”

They’re not entirely wrong. It’s late, and they have a flight in the morning. We go to sleep.

They say the night brings advice. I spent the whole night thinking about Anita’s proposal. I even added her on Facebook to see if she’s real. Apparently, she is. I decide to go. In the morning, I say goodbye to my friends, who call me insane. Anita explains which trains I need to take. Thank God, because the Budapest station is a nightmare. Everything is written in Hungarian, and almost nobody speaks English.

I leave my suitcase with my laptop in a locker and, once I find what I hope is the right train, I jump on. As it starts moving, the anxiety kicks in.

I look out the window. The area we’re passing through is depressing. The grey sky doesn’t help my mood. I have no idea what I’m doing. I already start thinking about how to turn back, but my endless curiosity, and maybe stupidity, keeps me from getting off.

After a couple of hours, I arrive in the town of Valence. I wasn’t expecting much, but I wasn’t ready for this level of desolation. The houses I see are sad and grey, just like the sky. Behind the station, there’s a wall of reeds where you can glimpse Lake Valence. For now, there’s no sign of her. I take a short walk until she calls to say she’s arrived.

I take a deep breath and head toward the parking area. I approach slowly, hoping to see a woman in a car and not a crazy murderer wearing a tank top with chest hair sticking out. Luckily, it’s a woman, and it’s the one from the photos. Without her noticing, I take a picture of her car, trying to capture the license plate, and immediately send it to my friend Atze.

We greet each other, “Nice to meet you” and all that, and I get into her car. I notice some hay on the floor mat, and my mind immediately creates a thousand scenarios of how she might cut me into pieces on her farm. I turn on my GPS and share my location with Atze.

While we talk in the car, I find out she’s a beautician and has a beauty salon at home. She wants to show it to me. Anxiety. We arrive at a small house with a black gate and a neglected little garden. Dead plants, random stuff piled here and there. A big black cat walks toward us. Anita invites me in. I try not to show that I’m literally shitting myself.

Inside the house, it’s chaos. Mountains of clothes and random junk are scattered everywhere. But I don’t judge, I’m messy too. In fact, it almost feels like home. She takes me to the kitchen and offers me a coffee with milk. I’ve never been so scared to drink a coffee in my life. With the last sip, I feel like I swallow something. I don’t know what. For a second, I think I just swallowed a pill, maybe a sleeping pill. But it was probably just some slightly clotted milk cream at the bottom.

We go outside.

“Come, I’ll show you my salon.”
“Where is it?”
“In the back of the house.”

Great. Perfect place to get chopped up, I think. I rub my stomach, say goodbye to my organs, and follow her.

Behind the house, there’s another small building. The inside is definitely more organised than the main house, aside from a few boxes here and there. Closed boxes on the floor, new furniture and sinks to install, and mirrors waiting to be mounted. I follow her down the hallway. She looks very excited. She wants to show me something.

She opens a door, and surprise: A spaceship!