5 Time of Darkness

Legends tell of a "Time of Darkness" that descends upon the world once every 50,000 years. The recent discovery of an ancient manuscript by archaeologist Gabriel Lancaster leads him into a time of psychological darkness in an attempt to discover whether the legend is true.

***

Gabriel was starting to feel tired. He looked at the clock to see it was 2.40 a.m. and he had been pouring over documents since early morning, fueled only by large amounts of tea. He rubbed his eyes, closed the book in front of him and walked over to his chair. Dropping back, he yawned, pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

The link he was looking for was tantalizingly close. There had to be a way of connecting the old Eleusinian Mysteries with the New Orleans Psychoanalytical Association. Before he died, Professor Francis Haldeman had said something about Persephone. What was it?

"Gabe," he said,"I can't give you all the details over the phone because I think I'm being bugged. But the 'Persephone Connection' is real, as real as you and I. We'll meet in Pittsburgh next week and I'll give you a copy of the document. Trust me, it's bigger than anything you've come across before."

That was the last he'd heard from Haldeman. Three days later, the Psychoanalytical world had been shocked by his brutal murder, particularly with the savagery of the attack. Murders happen all the time, but this one was ritualistic in the extreme. The police has suspected that the killer was a patient, or ex-patient, of Haldeman, but nothing had been found.

All Lancaster knew was that he never received the 'Persephone Connection' document, and by all accounts, neither had the murder squad investigators. So if he couldn't read the document, he had to reconstruct it from Haldeman's past. For the next few weeks, he had to become Haldeman and reinvent the conspiracy. He had to find Persephone.

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