And then the conflict began in earnest. Because this wasn't a debate in the usual sense, the combatants were permitted to talk over one another, to interrupt and to fulminate and play to the audience in any way they chose. Both men tore into the conflict like a raptor attacking its chosen prey, and the audience ate it up.
Time stretched.
The glorious energy of it infused the stadium, enrapturing combatants and audience alike.
It seemed to go on forever.
And then, with a blinding flash of internal light, Katzmarek froze, caught himself up briefly, and gaped. His vision had subtly changed, as if he'd suddenly sprouted more eyes. He felt a heightened sense of those around him, a sense of familiarity that went far beyond anything he could possibly have known about them. But before he'd even had the chance to wonder about it, the world fell in on itself, and everything went black.
He screamed in panic, but heard nothing.
He held what he hoped was his hand in front of what he hoped were his eyes, but neither felt nor saw anything.
He flailed about, desperately trying to find something solid, but failed to even find himself.
All at once, memories started unreeling though his mind. Memories of his childhood, of school, and of the train ride to Corwin Farragut's prison. They spun about chaotically, in no particular order. He tried to hold onto one, and then another of them, hoping that he could at least find a figurative place to hide. But just as he was about to fall into one of them, a second wave of memories overwhelmed him, memories of things that were, at one and the same time, both familiar and utterly foreign. One of them seemed to include a mirror, but when he leaned into the memory, and caught a glimpse of a reflection, he realized that it was a memory of some future that hadn't happened yet, because a very much older self was looking back at him.
That was when he realized what had happened, when he realized that he, and who knew how many other people, had been sucked into the void, had found the secret that lay just this side of the madness of crowds.
Just as the thought of the crowd he was in struck him, so did a tsunami of inarticulate terror, for the void had also swallowed countless others, and only he and Gina Heuff stood between them and the same sort of perpetual darkness that had swallowed the much smaller meltdown mob.
But where was she?
Daunted, he struggled to return to the image he'd conjured before entering the stadium, to put himself in the place of Randolph Carter's guide, so that he could play that role for the terrorized multitude that shared the void. He struggled, but failed. Being his own savior was hard enough. But playing that part for who knew how many others? The idea was repulsive, and the image eluded him.
Awash in soundless screams, Katzmarek withdrew into himself. His mind pleaded for rationality, his gut wrenched with fear. All of the past and future memories of those who were sucked with him into the void were joined by layer upon layer of the false memories of stories read and heard by bits and pieces of the growing consciousness in which he was embedded. But one of them kept popping to the surface of Katzmarek's fragmentary self, one fictional reality that resonated far more strongly against what was happening than any of the others.
Lovecraft.
Randolph Carter.
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