The month of March seems to have flown by, with my sole creative focus being pieces to submit to the Z Publishing Anthology for 2019. With the word limit quadrupled from last year, it allowed me to craft tales with more complexity and details then previously. Along with giving me the ability to craft four unique entries in different genres that kept to my writing style while keeping under the 5000 word limit. While I have yet to hear back regarding the status of anything I wrote, I know that my submission did go through Friday afternoon. Now to wait and see what their decision regarding the acceptance of each piece.

When I first saw the theme for this month’s contest was 28 days, I wasn’t particularly certain I would enter. Thinking it over for a few days after sign-ups began. Finding unexpected inspiration in the extreme cold that seized the northeast at the end of January and the beginning of February. Inspiring me to craft an epic style poem, where entities of myth live inside the cold. Along with bringing to Earth a champion for humanity, who would fight back against the cold and the creatures that live within. A piece of flash fiction I call, “Forces Of Nature.”

Twenty-eight days have passed since the cold cast its icy hand upon the northern part of the world. It is somehow bringing with it entities both physical and ethereal in its wake. Creatures that have more of a place in mythology than in the real world. There was one strange bright spot in this frozen land, in the form of a man. Perhaps man is a bit of understatement to describe this stranger to our world. A stranger who seems to radiate an intense amount of heat from his body, almost as he can somehow focus and amplify the fiery nature of the sun. While the survivors of the cold world have given the stranger many names, I have taken to calling him Cinead. Watching this mysterious man from afar as he fights back the creatures of the cold.

Twenty-eight additional days have passed since this unnatural age of cold began. Cinead has fought back against the creatures of the winter on behalf of the human race. He was miraculously winning enough fights to bring his existence to the attention of the seldom seen Beria. Her name was only whispered in the direst of times, casting an almost mythic atmosphere around her. From what little information I could gather from both people and prose, she had a spiritual link to the cold. The cold that was beginning to take a visible tole on the survivors. Despite Cinead creating spots of warmth to shelter humanity from the dangerous and intense chill, forcing Beria to issue a hollowed challenge to Cinead. A provocation I believed that if lost, humankind would bear the ultimate consequences.

Twenty-eight days had passed since Beria announced her challenge to Cinead. Beria’s summons for combat was answered and agreed too. They are bringing about an unstable sense of peace between the creatures that took shelter in the cold and their hostile stance on the remaining survivors. Combining their incredible powers to shape and alter the landscape to create a neutral battleground. The hopes of humanity keeping an invisible watchful eye on the area, to make sure the fight would be fair.

Another twenty-eight days had passed since the challenge had been agreed to, and the arena created. Cinead and Beria stood on opposite sides of the makeshift coliseum. Each starring in silence at each other like pugilists before a championship fight. Except for this time, there was more on the line than just a shiny belt. This battle could ultimately decide the fate of humanity. From an unseen corner, I watched staying undetected by the champions of fire and ice, waiting for the fight to move past the tense staredown and commence the altercation. Greatswords of crimson fire and sapphire ice rested over their shoulders, ready to strike.

Twenty-eight minutes passed before Cinead and Beria charged at each other. Their blades forged of the elements themselves colliding. Each impact was releasing bursts of steam into the air. The steam was growing at an exponential rate until it began to obscure the two fighters. Each champion was becoming a radiant beacon of color in the dense fog. The energies emitting from them both were releasing flashes of light into the mist, giving me some idea of what was happening. Cinead and Beria were fighting with an almost inhuman pace, with neither of them appearing to tire. With a furious pace, the two continued to struggle, with each strike releasing more and more light into the fog. The colors were starting to blend into a dark shade of violet at the center of smog obscured arena.

An additional twenty-eight minutes passed before the fog began to dissipate at a steady rate. The colors that filled the air vanishing with it. An intense and radiant glow of orange light piercing the remaining, thinning fog. Cinead appeared to be victorious over Beria, who was lying impaled on the ground by Cinead’s flaming greatsword. Her sword of ice resting far outside of her reach. With both hands, Cinead reached out towards the midday sun. The air was starting to sparkle between his hands, almost as if Cinead was conjuring something from the sun’s light. Cinead’s body began to emit a pale orange glow. With what I imagine was an incredible focus, the glow radiated around his body, like a fiery aura. This aura was moving up his body at a steady pace towards his hands. Cinead somehow was shaping the energy into a long cylindrical pole of pure flame. The tip of the pole was starting to emit and produce a short curving blade. With a slow arcing two-handed swing, Cinead brought the flaming head of the ax down on Beria’s neck. Cinead repeated the precision arcing movement three more times before decapitating her fully. With its purpose now fulfilled, Cinead let the ax vanish from his grip. The champion of the cold now resting defeated and dead.

An additional twenty-eight days passed before the dangerous arctic chill released its grip on the world. With the cold vanishing, some semblance of normality and civilization returned to humanity.

Critique level: Full Word count: 854