Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: GET COLD FEET (10/12/17)
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TITLE: Coldfire's Fearful Day | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Westefeld
10/18/17 -
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As she left the ground, his control over her feelings ceased. He'd played on her greatest fear, probably not even knowing what it was, but she got cold feet thinking of the first time they faced off. The process that gave her powers over heat and cold also gave her some vision, thus her greatest fear was being blind again. She was almost paralyzed with terror the first time he’d used his powers on her. If she hadn’t tried to fly away in a literal blind panic, she might have been defeated in their first battle.
She steeled her nerves and flew to the River Edge National Bank, thinking of a phrase she’d heard from the Bible, “gird your loins.” She'd learned that it meant summoning courage to confront your fear.
When she approached the bank, careful to hover off the floor, he called out in his deep mocking voice, “Afraid to come in for a landing, my dear?”
Soon, she realized, she'd need to land, as she noticed an older woman writhing on the ground, clutching at her chest. She needed to perform CPR, which she would not have leverage to do while floating over her.
Knowing she had to capture Despair quickly, she concentrated her thermal control powers on his head. She chilled the blood in his brain to give him a champion migraine, exceeding the world’s worst ice cream headache.
Coldfire hoped that with his concentration broken, he’d be unable to use his powers, enabling her to safely land and help the heart attack victim. She also created a set of ice shackles to hold him until the police arrived.
She landed gently next to the woman who’d been scared half to death. She stiffened in shock when her vision vanish as though a light had been switched off, realizing he’d broken through his headache enough to use his powers. Still, he wasn’t getting away, and the police knew the range of his powers and would arrive with tranquilizer darts. They might not arrive in time, though, to save the woman. Coldfire felt nearly incapacitating fear stab into her own heart. She remembered her devotions that morning in 1 Peter, where it said, ‘Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober minded, set your hope on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
She murmured, in a low voice, "I can do this, with the help of Jesus. Please, Lord, help me save this woman.” With gentle hands, she found the woman’s face, pinched her nostrils shut, tipped her head back, and gave the rescue breaths she'd learned in the course at the YWCA. Then, finding the proper place on the lady’s sternum, Coldfire began compressions, wishing she had her team leader’s powers of electricity. She scolded herself for that thought. God had allowed each member of the Light Force to receive unique powers for a reason, recalling in a distant part of her mind, the words of 1 Corinthians 12, about the parts of the body being all essential to the proper functioning of it.
As to the body she was working on, she felt sweat pour off her face, under her mask, dripping onto the woman. Feeling a strong hand on her shoulder, she looked up into a man's face. She still couldn’t make out anything about him, as her thermal vision didn’t give her that level of detail, but could tell that he was loading the woman onto a gurney. She was able to see that he injected her with something as he placed an oxygen mask over her face. His voice was rough, like Rex’s, but he had a gentleness in it as he said, “You did good, Coldfire. I think we can take it from here.”
She smiled under the praise. If he only knew how difficult it was for her to do the CPR, but all he saw was a tough superhero doing the job God allowed her to do.
******************************************************************Author’s note: The Bible verses Coldfire referenced was taken from the ESV translation
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