Heaven Nor Hell
by Arwhale
When it came to the cold, Big Mac was no wimp. Granted, the fur on his fetlocks were as good as any boots when it came to insulating his hooves against the snow, and the workhorse collar he always wore around his neck was an added layer of protection against the wind. But these were minimal comforts. Frost had a bite, but he bit back harder.
He shivered.
It was a crawl, a tingle starting from his back hooves and traveling all the way up his spine. He stopped himself mid-step, setting down the bucket of food scraps in his mouth and fully opening his eyes in spite of the windblown snow. He looked around.
Even if somepony had been there, the conditions would have made it nearly impossible to see. Big Mac instead relied on his ears, trying to make out a sound of something approaching over the wind’s high-pitched howl. Moments stretched into minutes before Big Mac picked up the bucket and moved again, but his mind was far from at ease.
The snowflakes whipped against his face, and the myriad of tiny ice crystals pricked his skin like needles. He bore the discomfort without complaint, squinting more narrowly and pressing on toward the barn. The building’s outline was faint through the white haze, but familiarity led him in the right direction until he arrived at his destination.
With the assistance of another wind gust, he pressed a hoof against the barn door and opened it up, but just a crack. He wanted to keep as much of the cold air out as possible. He squeezed his large frame into the space between the doors and slipped inside, shutting the door behind him as gently as he could to prevent awakening the sleeping animals within.
It took a little while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he could smell the pigs and sheep before he could see them. He wrinkled his snout at the odor, but like the cold he quickly grew used to it as well. The animals huddled together for warmth, lying down atop the hay which served as their bedding. Thankfully for them, this barn was rather newly constructed and very sturdy, which meant that there were few slits in the walls where the wind could bleed through.
Big Mac walked to the trough beside the small pod of sleeping pigs and dumped the contents of the bucket into it, careful not to make too much noise. Satisfied that they were not disturbed, he headed over to a tarp-covered mound in the right corner of the barn that was closest to the door. He pinched the corner of the tarp in his teeth and peeled it back to reveal a hefty stash of firewood underneath.
He picked up three of the smaller logs and set them on his back, nestling them just between the shoulder blades. He did not have any twine to tie it with, so he had to rely on balance alone to keep it steady on his back. The tarp made a crinkling sound as he unfolded it back down over the wood. Keeping his body level with the ground, he turned around and walked toward the entrance.
The doors shook, rattling in place. Big Mac froze. One of the logs slid off his back and fell with a thump to the ground.
Another hard gust followed the disturbance. It crashed against the wall of the barn, but the doors did not move. A sheep bleated nearby.
Big Mac lowered his head in a crouch, bending slightly at the knees.
“AJ?” he called out. He waited for a response, but there was none.
Another blast of chilly air pounded the walls of the barn, but the doors were not swayed. He reached over his shoulder, taking each of the logs on his back and setting them down on the dirt floor one at a time.
“AJ?” he called again. No answer. Staying in a crouch, he inched forward toward the door. His ears twitched, on high alert.
He reached the door, pressing his ear up against it and listening intently. From what he could tell, there was nothing immediately on the other side. Nonetheless, he hardly dared to move. The tip of one of his hooves wedged itself in between the doors, and he began to pull it open so he could take a peek outside.
It did not budge. Big Mac gave the door an incredulous stare before he tried it again, pulling harder this time. The door only opened a sliver before it refused to move further.
Big Mac could feel his heart pounding against his own eardrums. He shook the doors, trying to force them apart, but they did not give. Gripping the edge of the door in his mouth, he yanked on it roughly, but something was on the other side keeping the doors together.
He was locked in.
Big Mac’s breath caught in his lungs. He stepped back away from the door, sweat forming on his brow in spite of the cold. It was the dead of winter, in the middle of a snowstorm, and he was trapped in the barn.
And somepony, or something, had locked him in.
The commotion of the rattling barn doors and Big Mac’s grunts of exertion caused the animals to stir in their sleep. But at this point, he was no longer worried about waking them up. He cantered over to the barn’s far side, focusing on the tiny window placed right in the middle of the wall. This barn was meant specifically for housing the animals during the winter, and as a result it had only one window where the cold could seep through. He peered through the foggy glass, trying to catch a glimpse of something outside, but the snow blocking his view showed no signs of stopping any time soon.
Another gale vibrated the walls of the barn, causing the structure to give a low moan of discomfort. But another sound, this one much more faint and unclear, had been carried by the wind. The sound seemed to fade in and out, an indistinct echo akin to cawing of a rooster over a vast canyon.
His ears twitched as he heard the sound. It drifted away briefly, but came right back, this time much louder. He gasped, realizing what it was.
A scream.
“Maaaac!”
And it was coming from the farmhouse. His blood went hot.
He whirled around, running over to the door. Once more, he tried to jerk it open, but it remained firmly in place. He gnawed at the bark with his teeth, hooves shaking from both cold and fear as he dug them into the ground. The muscles on his neck bulged like balloons as he pulled with all his strength, but whatever was tied to the handles on the other side was not giving way. He swore under his breath, heart racing in a near-panic. There was no way he could get enough leverage to pull it open.
With a growl of fury and desperation, he let his hold of the door go and stepped back. Eyes darting around, he searched frantically for anything he could jam into the doors and use as a lever, but he found nothing. He swore again, this time shouting it to the ceiling.
Stamping his hooves into the ground, he charged the door shoulder first. He crashed into the wood, but the door only responded with an equal and opposite force, pushing him back. A dull ache formed on his shoulder, but he ignored it completely, charging forward and ramming the door again and again.
“Applejack!” He hollered. The pigs and sheep had awoken as soon as he had started ramming the door. Their startled bleats and squeals went unheeded by the stallion. “Ah’m coming!”
Shoulder throbbing, he switched tactics. He turned around, crouching his front legs low to the earth and giving the door the hardest buck he could manage. His back hooves collided with the wooden planks, making a small dent in them, but the doors only oscillated from the impact. There was no wait between the first buck and the second, his powerful back legs smashing into the door more times than he could count.
“Aaah! Aargh!” he roared. Every new buck sent a twinge of pain through his hind legs, but he never slowed down, developing a frantic rhythm with his strikes. The boards creaked with his efforts, and the wood around the doorframe began to crack and split from the battering. He did not even notice, putting forth all of his power and focus into crashing his hooves into the door. The muscles in his back legs rippled with each collision, and adrenaline masked the lancing pain which shot up his back.
Whump!
The cracks above the doorframe widened. The hinges bent.
Whump!
The doors bent slightly in the other direction. Splinters formed above the door.
Crunch!
The animals retreated away from the entrance. Sweat poured down Mac’s brow.
Craccckk!
The entire doorframe leaned outward, and cold air found its way through the new cracks.
Big Mac closed his eyes, clenched his jaws together, and launched himself off the ground with his front legs, concentrating every last ounce of strength into one last kick.
“RAAAAGH!”
The impact dislodged the entire doorframe from the wall. With the ear splitting crunch of snapping wood, it toppled over and crashed onto the snow-covered earth, emitting a cloud of white powder with the landing.
Cold air rushed over Big Mac’s flanks. He whipped around, leaping over the fallen door and breaking out into a full gallop, leaving the frightened sheep and pigs behind.
“AJ! Apple Bloom!” He cried. Drops of sweat froze on his face, and his legs slammed into the ground like four pistons. “Ah’m coming!”
It was the matter of a minute before he could see the farmhouse through the blizzard. He saw that the lights in the upstairs window had gone out; they had been on when he left. He spurred himself onto even greater efforts, the cloud of his breath mixing in with the swirling snow.
The front door was wide open, hanging ajar on two of its hinges. He gasped for air, chucking up waves of white powder with his hooves as he ground himself to a halt. Upon seeing the open door, the icy claws of fear gripped his throat. He stepped inside.
The scene before him made his heart stop. Broken glass from a fallen picture frame littered the ground beside Granny Smith’s rocking chair, which had been flipped onto its side. Books from the shelves on either end of the room lay all over the room, and drag marks across the hardwood floor indicated that the sofa had been used to block the door before it too had been flipped over. Big Mac’s heart rose into his throat.
“Applejack! Apple Bloom!” he shouted his sisters’ names. His hooves clopped over the hardwood, searching the whole of the house in a near complete panic.
“Big Mac!”
A voice sounded from upstairs. Big Mac’s heart leapt in his chest as he recognized it as belonging his littlest sister. He darted up the stairs.
“Apple Bloom! Where are you?” he answered her with a desperate shout. He emerged into the long hallway, and his little sister answered him from the room at the very end, in her bedroom.
“In here!” she yelled back in reply. “H-help…”
Hearing the filly’s distressed cries, he bolted down the hall and slammed open her bedroom door. Her bed was empty, but her whimpers were audible from behind her closet door.
“Maaac…” she was clearly crying. He did not hesitate to open the door, revealing the filly lying on the floor, curled up into a ball in the back corner. Her entire body was shaking like a leaf, and she burst into tears at seeing him there, standing in the doorway. "M-Mac..."
"AB!" He ran over and scooped her up in his forelegs. She offered him no resistance, quaking and weeping in his grasp with her face buried in his chest. He looked down at her, angling her face up so that she was looking him in the eyes. "Wh-what happened? Where's your sister?"
Never in his life had he seen her eyes so wide. Her face registered nothing short of absolute terror.
"She's... they took 'er," she whispered. "They took her... Sh-she... told me to hide..."
She got no further. Shallow breaths escaped her, and she completely broke down, crumpling into a heap in her big brother's firm hold. He cradled her like a babe in his massive forelegs.
They took 'er.
The words penetrated his skull and stabbed at his chest like spears. He tasted bile at the back of his throat.
"Took her? Where? Where, AB?" He asked the trembling filly in his arms. But she was past the point of coherence. She continued to cry, in a state of total shock. The world around him suddenly turned into a spinning blur, which only made him squeeze Apple Bloom tighter.
He had to find her. He had to find Applejack.
"Ah'm... Ah'm gonna be right back, AB." He picked her up in both hooves and set her down on the bed. She looked at him with a blank stare. "Ah promise, sis, Ah'm gonna be right back. Ah'm gonna go find Applejack, okay?"
She did not offer any indication she had heard him. He showed great hesitation at leaving her there in this state, but he had to. It couldn't be too late.
It couldn't.
"Ah'll be right back, sis. Ah promise." He was in a daze as he assured her. She did not respond other than to give him a tiny nod of her head. It was enough for him.
He ran from the room, leapt down the stairs, and bolted out the door, heading out into the mercy of the elements once more.
There were no tracks to follow, the heavy snow covering up all traces. For only a minute more he was able to gallop through the snow before he was forced to walk instead, the chill of the air freezing the insides of his lungs. Snow and ice accumulated on his red coat while he looked all around him.
"APPLEJACK!" he bellowed, "APPLEJACK!"
His hoof fell onto something peculiar on the ground. He looked down.
There on the ground, partially covered in a layer of fresh snow, was her Stetson hat.
He stared at it, tears forming in his eyes. They were dried by the howling wind before they had a chance to fall.
She was gone.