End of Days Again

Chapter 3: Killing Flame

"Nails! Get'chur ma', now!" Saw Horse shouted over the roar of flames engulfing his room.

His smaller sibling scrambled for a moment, trying to avoid the flames tearing down their home. The filly looked around, trying to search for an area that wasn't surrounded by fire. After finding nothing, she looked to her brother, locked in a defensive stance as his horn spat a blast of blue frost, trying to quell the growing flames around him, and waved her forelegs wildly.

"Ah can't!" she shouted, terrified.

Saw looked around for a moment, the intense heat causing every pore on his body to produce a seemingly endless amount of sweat. He wiped a bit from his brow, and looked around the room for some sort of escape.

"H-Hang on, sis'!" he shouted, spotting a large hole burnt through the wall.

He turned his attention to the opening and blasted a large amount of frost towards it, setting out the flames for a brief moment.

"Go! Get ma' outta' here! Now!" he shouted over the crackle of flames.

"Where's Hammer?!" Nails asked trotting hurriedly towards the exit.

Saw Horse froze momentarily, his body going numb as he realized he hadn't taken account of his other sister, Hammer. He cursed under his breath and jumped towards Nails as the burning roof began collapsing above them. Wrapping the small filly under his foreleg, he jumped again through the hole in the wall just in time before the fire in front of it started up again. He landed with a thud in the hallway, and placed his sister on the floor next to him, pointing to the stairs down the hallway.

"I'll find her! Just go!" he shouted, returning to his hooves as the filly sprinted down the hallway.

He made his way in the opposite direction, bringing his orange life-preserver jacket over his snout to block the growing smoke around him, and crouched low to keep it out of his eyes.

"Hammer?!" he called down the hallway, looking to the several doors lined across the walls, the flames raging around him.

Saw heard a faint voice from the door at the end of the hallway, and began walking faster towards it.

"Ham?! Talk to me, girl! Let me know where you' at!" the country-unicorn continued.

"In here, brother'!" the filly replied, barely heard over the roar of flames and the wood of the door.

Saw narrowed his eyebrows and stood up all the way, breaking into a full-sprint towards the end of the hallway, and throwing his weight into the door. It buckled under the force, and slammed against the wall, causing a small amount of the ceiling to fall just in front of him.

"Shit!" he shouted in fear, looking to the ruble for a moment.

"Saw!" Hammer shouted from the other side of the room, causing the unicorn to look upwards.

A small, yellow filly stood, hiding behind the side of her bed, waving her arms wildly.

"Over here!" she continued frantically.

Saw's chest fluttered with a small amount of hope as he saw his little sister safe on the other side of the room, and smiled brightly under his smoke-mask. He began stepping towards the bed carefully, waving a hoof at her.

"I'm comin', Ham!" he shouted.

The filly stood up from behind her bed and began running towards him across her bedroom. Saw opened his forelegs in response, allowing his jacket to fall from his snout and reveal his bright smile. In the top of his view however, he noticed a large, flaming, loose beam hanging just above the area between the two ponies. His smile instantly disappeared, and time seemed to slow for a moment. Hammer, oblivious to the danger above her, continued running towards her brother with a wide smile. Saw began frantically waving his hooves and opened his mouth to yell to her, but it was far too late.

With a loud snap, the beam fell from the ceiling as time began slowing even more for Saw. Hammer noticed his change in attitude, and instinctively looked up to see the beam just above her. It landed with a large crash, and a sharp crack of the filly's bones. She buckled under the force of the wooden beam, along with the floor, causing both to fall to the first floor as blood painted the burning walls of Hammer's bedroom.

Saw Horse stood with his jaw dropped at the hole in the burning floor, and the blood splattered across the bedroom. He fell to his knees, the dryness in the air not allowing tears to come to his eyes, and choked words exiting his mouth.

"H-H-Ha-" he tried to say, his throat dry and scratched. "H-HAMMER!" Saw screamed, staring blankly at the hole in the floor.

Another burning beam fell just beside the deceased-filly's bed, causing him to snap back and return to his hooves almost immediately. He looked between the door and the hole frantically, trying to decide which to run to. After starting towards the hole in the floor, he stopped abruptly and turned the other direction, then did the same, then again, and again, back and forth as his mind shouted and screamed at him to do both things. He shook his head once and made a final turn towards the door.

"I-I'M SORRY!" he shouted, before sprinting through the door and down the hallway.

The tan unicorn jumped over several burning steps and made his way downstairs, bringing his coat back up to his snout as the thick smoke from the bottom floor hit his face. He crouched low and quickly made his way into the living room.

"Mama'?! Mama?! Where are you?!" he shouted as the roar from the burning home continued.

He stopped dead once more as he looked to the couch in his family room, and saw another large, burning beam had crushed the piece of furniture almost entirely. His heart sank as he witnessed a large amount of blood pooling from the destroyed couch, along with a faded-red foreleg twitching from beneath the massive piece of wood.

"N-No.... C-Come on! COME ON!" he shouted, letting his face fall into his hooves.

He snapped his neck upwards and looked to the beam, inching closer to it as his forelegs dumbly spurred him in the direction of the burning hunk of wood.

"M-Mama'... Mama, please... A-Answer me..." he said mindlessly, his expression completely bent into a look of extreme depression.

Saw was quickly cut off however, as a large boom sounded from the kitchen, in-sync with the fires from the next room growing larger, and a scream echoing throughout the charred home. He would recognize the scream anywhere, and quickly sprinted into the next room, only to be met with another ghastly sight.

Nails stumbled about the burning kitchen as her coat was shrouded in brightly-glowing fire, a blood-wrenching scream escaping her throat as she ran about the burning room, trying to put the fire surrounding her coat out. Saw Horse stumbled as well for a moment, and shook his head, trying to find a solution.

"H-Hold still!" he shouted, frantically trying to charge his frost spell.

After a few agonizingly slow seconds, a bright-blue burst of magic left his horn, and began extinguishing the flames surrounding his sister. Once they were out completely, the burnt-filly fell to the floor, still screaming loudly. Without a second thought, Saw rushed towards his sister and scooped her up into his forelegs again, eliciting a high-pitched cry of pain from the filly.

Trying to ignore her cries, Saw sprinted towards the front door of their burning home, trying to escape the still-growing flames. Reaching the front door, he turned and rammed it with his back, causing it to fly open and allowing escape from hellish nightmare that had taken his mother and sister. He stumbled onto the front lawn of their home, and lightly rested his whimpering sister on the grass. Tears began falling from his face also, as he took in the sights of his sister's face and body. Half of the filly's cheek had been burned completely off, her teeth showing through the charred skin, along with several burn wounds painting the pony's coat.

He raised his hooves to try and find some way to help, but could do nothing. Only watch as his sister cried and moaned in pain on their lawn, the house still burning behind them.

"W-We're gonna get you help, Nails... J-Just... Hang in there..." Saw said, placing his hoof on the filly's forehead.

"J-Just... Make it stop... P-Please..." she said, her voice choked and filled with pained grunts and moans.

Saw Horse cocked his head upwards, and scanned the area around their house, shrouded in the darkness of midnight.

"SOMEPONY!" he shouted desperately. "SOMEPONY! ANYPONY!"

There was no response, only the steady weeping of his sister.

Looking down to her, he saw her eyes begin to falter and slowly shut.

"N-No... Nails... Don't... D-Don'chu give up on me girl'." he said, gently shaking his sister.

"A-Am... A-Am I dying brother?" she asked softly, her eyes still faltering.

"No! I... I aint' gonna' let'chu!" he said, scanning her charred body for a moment. "T-There's some bandages in the shed, w-we gon' fix you up!"

Saw looked to the shed across from the burning home for a moment, then back to his sister.

"I-I... I love you, b-brother..." Nails said softly, her eyes finally shutting.

Her body fell completely limp, followed by complete silence, save for the crackling wood of the burning home. Saw sat motionless, the charred corpse of his sister lying limp in his forelegs. Tears fell from his eyes against his will as he stared at her blackened face.

"Nails..." he said lowly, shaking her body gently.

No response.

"N-Nails..."

The home continued burning behind him.

"NAILS?!" he shouted, shaking the body savagely.

After still getting no response, he gently rested her head on the lawn, and moved away from the body.

"I love you too, sis'..." he said quietly.

Saw cleared his eyes for a moment, along with the twisted look of depression turning into a sinister scowl. He steadily returned to his hooves, stumbling to the left for a moment, but quickly recovering his balance. The pony's neck instinctively and slowly looked forward...

... At the shed.

The scowling unicorn stumbled forward towards the small red structure, his eyes twitching, and his mind running in one direction. Without hesitation, he threw open the doors to the shed, and stumbled inside. Directly in front of him, a few feet into the shed, was a large, brown, box, a large padlock sealing it shut. Saw continued limply walking towards the chest, his eyes twitching with more intensity. Losing his father before him was one thing. One thing that had taken years and years of therapy to forget. But now, seeing the three most important mares in his life taken in one night... Saw was dead. His mind, his emotions, his entire being was gone. In his place, was nothing more than a shell of a pony, wanting only to get revenge. A burning, infected pony stumbled into his house and lit it ablaze. Taken his whole life in the blink of an eye.

Upon reaching the chest, he looked at the padlock, still swaying back and forth. He raised his hoof, and slammed it down on the padlock once, then twice, then again, and again, and again. Until the lock snapped off and fell to the ground with a clang. The lid of the chest slammed against the wall of the shed as Saw viciously threw it open, revealing one of his inventions. An invention banned from every construction site in Equestria. He ripped the tool out of it's resting place, and brought it to a nearby table, a new-found swiftness in his step.

Another loud clang echoed throughout the shed as he slammed the device onto the metal work bench, along with his own right foreleg. With his magic, he lifted the device into the air, and began loosening the foreleg straps found along the side of it, a scowl still burned into his face. With quickness, he levitated the tool onto his right hoof, and tightened the straps until they were nearly cutting off his circulation.

Lifting the device into the air, he swung it a few times to admire and take note of the weight, before taking his left hoof, and reaching for the starter rope, and savagely pulling it.

A small engine strapped to his foreleg came to life with a loud and ghastly whir of gears. Protruding from the engine was a large metallic slab, covered in a chain that was lined with tiny, razor-sharp blades. AS his hoof squeezed the throttle of the device, the chain spun at a blurring speed, along with the loud roar of the device's engine. Saw nodded with a vicious smirk, and placed his right hoof on the floor, the end of the saw almost touching the ground.

"Perfect." he said quietly to himself.

After killing the engine, he left the small shed and approached the burnt corpse of his sister. He leaned down slowly, and planted a gently kiss on the filly's forehead, and patted her stomach once.

"I'ma' do you, Ham, and momma' proud. You hear me?" he said in a grim tone.

Saw stood back up, his final respects paid, and began walking towards the darkness outside of his property, praying that something would come his way.