I'm woken up by the sound of my mum's voice telling us to wake up as she turns the lights in the bedroom i share with my elder sister Beth on. Initially, it was Beth's room, until i decided to be born three and a half years after her and her twin brother Adam, who was of course, my elder brother.

"What the hell mum!" Beth screams as she flaps her lips open.

"Wake up." Mum repeats, her voice harsh but definitely nervous.

"What's going on?" I ask as I rub the sleep out of my eyes.

"We are leaving. Now!" Dad's voice streams in as he appears behind mum. "Dress warm and meet us downstairs in five." he adds before he disappears down the hallway like he was never even there.

"What is going on Mum?" Beth asks mum who has now moved to my closet, looking for warm clothes I could wear.

She throws a black sweater and a green coat at me before turning to Beth.

"I don't have the answers to give you Beth. I don't know what's happening either." she says before handing Beth her winter boots which was what we wore everyday now, for the past two and a half years.

"But where are we going, we are on a strict home quarantine rule." Beth goes on as I wear my own boots.

"I don't know Beth!" Mum yells. She takes a second to recollect herself. "Your dad said we are leaving, and we have to trust him. Now please get dressed and meet us downstairs." with that, she also disappears down the hallway.

I finally take the chance to glance at the time as I throw my coat over my sweater.

01:48am.

It was that early, , and I could swear it would be 0° outside. Freezing cold.

Two whole years without a ray of sunshine on planet earth. I even forgot how natural heat felt like, it was all heaters and seat warmers these days.

I was eleven when the endless snow began then it turned into an endless cold era, then it was two and a half years, and in those two and a half years we tried to normally. As normal as it could get.

And it was until twenty-seven days ago when the home quarantine rule was implemented for whatever reason the government thought fit.

'*The president is urging all citizens to stay calm and stay indoors until addressed formally by the president himself...'

'Despite all video of of these strange creatures going viral, the American government has advised all citizens to stay calm and indoors until addressed*..'

The voices of the news journalists switch as dad shuffles through the channels and Beth and I make it downstairs.

"It's the same thing." Adam, who is standing next to dad says.

"Ready?" Dad asks as he turns to me and Bath.

Beth nods but dad's worried eyes are on mine.

"listen." Dad begins, "We will be going to Portland. It's a long four hours on the road. All i ask is we make no toilet stops or anything of that sort."

"What's going on?" Beth asks yet again.

Dad holds his breath a while.

"Alot is about to change, but there are people willing to help us, in Portland. I just need to get us there safely." he answers, "As safely as i can."

We had been on the road for over two hours when the car came to an abrupt stop.

"What's happening? " I hear Adam ask from my right in the back seat of the car. I feel Beth's shoulder shove into me as she pushes her way to the middle to have a view of what was ahead, but the fog of snow wasn't making it any easy.

"The road is blocked." Dad says as he pulls out his phone.

He dials then pulls it to his ear, only to pull it away the next minute and try again.

"God damn it!" He yells, slumming his fit on the steering wheel.

He takes a minute to calm himself, taking a couple of sharp, deep breaths before turning to us.

"We have to get off." He says.

"What? Kwame we are in the middle of nowhere!" My mum says.

Dad reaches in his backpack and retrieves a tablet. Not the one he usually uses when he works from him, it's about 10" of screen and has a white cover with the words EVATA behind it.

"Trust me." He says to my mum before he pushes the door to the driver's seat open. We all get off, and I'm met with the coldest breeze I have ever felt.

"We will stay somewhere safe until they come for us." He says as he looks as his tablet.

They?

"Who are they?" Beth takes the question right off my tongue.

"Follow me." Dad says, totally ignoring her.

"Kwame..." My mum calls softly. Worry written on each inch of her face.

"You have to trust me Chelsea." His hand finds my mum's shoulder, "I will get us out safely. I promise." He plants a kiss on her forehead before getting a head start as lead, and we silently follow.

...****************...

We had been walking for over fourth minutes, we abandoned the main road long before now and followed the woods, the tablet in dad's hand saving as navigation and the touch in Adam's hand as the only light in the shadows. Despite doing nothing but follow, it was hard enough to keep up, not when I couldn't feel my toes despite the piles of socks and the heat of the winter boots. The snow was at least up to knee length out here, and nothing was warm about having ice slipping against my ankle.

I tighten my grip around mum's gloves as we try to keep up with the two males ahead of us, Beth's hand is plastered into mum's other hand.

"Found it!" Dad's voice echo's through the woods along his sigh of relief.

It takes a minute to see what he was talking about. A door in the ground, slightly slanted, made of what looked like aluminum. It looked like it weight more than the ground it sat on, heavy as hell.

Dad presses the side of it and a box lights up, no bigger than my face. He presses his palm against it and the door chimes, a second later, it slides open.

Hesitantly, we walk past dad into a dark tunnel.

Adam's touch saving as the only light. Despite being dark, its warm. Once all of us are in, dad shuts the door open, walks past us and disappears.

We walk through the short tunnel into an open space, almost the size of the living room. Suddenly, the lights come on and I squint my eyes at the sudden brightness attack.

"What's this place?" Adam asks a he looks around. As we look around.

Its a bunker. Not the old military type we see in military documentaries. Its almost like a home. Its walls are grey. It holds a small space on the right that looks like a kitchen. Two taps stand by each side a small sink, one red and the other blue. Two mugs are on its left. Right next to the sink is a small table with six chairs squeezed together. Two doors stay shut on each side and one the other end is a room beyond a glass door. A big screen is plastered in the wall across a small work desk and a chair.

I walk towards it and take a look through the glass, there is a tablet on the desk,like the one dad had earlier.

Dad reappears from one of the door, a small controller in his hands that looks like the colour of the walls catches my attention.

"I will call for help." He says before sweeping across the room and disappearing through the glass doors.

Mum grabs me by the shoulders an sits me at the table.

"You guys hungry?" She asks.

I don't get to hear Adam's and Beth's response as I am watching dad. A man is on the screen, his kin pa!e as he talks, but we couldn't hear anything from out here, the glass room was sound proof.

"Skai?" My mum as!s, catching my attention.

"No, thank you, I'm still full." I say.

"Mum, I'm sure you know something. What really is going on?"

My mum looks from Beth to me, scanning me for a second, as if her next words were held in my face.

"Leave it to the adults Beth, just trust your da.."

"So Adam deserves to know and I don't!" Beth yells in frustration as she gets to her feet.

Adam' eyes grow wide at her and guilt rushes to his face, its readable from a mile away.

"I don't know anything!" He say, escaping Beth's eyes and giving himself out that very second.

"Of course you do!" Beth yells back.

"I don't know anything Beth!"

"Stop ******* with me Adam!"

"Language Beth!" My mum yells but the two ignore her like she wasn't even there.

"Maybe they don't wanna tell you cause the don't trust you drama queen!"

"So you do know something asshole!"

"What if I do pig head? I'm still don't going to tell you."

My eyes trail to dad. He looks nervous. His hands are folded over hi chest one second, then another they are waving through the air like he was explaining something important.

What was he talking about?

What were we running away from?

What was this place?

The series of questions kept sparking fumes of curiosity in me and suddenly, it was a blazing fire. The voices of the twins throwing jabs at each other had long escaped my ear shot and so did the rest of my reasoning.

Before I know it, I grab a chicken wrap from the bag pack my mum ha stuffed with food earlier and head for the glass door.

I press the button dad pressed when he went in and the door slides open.

"I just need my family to be safe." Dad says the moment I step in, a few footsteps behind him, his frame keeping me from seen the pale man on the screen.

"And I promise they will be, but we need you in Sweden first by 6am Doc." The pale man's voice is no older than my father's, but it sounds commanding.

Doc?

"I'm not leaving until I'm sure my family I safely on board."

"People are dying Kwame! We all hands and heads on deck for this research. I promise I will take care of your family, just get to Sweden as soon as possible." The pale man instructs.

People are dying?

Silence falls and the room feel a degree colder as my dad stares at the man like they were in competition.

"I will go, but first I need you to authorize the airlift to depart for Portland, only then will I comply." Dad says, his voice strong.

"Sure Kwame, consider it done. We need you on top of this research, without you, this fails to ash." The pale man says.

"But Hezz, make sure my family gets on board, even if you have to lay down your life for it."

"Consider it done Kwame."

Dad varies his face in his palms as he let's out a sharp sigh and steps away fro. The screen, the pale man's eyes, Hezz? Find mine almost as soon as mine fin his and I feel myself grow to stone.

"Kwame?" He calls, having my dad's attention again, but he doesn't at a word, instead, he just stares at me. Dad follow the direction of his gaze and finds me at the door, frozen. He knew I was the curious type, Beth once hit me in the face for eavesdropping, but I'm ure he didn't expect me to exercise my bad manners in such a situation.

He taps the tablet on the table and the screen goes black, the pale man is gone.

"What are you doing here?" He asks once he is hovering over me.

I stick out the chicken wrap.

"Thought you could use some food." He knew I was lying, but he still took the wrap from my hand.

"Thank you."

"Dad!" I call when he begins to walk away.

"What is really going on, what did that man...Hezz mean when he said people were dying?"

My dad drops dead silent as he stares back at me. Like the silence said more than words which in this moment it did not, not one not.

I'm startled by the sound of Adam tapping against the glass, then the next minute he points at the screen of his phone and dad's feet immediately move on command.

He sweep right past me and pushes the button on the inside and the door slides open.

"You told me to look out for any messages, well.." Adam hands him the phone as he walks in, mum and Beth on his tail.

Dad sets the phone on the tablet atop the table, the one we found when here and the big screens lights up again, on display I the said message Adam was talking about.

Dear Earthly citizen.

This is an announcement addressing the enforcement movement. All citizens will be transported to places of safety until further notice. These places are accordance to age groups. Not nationality, nor race, nor religion, nor birth rights. This operation is optional, but only to people above twenty one years of age. We believe the rest are the beginning of the future so it comes as no question, every living citizen of earth aged from 0 to 21 years of age will be enrolled in the enforcement movement. However, everybody who does not consent to joining the enforcement will not be protected.

The enforcement movement will include:

1.Trainings with concerns of how to protect yourselves against the beings.

2. School for all final grade pupils and final year students of all faculties.

3. Home training.

These among other things will be done while you will be in your various centers.

All consenting and mandatory candidates will be picked up from their respective bus terminals according to the dates given to their age groups.

Dates are in the file attached.

"What is the meaning of this Kwame?" My mum asks as she stand a between dad and Adam, looking him straight in the eye.

"Its started." My dad says under his breath.

"What has started Kwame?"

"Chel...the world might be coming to an end." He tells her and confusion stirs in her face.

"To an end? Dad?" Beth steps in.

This was what he meant, Her, when he said people were dying.

"The planet has been under attack for the past six years, we thought it would go away but with the change of weather, the beings are now on full on invasion." Dad speaks and now I'm more of scare Ethan curious.

"What are these beings exactly?" Mum asks.

"They are some sort of aliens attacking humans." Adam says from behind mum, forcing her to turn to him, "I saw a video of it on an online game platform a week ago and thought it was all jokes till dad woke me up today and said we needed to go."

"That's why you told him a and didn't think of telling me?" Beth asked, her eyes on dad.

"Its not time to scratch you're go Bethy Beth, he only told me cause I asked. I don't even know much, he just said there might be an alien invasion and that's all I know."

"They are called the MQ22, the first made an appearance in 2022 but left without any disturbance, now they are back and we don't really know for what or why?"

"2022, a hundred years ago?" I ask.

"Yes honey, a hundred years who. Only one was sighted in Central Africa,in the southern province of a country called Zambia.we hadn't seen anything of its kind till since years ago." He replies.

"Kwame you told me its because the cold has become severe that we were moving."my mum says.

"I didn't want to worry you."

"Well now I am worried." Mum begins.

"There is no need to worry,I have gotten in touch with people from work,I'm just waiting for the airlift to be cleared for departure and we will be on our way.There are safe bases were we will be kept until its safe again to come home."

We?

But I heard him clearly, he wasn't coming, he was going to Sweden. Was he lying to us, or to them?

"Work? You mean at the bank?"

Dad presses his lips as if he just realized what he had just said.

I heard Hezz call him Doc before, for all I knew,my dad was in customer service at the international Jones and Jill's bank

"Well...I don't work for John and Jill's.I'm a research scientist at EVATA. It's a secret laboratory owned by the entire world."

Mum scoffs,chuckles then laughs, full blown out laughing and for a second we all dismiss the new found information and focus on her sanity.

"Seventeen years...that's how long I have known you and all of it was a lie?" She says, her eyes fixed on dad.

Dad looks around at our questioning faces then back at mum.

"It was confidential Chel, it wasn't something in my control."

"Confidential to your own wife? Kwame what part of it was ever real? True?"

"Now isn't the time Chel I will explain everything once we are out of this mess."

He was right. Now wasn't the time. Who cared if his entire life was a lie, we were all at a brick of death because of these beings.

"I want to see it!"I interrupt the conversation between my mum and dad which I lost track of at this point.

"See what?" Beth asks as she rolls her eyes at me.

"The video Adam." I turn to Adam, "the video of the being."

Adam hesitates as his eyes find dad.

"Honey its not something a thirteen year old should be watching." Dad tries to talk me out of it.

"If we are running away from these things I might just as well know what it looks like. I'm case I have to defend myself against it." I was curious, and I needed to satisfy my curiosity.

"Honey, I'm going to protect you, there is no need to worry about protecting yourself."

"You will not always be there dad." I say.

You are going to Sweden. The words linger in the back of my mind.

"Anything can happen, we might separate or you die, indeed to know." I add.

"How can you say something like that." Beth hits me in the back.

"She's not entirely wrong." Dad says, his eyes fixed on me, "I will not always be there." He knew I knew about Sweden, he knew I knew he wasn't coming with us, he knew I understood why.

He scrolls through the tablet, and the video comes on screen. On the screen is a man screaming as he runs from the super market to his car. A window of the super market breaks into a million pieces and out jumps the supposed BEING. It's head bares a shape of what seemed to be like a sunflower with huge petals, It doesn't seem to have eyes, or a nose just a set of four teeth in the center where the petals attach. The rest of its body are like a a human, only tiny and skinny but instead of hands it hand long multiple tentacles. Its almost a meter tall.

The man manages to entire his car but before he could start it, the being begins to run to runs to the car, it jumps through the window and face plants its teeth onto the man's face.

The man screams in excruciating pain as he jumps out of his car.

Its tentacles begin to wrap against his lower body, squeezing and squeezing until the man loops on the ground.

Silent.

The being stays still for a while before unwrapping itself from the man revealing his broken body and his detached head.

It disappears back into the store and the video ends.

"Dear Lord..." My Mum cries before her palms wraps against her mouth.

"This is one of the few deaths that were caught on camera two months ago in Brazil." Dad says.

I feel last night's supper rush up my throat but Beth has that taken care of, she pukes before I do and messes the air fresh of the room.I swallow my own vomit down the moment I see dad'sworried face as he walks across the room to Beth.

"You okay sweetheart?" He asks, patting her back.

"The the hell was..." Her words fall out with more puke.

The screen flashes with an incoming call.

Hezz.

Dad crosses the room and answers it.

"Can you step out for a bit." He says the moment Hezz comes on screen.

Mums hoots him a look then carries Beth with her outside the glass room, adam follows, but I stay put.

"Skai?"

"I'm staying." I say as I push the button. The door slides behind me.

"Skai you can't be here." My dad is calm when he speaks and I don't know if that is good or bad.

"Hezz, I already know dad isn't coming to Portland with us.I already know he has to help save the world, even if I don't know how. But I need you to promise me one things." Hezz looks between me and dad with the what the hell is going on here look but that's one less thing I worry about, "I need you to prose me that after this job my dad will come back to us safely."

Hezz looks at me, blank.

"I can't guarantee that....ahhh"

"Skai." I say when he seems not to know me.

"Then can I come with? To Sweden? I need to make sure he is safe."

"Honey that's impossible. You are just a child I.."

"And you are just my father."

"Skai!" Hezz interrupts. "I will try to make sure both your dad and I stay safe. That I can promise."

"And if you don't?"

"Do as you please with me." Hezz says.

Silence falls on the room again.

"Anyway that aside, kwame, the airlift has been cleared. Jose will be ready to receive you family in 30."

The call drops.

I stare at the spherical object before me. It's like a faint heavy metallic egg with three strips of blue crimson moons.

It has a small semicircle division at the bottom. Dad presses his palm against the semicircle and the semicircle open, the door sliding up. This egg thing was the airlift they had being talking about all along. It was nothing like the usual airlifts that replaced planes, those looked exactly like planes only that they hand no wings, this, totally different.

The back room had a different roof from the rest of the bunker. It looked like rotational splits, I imagined they split when it opened then rejoined once it closed. I was never going to know I guess.

"What do you mean you aren't coming?" Mum asks again for the hundredth time since we entered the back room of the bunker.

"I will be right behind you." Dad lies and even though I know he is, I say nothing. I promised to say nothing. He needed to save the world. "I just need to clear a few things then I will take the other lift. He points at the airlift parked next to the one we are about to board in the backroom.

My mum throws her hands around him in a hug and his wrap around the small of her back.

"I hate you for all the lies, but I still love you so you better find you way to us as soon as you can." She tells him.

"I will."he plants a kiss on her lips and parts from her.

He says his goodbyes to Adam and Beth first then me.

"Hey bud." He says as he drags me away from the door of the lift. "Here." He says, shoving a watch into the pocket of my coat.

"What's this for?" I ask as I try to reach for it, but he shoves it down again.

"Always keep in on you. That's the only way I will know you are safe." He whispers.

He plants a kiss on my forehead then smiles at me. "Go now."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell Hezz if anything happens to you, and he is still alive. I will kill him."

My dad laughs but I keep straight face. I wasn't joking, At that moment I felt every single word that left me.

I was sacrificing my father, the person who loved me the most in the world, to safe the remains of it, I was willing to sacrifice any other person who didn't see just bow big a sacrifice this was for me.

The door slides behind me when I enter the huge space with six beds one next to another, three on each wall.

Mum and Beth are already laying face up next to each other, each strapped in their own bed. Adam was struggling with his strap as he tried to lay down.

I climbed in the bed next to his and watched the way he worked his strap. I pulled on mine and copied him once he figured it out.

'All passengers ready. Four passengers on board.' A robotic voice spoke from the walls of the lift.

'EVATA AIRLIFT 901 ready for take off in 3,2,1.'

Silence.

Then a turbulence hard enough to knock me to the side of the bed even through I was strapped in went on for a few seconds, then it was back to a silent stream. We were afloat.

There was no telling we had arrived until the door slides open. It felt like two minutes, it felt lime we never left at all. None of us talked the whole assumed 30 minutes we were on board, it felt like we never had the chance at all.

I'm sure everyone had thoughts of their own, mine were focused on dad, the watch and where we were going.

I knew a man named Jose was going to receive us, and o assumed he was the one waiting at the door as he offloaded ourselves.

"Mrs Appiah." His Mexican accent wouldn't be as mistaken as his pale skin, he was Mexican.

"Jose Guzman?" My mum asked.

"A pleasure to meet you." Jose replies.

The room is filled with multiple airlifts parked side by side. Jose is quick on his feet, so I don't have time to take in every detail.

A door opens at the far end of the room and we walk out into a hallway filled with people in uniform, camouflage army uniforms, its only then I realize Jose is wearing one.

He salutes a few people who salute to him first as we turn a coner after another.

We meet another door and this time, he presses his palm against the sensor like my dad did at the bunker and door slides open.

I'm met with a sight beyond words as I walk into what looked like the basement of the facility.

Multiple airlifts, bigger that the one we came in, they looked like steel containers with crimson moons printed on them, at least twelve on each, six on the top and six on the bottom. The airlifts where attached to a stem like structure that stood in the middle, airlifts hanging to its branches in a clockwise manner. Layer after layer. It was difficult to keep count of how many layers it was, my neck ached at an attempt to see the top of the airlift tree.

"Sergeant!" He calls to a petite lady in uniform who jogs to us, then salute to the Jose. She's in cab 4," he points to me before turning to the twins, "cab 19 for them."

"Yes Sir. " The woman salute before turning to us, "follow me."

Beth and Adam begin to move but I seem to stay glued to the ground.

"Everything okay?" Jose turns to me.

"What about mum?" I ask.

He smiles down at me.

"Kwame said nothing gets past you. You have a keen eye, I thought he was exaggerating." Jose says," Your mum will board her own cab later on, we have a few more things to discuss." He tells he before patting my shoulder.

Its suppose to assure me, but something about the way his smile makes my insides turn in a very bad way but still, I follow the woman towards the airlift three.

We go round it and slowly mum looms out of sight and I finally look ahead without the urge to look over mum shoulder every two seconds.

The woman stops in front of a desktop at the foot of the stem. She punches the number 19.

The wheel of cabs somewhere in the middle spins the stop. A cab travels through an open space down the stem from the wheel in the middle and makes a perfect landing in front of us. A second later the door pushes in and it swings open to one side.

"The seventeen-year-olds." The sergeant says as she turns to the twins. They never old her their age but for some reason she knew.

They knew.

Beth comes around and hugs me. "See you on the other side kiddo." She says and I watch her white jeans disappear through the door.

Adam runs a hand in my Afro as he smiles. He goes off without a word, he just leaves, disappearing for the door slums shut and the cab travels back to its position. Its wheel which is more of a round ring with multiple airlifts turns again and the cab goes back to its original place.

I hear voice behind me, forcing me to turn around. There is a glass door a few meters from us and people immediately begin to feel the space behind it. A rail stand I'm the middle of the huge space. I notice that adults gather on one side and children on the other.

Right, we were separated according to age but it still didn't feel right.

"Who are they?" I ask as I turn to the uniformed lady.

"Residents of Portland and the surrounding cities, the rightful owners to the cabs." She said, her tone unpleasant.

"Then why are they there and not in the cabs." I ask.

"Because unlike you, their fathers aren't head of research at EVATA neither are they children of the higher ups."

I suddenly understood.

She meant I was here because of the corrupt system of the military and EVATA that favored the children of people who held higher status, but I didn't feel a blink of guilt either, my dad was out there saving earth, the least they could do was pay him back by keeping us alive.

"But they will board soon," she looks at her watch, they have 50 minutes till the doors open.

She punches the number 6 and the wheel at the top spins. A moment later my own cab lands at the bottom and the door opens. Standing before the door I see a demarcation. There is a top layer and a lower one. A few steps of steel stars separating the two.

I settle for the lower deck and ignore the stairs as I walk in.

The doors shut behind me and before I know it, the cab is moving upwards. The cab consist of six seats. Unlike the airlift earlier, the beds are gone and it's much darker.

The crimson moon's look translucent from afar but now that they are so close, nothing penetrates beyond the blue in them.

It's much smaller on the inside than out looks on the outside. On the other side of the cart is a bundle of water and packet of edibles across from each seat.

I sit down and I feel the cab stop, probably fixed back in its position. I strap in as I wait.

Boom my eyes begin to feel heavy and my body relaxes.

...****************...

I am awaken by the shaking of the lift. The turbulence even greater than the one I experienced earlier at the bunker. I look around and the cab is already filled up. Five other kids are strapped in their sits. I was so tired I never heard them board the cab.

The shaking gets more intense and I hold on to the straps of my belt. In a few minutes, we are moving and then there is nothing.

We are afloat. Off to the safe place.