CHAPTER ONE: THE DAY IT ALL BEGAN

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.