End of Earth

The day that changed everything

We finally got back to that place. The place was empty, no people around. I hoped very much that everyone got away safely, soon we would be out of here too.

A strong push into my seatbelt tore me out of my thoughts. We stood in front of the area where the tooth must be. "Wait here for a moment, I'll be back in five minutes", I heard my father say before he ran away in a hurry. .After a few seconds he was out of sight. Five minutes went by and I became insecure if everything was going well. It was dead silence, only the engine humming along. The tense silence was interrupted by a roar in the distance. "They are coming closer", my mother said while looking anxiously out of the window. "That's it, I'm going to look for him," I said as I got out of the car. "Wait, it's enough that your father has already left," she disagreed. "He's already taking far too long, once I've found him we can finally leave here," I said as I started running. At that moment I realized what a stupid idea it was. My whole body ached, it was a miracle that I could walk at all, but anything was better than having to wait. Until now I had never doubted that anything would happen to us here, I had always felt safe with my family, but time was running out.

It did not take long before he jogged towards me and waved with the tooth to me. I let out a relaxing sigh and slowed down. "The door did not open, but everything is all right now", he called to me.

Without warning, black shadows flew vertically between us and landed on the ground with a loud crash. My head needed a moment to process what just happened. Three of the wolflike monsters jumped down from the houses and landed between us. My greatest horror came true. I stood there petrified, before a voice brought me back to the cruel reality.

"Catch!" shouted my father. Before I understood what he meant, my body reflexively caught the tooth that was thrown in front of my face. My heart jumped out of my chest as he shouted, "Run Simon! I'll lure them away." I didn't want to, but my legs wouldn't listen to me and ran away. I heard a loud scream before the voice died down. I wiped the tears from my eyes and ran on and on, never looking back, before our car came into view. My mother's eyes crossed mine. She understood immediately what had happened. Her look changed from happy to see me before it changed to despair. She jumped into the driver's seat and sped the car as fast as she could when I jumped into the car.

She didn't ask me what happened, I just sat there sobbing. "Where's Daddy," I quietly heard a voice beside me asking. I couldn't answer, the tears flowed, while I kept hearing the scream in my ears. I couldn't help holding my ears while crouching down in the seat. I saw nothing, heard nothing, I only felt it pressing my body against the door in the curves.

We drove for probably 15 minutes before my mother cursed: "Damn! Why now of all times?" As I raised my head and my vision began to blur, I saw the fuel gauge light up red.Looking back, something like this must had happened that the car would run out of gas.

After some time I looked at the tooth I still held trembling in my hand.

"We have to get the tooth to the military as soon as possible so they can do something against these monsters," I stuttered. However, my mother was against it.

"We have to leave here as soon as possible", my mother shouted at me, "You saw what happened.

I couldn't accept it. I was the reason he died. He died to give humanity a chance to survive, I thought to myself. "If we just run away now, his sacrifice was for nothing," I said in a firm voice. I couldn't believe it came out of my mouth myself. Did I care about humanity? Probably I could not bear that my father shouldn't have died for nothing. "We are leaving here, end of discussion!" she broke off the conversation. I was devastated, adrenaline was still racing through my blood, I was angry, sad and couldn't think clearly anymore. While I was struggling with my thoughts we stopped at a gas station. Of course nobody was there anymore. My mother got out and filled up the car. It seemed that the gas pumps at least still worked. While the car was refueling she went into the store to get some more drinks and food. Nobody would probably be able to buy it anyway.

With this, I made probably the most unreasonable decision of my life. "Listen to me carefully", I said to my little sister, "A lot will happen in the near future, but you must be brave. Stay with our mother and do what she says. You will go far away and find a new home. I will join you as soon as I have finished something important." "Stay with us," she said sobbing. "I can't, for once in my life I have to do the right thing, we will see each other again soon", I said in a trembling voice before I sneaked away. I ran as far as I could, knowing that she could not follow me, for she could not leave my little sister alone. I apologized to the two of them in my mind and disappeared.