Farewell old world

Life was not easy before, but that was the same for almost everyone. I was 21 at this time, my family had quite a hard time to stand, we had to eat little and work a lot. My mother was quite the strict type, always pushing us harder than necessary, my little sister was the genius of the family, i had dropped school early to work so all our hope were in her. My little brother was young, and had no idea of how the world was falling apart, the absence of father for the three of us did not helped.
All of that was not enough to bring us down because we had each other, even if it wasn't the love among everybody we knew each one of us was needed. With that in mind it was around this time our life ended, first time we heard about it in the news they were referring to it as big gates appearing in many places on earth. Such thing was not enough to change our routine. Until the gates opened and hell got released on earth...

That night was as any other, the sound of the cars on the highway kept me from sleeping well, i was watching the stars wishing to a new life for my family. Then the alarm started, i had heard this only because of forest fire or earthquake, it sounded almost unreal in the dead of the night so the first thing i did was to turn on the radio. The old thing started and as my brother and sister woke up in the other room, i heard a part of an alert message.
"Those gates have opened, this is not a fake, entity are reported to come out of them and they seems to be hostile, army is starting to evacuate any town close to a gate. If you hear the alarm pack your stuff, at least enough to fill a suitcase and leave the house. Follow the instruction of the army and you'll be fine"
I had heard enought, packing some clothe did not took long so i did the same for the two others while my mother seemed to scream instructions from the other room. Not even ten minutes after we were already walking on the road as almost every other family, already the army was there knocking at house to evacuate, mother had us holding each others hands to don't get lost in the growing crowd, anxious folks asked the soldier for informations, of course we were ignored, asked again to follow the lead. So everyone did for the next hour at least.
They made us leave the town, the silence had fall on everyone, as we kept advancing we got into the forest. Our town was lost in the woods, the only thing allowing us to be connected to the rest of the world was the highway that was sadly damaged when the gate appeared.

Morning was coming, the first sign of the sun was seen over the forest, My brother was fast asleep in my arms, my sister right by me and the three of us behind our mother, we were walking mechanically just to follow the group, and then, we stopped. The first whisper of worry since the beginning started to appear, we were at the top of a hill and the head of the convoy had started to go down, report started to come in on the talkie of almost every soldier. Something about weird creatures coming out and spreading eveywhere, some were even flying from what we heard. That's when the first shot was fired, along the end of the convoy a group of soldier started to shoot at what they called "a big spider in the tree", then the order to run forward was given to everyone, so we did.
As fast as we could for a good ten minutes, report of soldier snatched by all kind of things were coming on, every now and then someone started to shoot, some people screamed and then nothing. By this point all soldiers got at the end of what was left of our convoy with the order to cover us as long as possible, the look on their face, they knew how it would end and even with that in mind they followed the order. By then family started to leave the trail in the woods and going eveywhere, i had worked around to help the local park ranger, i knew there was a river close with a small boat so i tried to led us there with what little light we had while the sound of the army firing at something was all we could hear.

The sun was there, and with him the silence, broken sometimes by the scream of people, not anymore could we hear any gun. That left us with only our ragged breath to move on. The cabin with the boat was in front of us, we knew that it should offer us some peace and as soon as we got in it we dropped to the ground to rest a little. But knowing that something was out there made me stand up to get the boat ready. The river was there almost silent except for the sound of fish sometimes jumping out of the water, and the boat was there, old but good enough to use, i dropped our bag in it and started to get back to the cabin to get the others. Right then everybody came out, my sister with my brother in her arms got past me to the boat while my mother got in front of me, she made me look at her right in the eyes and i saw how desperate she was, i didn't blame her we were all scared.
Then she said the last thing i heard from her.
"Look at me son, i need you to listen carefully to this. From now on, you are the one who's responsible for El and Theo, you understand ?
Your sister and brother are what you live for, get them away from here. You know where to go and what to do. I may not have loved you much but never think i don't care about you three, that's why i'm not coming with you. There's something right now in front of the cabin and i don't want it to get to you. I don't know what it is but i'll buy some time for you to start the boat and get away from this. Explain it to them, i don't have time to make them understand, now RUN. RUN AND SAVE THEM !"

Not even giving me time to answer the sound of the door of the cabin exploding made her run right back into it, my head told me to run at the boat but i couldn't move. And then i heard the scream inside, seeing El getting out of the boat made me move, so i ran and pushed her back in, i started the boat, the noise barely covering the scream of our mother, and by the time we started to go down the river the cabin was silent again. I won't say for sure what was in there, but those red eyes from inside watching us, never will i forget them.