It took me a while to finish my second round submission for the Paradise or Death game by 
© 2018 - @rubencress - www.rubencress.nl
To understand better the plot of this story, read my first round entry here. The original post from 
Day 2
I woke up into the cold, misty morning. It took me good five minutes of staring at the cave ceiling to realize where I am. Right. All civilization has literally vaporized, people and their creations included, and I am in this mountain cave with some people and items that seem to have been saved. I sat down and looked around. Marie, Maggie, Carl and Albert were all sleeping peacefully like babies. No wonder, it had been a long night. I was probably the only one woken up by the morning sunlight because of my camping experience from when I was younger. I didn't get the chance of getting to know the rest of our group very well, but I assumed they were city kids. It might take some time before they get used to our new lifestyle.
Yesterday evening, Jesus left us. None of us expected it in the least. We had a very long argument, where I was trying to convince him that the humanity is still worth saving. He asked, what humanity when we are the only people left. I told him there would always be a future if we believed in it and worked towards it, that we are only doomed if we lose our faith. He shouted: "Well then, I have lost my faith!" - and those were the last words we heard from him.
He didn't reply when I offered him one of the sleeping bags. He didn't say anything to my offer to at least take some avocados with him. He just walked into the dark night. I was so angry that he would choose to leave us that I just shouted "Eat rocks, a**hole!" after him. I still hope he might come back eventually. His carpenter skills could come in handy. Without him, we will have to figure out everything from the scratch.
I turned to the rest of our group for some support, but it seems to only have sparked their own disagreements with what we were doing. Maggie - Margaret Thatcher - had the bravest look in her eyes.
"He has a point, you know," she said. "This is foolish. We have very little chance to survive."
Carl didn't want to just observe anymore and he added: "He just said aloud what we were all thinking, helped us encounter our shadow! We can't let the shadow consume us, we have to use it!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Carl, but I would say that just because nobody has ever done it doesn't mean it's impossible. I'm all up for it!"
"Thank you, Albert..." I was grateful for someone not being overly pessimistic, although he might have been sarcastic. The conversation went on for a while, but we would soon get exhausted and we crawled into our sleeping bags before the little fire would die out. The cave was very open and it wouldn't protect us from the chill outside. Nobody mentioned that we had only five sleeping bags, as if we had expected one of us to leave from the beginning.
The following days were very quiet. We all concentrated on building our small settlement, at least to the degree that we wouldn't have to spend all our time building it and concentrate on other things. The work kept us from starting serious discussions about our situation and getting emotional.
I took the lead in orginizing the construction. I was kind of self-pronounced leader who had hard time making the rest cooperate. They always had great arguments why should be things done differently, but when I left them to lead, it was obvious they were much better at thinking and talking than actually completing something with their hands.
Day 5
We have finished some temporary shielding of the cave so all the heat from fire wouldn't escape into the night immediately. Now we started working on plans to make some permanent shelter. None of us have really muscular build so we have been taking turns in chopping the wood and bringing water from the nearby stream, so we wouldn't get exhausted. In the meantime, everyone is pretty much doing what they think is best to improve our life.
Einstein... I mean, Albert started fiddling with the solar energy generator. All our devices got damaged by the Electromagnetic Pulse, but he's confident he can use the wire we have to replace the parts that melted down. We will see how it turns out.
Our dear Carl Jung seems to be really getting along with his inner shadows. He has started to practice shooting. So far, he has not managed to actually shoot anything, so I told him we might be better off if he practiced fishing instead. He told me I don't understand anything and that I can do it myself.
Marie and Maggie have been going for walks in the near areas. They have managed to put together a simple map, especially highlighting places where we can find fruits, various birds nests, and for some reason, good bathing spots.
Day 15
Contrary to my expectations, Carl actually became quite skilled at shooting. We have been eating a rabbit or a bird for the third day in a row. I'm afraid, however, that he's scaring off the animals by the noise he's making. I am currently working out the best fishing methods. I am trying various baits, I'm really looking forward to the result. We should get some fish oil into our diet.
We have managed to improve our shelter to the degree that we no longer lie on the ground - we have some primitive wooden beds. We have divided our cave into a bedroom, a kitchen, a working room and a storage room. The "walls" are just poles beaten into the ground, but it gives us some atmosphere of civilization. In the future, we can expand deeper into the cave, it is quite spacious. As for the cave entrance, we have started to build stone-and-mud wall to enclose it. and leave just wide doorway.
Albert still hasn't figured out how to repair our electronic devices. It's not a big problem, it just means we should work during the day and sleep during the night. We have started spending the evenings telling stories from our lives before the Storm - that's how we decided to call the Apocalypse. We are still not comfortable openly talking about our current situation, but we know that if we call it the Apocalypse, it means we have admitted the end is near.
Day 25
Our daily routine has pretty much stabilized. The shelter has thick, waterproof walls with a wooden trapdoor. We have started manufacturing clay bricks to improve our inner divisions. We are burning them inside a large hole in the ground near our settlement. I am getting better at fishing and Carl is getting better at skinning his prey. We told him to at least dry the skins somewhere outside, because we probably couldn't handle the smell. Maggie told me she's actually looking forward to when he masters the process, because she is hoping to lie down on a fur bed one day.
To our surprise, Albert just stopped eating the meat with us one day and said he was going to be sick when he watched Carl skin a squirrel. The two of us are taking turns at using the typewriter. I am sure he's writing a whole memoir from his own perspective. He has been also studying the Atlas of European Nature quite a lot and he's been convincing Marie to help him find plants we can grow for food, or at leas to help him collect fruits.
The Last Day of the Month
Our current state: The five of us are mostly focusing on our immediate life improvement. We are having sessions every evening where we read fairy tales aloud and discuss abstract topics, but we are keeping those discussion strictly hypothetical. One of our sessions was interrupted by some wild animal trying to get inside of our shelter. The trapdoor withstood its atttack, but it reminded us that the nature is not ouf friend and that we would have to fight to survive. If Jesus is still wandering somewhere out there, God help him...
I think we are doing what we can. If all goes well and nothing too unpredictable happens, we could start seeing some great improvement in our lifestyle in the near future. Of course we are going to work hard for it. After all, civilizations don't grow overnight!