Chapter 2: Georg (Hour of Hope, Winter)

The snow was still falling but the blinding light was gone.

'Is this it? Why does hell look the same as before? Ah right...'

The confused sharpshooter looked around. There were several other people here, and they were naked.

'Cold, very cold...'

Amidst the confusion, wailing and screams eyes of strangers met each other. Nobody knew what had happened. The nukes should've marked the end of their existence yet here they were...naked and shivering.

- AAAAAAAAHHHHH

A scream shook the lost souls and brought their attention to a young Caucasian man in the process of being mauled by a bear.

'What the shit, what the shit?!?'

Georg hurriedly looked around and found a couple sizeable stones on the ground.

'What are you doing again Georg?'

He thought to himself as he threw one of the stones right at the bear's head. It bounced off but the bear let the young, barely alive and bleeding, man go and shifted his attention towards the new aggressor.

'Well I fucked up now...'

Thought Georg as he started to turn around to run as far as possible away from those 400 pounds of war machine.

- clonk

Georg saw somebody else throw a stone at the bear from the corner of his eye. He turned back around and gathered more.

- Women children get behind us and run, we're gonna distract it!

Several naked men and women seemingly from various different countries gathered stones, sticks and whatever else they could find on the ground and attacked the bear from a safe distance. The bear was confused because of the many different targets and eventually ran away.

- What was that?

- Do Bears act that way? I've never seen anything like it...

- Don't they normally leave immediately if there are more people?

- Maybe it's babies are near?

- That doesn't matter now, what happened and where the fuck are we?

Georg finally brought everybody back on track. They first got the fleeing people back and then went to look for shelter.

They soon found a small cave.

- Well let's hope it's not that bear's.

- You, we'll check it out and see if it's safe. If we don't return in 15 minutes look somewhere else.

Georg and one of the men who fought before entered the cave. There wasn't much space inside and the smell wasn't the best either but it was dry and not as freezing as outside so they got everybody inside.

They had gathered a sizeable amount of wood while searching shelter so most of it was now piled up to make a fire. Most of this happened without people speaking and considering there were at least a couple soldiers present with experience in survival techniques the fire was burning in no time.

Georg felt the rising tension and anxiety.

'I fucking hate leading...they always always die...'

- Mama I'm hungry.

- Shh Carl, we're gonna find something...

The mother's voice wasn't very convincing though.

'Oh for fucks sake.'

Georg started

- Alright listen, we seem to be stranded here together so we have to work together to survive. First, people here seem to be from all over the world so don't mention your nationality. Not a single word, we don't want the war to reach this cave...

- And who the fuck made you the leader asshole?

- *Thump*

The man sitting next to the person interrupting knocked him out in one heavy punch to the chin.

- Anybody else want to interrupt?

- ...

- Then continue.

- Thank you, so no nationality, no family names. The next thing we have to do is survive, we can kill each other over ideologies, resources or skin color later. First though, we need food and water.

Georg had a lot of experience and even training on how to react in a situation like this. Instructing civilians in a warzone wasn't very different than this, just that this time you die too if they fuck up.

'Now this one might be dangerous...'

- Who has army training? Don't mention which one though.

One of the men immediately answered

- Me. Dave's the name, the dude who's knocked out too. I know him. He's alright, name's Sean I'll keep him in check.

- Me too, worked under you before. Won't mention where...Name's Valder.

'So I have to talk Valder for the smooth organization thus far.'

Three other people had training too, so 7 minus one unconscious. There were twenty people in the cave in total including three children.

- Two of you look after Sean. The other six build teams of two. We gather whatever we can to get through the day.

Nothing else was necessary. There was no panic and no screaming. Everybody found something to do or help and the children stayed quiet.

'Seems like the war was at least good for something...'

Thought Georg as he skinned the rabbit he just caught with his makeshift spear.

The first couple weeks were harsh, three of the twenty people in Georg's group died in the cold. Two more disappeared in the night.

They managed to put clothes together and even build some spears and bows. The quality was of course very meager but all the people had experience with handling raw materials and most even with weapons because of the long war.

A couple days later while hunting Georg and Valder came across a lonely hurt wolf.

- Shh, over there...wolf.

- Seems hurt, might be the bear got him. Hah!

- Wanna get something else than rabbit today?

- You fucking bet.

They checked their surroundings and stealthily approached the wolf. When they were around 100 feet away from the wolf they drew their bows. Two arrows nearly simultaneously hit the wolf. It didn't die though.

- How is that thing still alive?

- It really should be dead...it's not moving though. Let's shoot again.

Another two, then four and finally 10 arrows pierced the wolf when it finally went down.

You have leveled up by 100%, current level 2. You have 5 undistributed stat points.

Name

Georg Dauid

Level

2

Class

-

Stats

Vitality

5

Endurance

5

Strength

5

Dexterity

5

Intelligence

5

Wisdom

5

Resistance

5

Special Stats

-

Skills

-

- No...oh no nonononono