Chapter One: Upon Sight

Breathing deeply, I glanced to either side of me before settling on staring straight ahead. In my hands, a small glass of coke sat. I clutched at it.

"Hello."

My head jerked up to look at the voice that had greeted me. The woman standing there had blonde hair, short and wavy and she was slender. I nodded curtly at her.

"Hiya."

She cocked her head to one side and observed me, even after I ducked my head to stare back at my drink again. I could feel her dark, almost black eyes staring at my lowered head.

"You're British." She sounded vaguely surprised, as if the thought hadn't entered her brain. "So you must be new here."

I bobbed my head, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Yeah, that's right. New and alone."

I didn't hear anything from her for several minutes as I stared down into the murky liquid and swirled it within the glass. Suddenly, I felt a slight shift in the air and when I looked up, she was sitting in the seat opposite me, resting her head in her cupped hand. She smiled at me.

"Sorry, how rude of me." She let out a tinkling laugh. "Do you mind if I sit here? I'm new and alone too."

My ears perked up and I now looked at her more keenly and with renewed interest. Her hair was thin and clearly bleached as I could see the roots of her hair on top of her head. Her eyes were dark, almost coal black, and she looked at me with some kind of emotion that I couldn't identify.

"So, what's your name, new girl?" She asked me with a slight tilt to her head.

I gulped.

"Hale." I told her uncertainty, like she was about to tell me I was wrong. "Katie Hale."

"And what brings you to this little part of the world, so far away from home?"

She hadn't let me ask her name but that didn't seem important at that moment.

"I'm originally from Manchester in England, but I moved to Ireland as soon I left school to take a gap year before I went to University in Edinburgh."

"Oh? But I cannot help but notice you are in neither Ireland nor Edinburgh at the moment."

I paused, considering whether to tell her everything.

"Well, no. Whilst I was in Ireland some...things happened and I couldn't do anything I planned on doing. I had to move far away and get away as quickly as possible so I sent out texts and emails to everybody in my contact list, asking if anybody knew a place I could go stay for a while and get myself together, and an old friend from the beginning of high school sent me a text back saying she knew of somewhere and I could get a flat there cheaply." I spread my arms out wide, gesturing to the entire bar. "So here I am."

The woman nodded, her expression showing me that she was entirely sympathetic to my plight.

"I see. How long are you planning on staying at Mystic Falls then?"

I shrugged before picking up my glass and knocking back the remaining swills of my coke. It burnt as it slid down my throat, and as I placed the glass back on the table I eyed it suspiciously. It burnt like a bitch, but it was a nice burn and I liked the feel of release it had temporarily given me as it had gone down. For a moment I could've forgotten my past.

"I don't know. I'd like to say not long, because I really want to return to Britain and maybe this time actually make it to Edinburgh, but I can't say for sure that will happen in the near future, if at all."

She nodded again before offering me a sweet, small smile.

"I'm new in town too. Well, I've been here before but not often and not for very long. I've just moved in with my brother, actually." She told me, sighing sadly and looking mournfully at the wooden table.

Try as I might, I couldn't feel at all curious about her story. Maybe my 'emotional scars' as they had all called them had effected me worse then I had previously thought.

"It's a bit lonely here when I don't know anybody, especially if nobody is interested in getting to know you."

"Oh?"

I stared at my glass again as she nodded vigorously.

"Oh, yes. You see, I don't much like new people and they don't tend to like me much. I don't suppose I can blame them. But you... you're different."

I smiled weakly at her, looking up to meet her freaky eyes once more.

"Ha. I've been called that before."

She shook her head.

"No, no. I mean it. I really do mean it. I feel I can connect with you more then I could connect with this whole town!" She sounded so sincere, it was almost creepy. Clearly she didn't understand that I didn't want her to feel that connection with me, and I didn't want to feel any connection with her. I didn't want to feel any connection with anybody any more.

She waved her hand airily towards the bar and gazed at me questioningly.

"Can I buy you another drink? What were you having before? A coke?"

I opened my mouth to refuse. I never let strange people buy me drinks, my mum had taught me that, but with a quick, mental glance at my purse told me I wouldn't be buying my own drinks any more tonight and I wanted to feel that burning again so badly. I smiled gratefully at her and nodded my head twice.

"Yes please, thank you very much."

She stood up, her stylish clothes swinging loosely around her slim frame the way mine never did because I already had flesh swinging independently to my main frame.

"Wait!" I suddenly cried out and she looked down in puzzlement at me. "I'm sorry, how terribly rude of me. You never told me your name."

She smiled at me, but this smile wasn't the genuine one she'd given me just moments earlier. It was thinner and more up tight.

"Let's just see how the drink goes, shall we?"

~O~

Giggling, I tripped over an empty can in the dark alley way behind the bar and Blondie caught me just before I hit the ground, causing me to laugh harder.

"Woopsie daisy!" I chimed, laughing hysterically.

Blondie wrapped her arm around my waist and supported most of my weight as she half dragged me across the cobbles.

"Come on, you, we've got somewhere to be." She smiled at me but the smile was tense and thin.

I hiccuped and beamed up at her.

"Do you know...you're actually quite nice." I nodded my head enthusiastically at her. "And you've never once enquired into what happened in my past which makes you quite (hic) nice indeed."

She raised an eyebrow at me.

"You appear to get more posh the more you drink." She informed me.

I thought about it wondrously.

"Do I (hic) really? How very (hic) odd." I snuggled against her and she let out a strained gasp. "You know, you are rather pretty. I might've turned for you if I wasn't (hic) very much turned on by men." I then frowned into her shoulder and peaked up to look at her strained, tense face in the moon light.

"And what do you mean by the more I drink? I've been drinking nothing but (hic) diet coke's all night long." I smiled provocatively up at her, which caused her to gulp. "Have you been trying to get me drunk missy? Or does coke in America mean alcohol? What do you call coke in American-eese?" I yawned and snuggled tighter against her body, at which point she made a squalling like noise as if she was in pain.

"Please, Katie, we need to get somewhere and I'll be in a lot of trouble if I don't get you there." Her voice was pleading and strained. "Please Katie!"

I yawned again.

"Where are we going, Blondie?" I slurred. "I'm rather tired, I think I might just go home. But goodnight. Loooove you." I shoved myself away from her and clumsily reached up to sloppily kiss her cheek and she let out some sort of growl.

Next thing I knew, I was flat against the alley wall and my legs were dangling beneath me, Blondie holding me up with a strange look on her face, almost as if she was wearing a haloween mask.

"I'm sorry Katie. You were suppose to have a bit longer." Over her growling voice, she almost sounded apologetic. "Maybe if I wasn't gay this wouldn't have happened like this...but maybe it would..."

And she dived for my neck.

Black.