Lexi had traveled halfway to Austin with only half a tank of gas, and as she approached Waco, Texas, she found herself running low on fuel. With about 100 miles left to go, she stopped at the first gas station she could find after hitting E. Upon arriving, Lexi noticed that the city appeared desolate and eerie, almost as if a bomb had gone off. The darkness and stillness were unsettling.

Lexi has concluded that it would be best to wait until morning before attempting to locate additional gasoline for her car or another car that has gasoline and keys inside. If unsuccessful, she will have to walk the remaining distance to Austin, which she dreads. Nonetheless, she had to reach Austin in search of her family.

Lexi made sure her car doors were locked before settling in for the night. She decided it was safer to stay in her car than risk venturing out into the unknown. She planned to survey the area more thoroughly in daylight. The Miller girl arranged herself in the backseat, which would provide better comfort compared to sleeping in the front.

Despite the weight of recent events on her mind, she managed to get a few hours of sleep although it was not restful. The sun shining through the back window woke her up.

As Lexi woke up, she felt stiff and disoriented. It took her a few moments to recall the events of the previous day. She stretched her sore muscles, trying to ease the discomfort from sleeping in an uncomfortable position. She rummaged through her bag and found a granola bar to snack on. She also took a sip of water from her water bottle.

After stepping out of the car, Lexi surveyed her surroundings and checked the gas pumps, only to find them already emptied. Though disappointed, she decided to quietly explore the building. Most of the store had been scavenged, but she managed to find a few items left behind, which she added to her backpack. After securing her backpack, she left the gas station.

Lexi had attempted to check several cars, but unfortunately for her, most were either locked or missing keys. As a result, she had to continue on foot, since she lacked the knowledge of how to hotwire a car. This realization caused her to let out a sigh, as she began her daunting 100-mile journey.

Lexi spent the whole day walking, taking only a few pauses to rest, eat, and drink water. She made sure to save her resources until she was confident she could restock her food and water supply.

Throughout her journey, she encountered a few more infected people and remembered that her knife through her former friend who had been infected's brain killed it, that information came in handy because she killed them the same way though it was only a few lone ones at different times during her trek which made it easier for her take them on.

As night approached, Lexi felt uneasy about traveling alone in the dark. She came across a warehouse and decided to stay there for the night, hoping to continue her journey in the morning. She still had around 50 miles left to reach her destination, and it would probably take her half a day to get there. Lexi couldn't help but worry about her family's well-being.

Upon discovering that the entrance was chained shut, Lexi had to find a small opening to slip into the building. To ensure her safety, she blocked the entrance with an object. As she quietly entered the main area with her flashlight, she assumed that there were no infected present since the entrance had not been tampered with.

Lexi was surprised that the warehouse seemed bare at least in this part anyway, she surveyed the room only to find a single coffin in the middle of the room, Lexi gave it a weird look, she was just slightly weirded out. But she had seen weirder things over the past couple of days, so she shrugged it off and walked up to the coffin. She shines her flashlight on the object and noted that it looked fancy, it was dark mahogany and there was a monogrammed KM in the middle of the lid.

"Am I really going to do this?" The girl asked herself, uncomfortable. But it was better to know if it was just an empty coffin or if she was going to be sharing the warehouse with a dead person for the night. And God knows how she was tired of dead people for the past few days. And without any other thought, she found the handle and flipped the lid open.

Releasing a sharp breath, she confirmed that there was, in fact, a dead body inside… A gorgeous man with what looked like about shoulder-length light brown hair laying inside, wearing clothes that looked to be from a different century with a dagger sticking out of his chest. The brunette noted that the man didn't look like any of the other infected that she encountered the past two days… in fact, his skin was a pale gray color and he had strange veins covering the exposed skin. Then her eyes landed on the dagger…

"Someone really hated you, huh?" she whispered softly joking, but her fast breath showed the reality of how nervous she was. 'Why was his skin like that? Maybe it was a weird disease? Was the dagger in his heart to end his pain or simply because someone was afraid of getting infected from whatever caused that gray skin and dark veins? Maybe I should be afraid too. I shouldn't touch it, but I might need it.'
"Forgive me, but I hope wherever you are you see that this will really help me." And quickly she removed the dagger, shivering at the sound that it made leaving his flesh, examining it for a moment with a nod she stuck it down inside her right combat boot.

She closed the coffin lid once again and sat her backpack down on a table on the other side of the room and decided to look through the other rooms in the warehouse to see if she could scavenge anything that could be useful until she could make it home at least.

Maybe an hour later, Lexi had explored the whole warehouse and found a few things that could be useful and was a little weirded out by the freezer that somehow was still running and cold and filled with bags of A negative blood. She had made her way back into the main room to put the things that she had found into her backpack when she heard a quiet creaking noise, so she whirled around brandishing her new dagger which she had quickly pulled out of her boot.

Only to come face to face with the man she had pulled the dagger from with weird veins on his face, "Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of me… not even gonna ask how the fuck you climbed out of the coffin let alone are breathing after I stole the dagger that was in your chest… because trust me, I've seen some weird ass shit, over the past couple of days." she did note that his skin was now a more healthy color and the veins had disappeared. Well for the most part anyway except under his eyes.

The man blinked at her for a moment, his face going back to normal, "You're not afraid of me?"

Lexi shook her head, "Nope, and if you had been through the shit that I have the past two days nothing would scare you either." she noticed the veins come back, and tilted her head to the side curiously "why does your face keep doing that?"

He could feel his fangs come out and knew what she was talking about, but questioned her anyway "Doing what?"

"The whole vein thing that keeps appearing under your eyes?"

The man nodded "Right well I've only just woken up from my little dagger nap, guess I should thank you for that by the way even if you did it unknowingly and I'm rather famished, so that is why that keeps happening."

Lexi nodded, she normally would have been scared of the random stranger with the weird veins appearing under his eyes but after what she'd been through she was barely even phased. "Oh well, you're welcome I guess and uhhh I don't have a lot but I have some food, we could share it… if you want?"

The man kept hearing the blood pumping through her veins as she stood in front of him, "Uhh that is not exactly what I meant…"

Lexi furrowed her brow as he said that and her mind flashed to the freezer in the other room and how this man was the only one here, but it didn't make sense to her but could that have been put there for him? But how and why? She shrugged to herself, "Well what is it that you need then?"

He furrowed his brow wondering exactly what this girl had seen to not even be batting an eye at what had happened just a few moments ago. "Well darling here's the thing, I'm a vampire."

Lexi paused and tilted her head to the side slightly, "well then that explains the freezer in the other room full of A-negative blood bags."

"You're really just completely unphased by all of that?"

The brunette gave him a look, "Dude, I've seen some shit the past two days, I don't think anything could phase me anymore… two days ago I'd be freaking the fuck out learning about this all of this shit but now? Yeah, no."

"I'm just going to go grab some of those blood bags you mentioned so I can focus on something other than the blood pumping through your veins."

"Cool… I'll just be here, I need a place to camp out for the night, and here is where I chose so yeah I'll be out of your hair by the morning."

He disappeared into the other room and found the freezer she was talking about. He drained a few of the blood bags and then flashed back into the other room to find the strange girl sitting up on a table eating something.

Lexi just smiled at him, she knew that he could easily kill her if he wanted but then again so could a shit ton of other things out there in the world.

He approached and sat beside her on the table, he found her intriguing…. "So what happened that made you so unphased?"

"It's a very long story, I'm Alexis Miller by the way but you can call me Lexi if you want."

"Well Lexi, I've got time, I'm Kol, Kol Mikaelson at your service." He did a little drastic bow at the end that made Lexi laugh.

Lexi nodded at him, "Okay then Kol Mikaelson, I will tell you the whole story, it all started two days ago, September 26th, 2003…" and then she explained everything that had happened since then.

By the end of her story, Kol looked at her surprised he hadn't expected that to be her explanation, "Wow… that's just wow, no wonder you weren't phased by anything that you witnessed or found out here…. And for it all to have started on your dad's birthday, that's terrible."

"Told you I had seen some weird ass shit… yeah I'll never be able to look at that date the same again," she thought about it and decided that she was gonna invite Kol to come with her, she might as well, "do you want to come with me? You don't have to but it would be nice to not be alone for the rest of this journey to my dad's house… I'm heading to Austin and it's about 50 more miles from here."

Kol looked at her for a moment as he thought about what she had asked, he didn't know where any of his siblings were and had nowhere to go, so he decided to accept, "Sure Lexi, I'll come with you, it's not like I have anywhere else to be."

The Miller girl grinned at him, "Awesome."

***
I love Kol and Lexi sm already, they are going to be an absolute power couple and a menace to what's left of society, it's gonna be fun.