September 26, 2003.
That was the day that everything changed for Alexis Miller and the rest of the world as we knew it.
It started out just a normal day, Lexi had classes like any other normal weekday. She hung out with her friends between classes and grabbed lunch with her two dormmates like any other day.
After her classes were over, she went back to her dorm room to call her father, since it was his birthday after all. She spoke to him for a bit until he had to go and get back to work. Lexi was looking forward to the weekend because she was going home to visit her father, little sister, and her uncle. She had also called and talked to her sister for a bit as well.
Little did Lexi know that today was going to take a turn and everything was going to change.
Her day progressed as it normally would and before Lexi knew it was time to meet her dormmates, Tiffany and Elizabeth for their study group in the common room of their dorm building. They did this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night.
Lexi grabbed what she needed and headed down to the common room. The dark-haired beauty arrived at the nearly deserted common room but that wasn't uncommon on a Wednesday night. She saw one of her dormmates, sitting in their usual corner, "Hey Tiff, Liz is late again huh?"
But the brunette just stared off blankly into the distance, which made Lexi concerned for her friend. "Tiff?" still no response, "Tiffany? Is something wrong?" The Miller girl tapped her friend on the shoulder to see if that would get her attention.
A strange gurgling noise came from the girl before her head snapped toward Lexi, but her face looked different, her eyes were a milky white that looked unnatural. What used to be Tiffany lunged at Lexi making the girl scream as she jumped back nearly missing getting grabbed.
Her self-defense training kicked in and she knocked what used to be her friend back with a judo kick, the self-defense lessons were her father's condition of letting her go to school in Dallas instead of the branch of UT that was in Austin.
Lexi started freaking out "Oh my god... Tiff, what's wrong with you?" but the now infected Tiffany just growled and gurgled again before once again lunging at Lexi, trying to sink her teeth into the girl, who dodged once again but this time she ran out of the common room and headed straight back to her dorm room, the building seemed to be almost eerily deserted now.
She slammed the door shut and locked it, as her heart pounded in her chest and her breathing was fast and harsh as she fumbled to get to the phone, she tried to call her house to check on her father and sister but the line went busy before it cut out altogether.
"Oh my god...oh my god... oh my god, what the hell is happening?" The 20-year-old was slightly panicking now, the phones were down and she had no idea if her family was safe from whatever the hell was happening and no way to contact them to find out, "Why are the phone lines dead?"
"Okay Lexi just breath... maybe the news will know what's going on," so she turned the TV on to see if they were talking about what was happening on the news. The Miller girl furrowed her brow as she read the words as they scrolled across the bottom of the screen. "So this is happening everywhere? But what the hell is it?" The girl flipped through a few different news channels trying to gather information, then she heard an explosion in the distance as the TV went to nothing but static.
Lexi swallowed the lump forming in her throat as she started to panic again she didn't know what to do or what was happening. She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath as she spoke quietly to herself, "Okay so if this is happening everywhere, then that means I need to get home and see if Dad, Sarah, and Uncle Tommy are okay.... The first order of business is getting out of here hopefully not running into any more of those things that Tiff turned into."
With the decision made, Lexi grabbed her backpack and packed a few things that she thought she might need into it, like some non-perishable food stuff like that, she packed some clothes into the bag as well and just anything that she thought might come in handy.
Once everything was packed into her backpack she grabbed, the pocket knife that her father had given her and stuck it into the front pocket of her jeans and her car keys. She hoped that she had enough gas to get back to Austin.
With one last deep breath, Lexi cut the lights off in the room and headed out the door, for what she knew would probably be the last time. She bit her lip as she stuck her head out of the door to see if the coast was clear and once she knew that it was, Lexi quietly made her way down the hall to the stairs at the end of the hall. She was not taking a chance of getting stuck in the elevator.
As she made it to the bottom of the stairs, she saw a familiar head of normally silky blonde curls, now the curls were just flat and the hair looked dull and lifeless... "Liz, is that you?" She heard growling just like with Tiffany earlier. Tears welled up in her eyes as she got her pocket knife out and flipped it open, just in case she needed to defend herself.
The thing that used to be her other best friend, Liz, lunged at her just like Tiffany had earlier, and almost instinctively the dark-haired beauty stabbed the knife right into the infected girl's eye, effectively making her still as the knife pierced its brain.
Lexi stared wide-eyed as she withdrew the knife, "Oh god.... Liz? What did I just do?" but there was just silence, and the girl let out a shaky breath. She could dwell on this later. Now she had to get out of there.
Lexi finally made it to the parking lot where her car was parked and quickly climbed into the car, shutting the door and making sure they were locked, before tears welled up in her eyes again as she realized that she had just killed one of her best friends, "oh god... no I killed Liz, I killed Liz! even if there was something wrong with her." she swiped the tears from her face as she started her car, "okay so got about half a tank of gas, that should get me pretty close to Austin."
She pulled out of the parking lot and hit the road, though she did hit some traffic jams headed out of the city, but she finally made it out and was headed back to her home City of Austin.
September 26, 2003. It started out as a normal day but by the end of it, the world had ended and everything had stopped. People were either killed. Infected. And the remaining ones were forced out of their homes and into Quarantine Zones.
Note:
Eeeeek I am so excited for this book like you guys have no idea it's gonna be awesome :D I hope you guys enjoy the chapter.
My babies meet in the next chapter and as of 12:30 AM 4/22/2023, I am almost finished writing the second chapter.
