Etienne stopped running a short way down the street and transitioned into a slow walk down the hill leading into town.
He covered his mouth with his turtleneck.
"13….13 months? That's impossible, I kept track of every day when I was there."
Etienne nodded his head as a stranger passed by him. He stood at the top of the hill leading down to town and stared at the familiar layout. A million memories raced through his mind, of family trips and outings, school events, hangouts with friends…
He darted down a small alley between two builidngs and leaned against the wall.
"I was there for at least 13 years." The thought continued to bounce around and echo in his mind. He grabbed his temples and slid slowly down the wall.
As Etienne continued to agonize over it, something exploded a short distance from him. Etienne peeked out from the alley he sat in, the smoke of the explosion was visible even from where he stood. He pulled his turtleneck up and began to walk in the direction.
"Damn it, I don't need to get discovered this early…but if people are in danger and I can help, I can't ignore them. I guess I should try this…"
Etienne put his hand up at a camera connected to a stoplight. The air began to distort like a rock being dropped in water, and a high-frequency ringing sound began to emanate from his palm. After a few seconds of this, there was a spark and a fuse blew in the camera.
Etienne darted down the street until he came to a small alleyway. He bounced between the two buildings and climbed onto the roof.
Jumping between roofs, he searched for the source of the explosion.
"I'm glad I can confirm all that training wasn't a fever dream. I need to figure out how I got back to the USA but first…"
As Etienne jumped between roofs, a shrill siren stopped him in his tracks. The noise of the siren came from all around. Etienne looked across the buildings and saw there were small speakers on many of them.
There was a sound of interference in the speakers and the sirens stopped. A feminine voice came on, "Level four meta incident in downtown Astoria. If you're more than 10 miles from the affected area, shelter in place. If you are within 10 miles, evacuate immediately. I repeat…" The message looped on from there.
After a minute or two longer of searching, Etienne looked down from the roof of a building onto an intersection with multiple burning cars.
An individual stood in the middle of the intersection, screaming as loud as their throat would allow them as giant spikes exploded out of their body piercing everything around them.
One of the spikes flew into the building Etienne was standing on and made it shake violently.
He flipped off of the building onto one of the burning cars.
"We still don't have heroes in this town to deal with these meta incidents?"
Etienne pulled a kitchen knife from his sweater in one swift motion as he walked toward the meta-human.
He dodged the large spikes with the slightest movements.
He stood a short distance away from the metahuman and shouted, "Hey! Stop this immediately before someone gets hurt. Otherwise, I'll have to stop you myself…"
The spiked metahuman did not respond to the threat or even pay attention to Etienne at all. The only form of was gurgling and groaning sounds as they let their spikes fly into buildings and vehicles indiscriminately.
Etienne scratched his head, "I never was good at connecting with metahumans. You all live in a whole different world…"
In less than a second, he closed the distance between him and the meta human. He slashed their neck and quickly put several feet of distance between them.
The meta-human fell to the ground and put both hands on the slash wound.
Etienne turned around and stomped back over to the injured metahuman, now wailing in pain. He looked in the direction of the building he was previously standing on, and he spotted Gabe standing behind it.
Fear covered Gabe's face completely. Even as he approached Etienne, the fear did not dissipate.
"Who—who are you?" Gabe stammered over his words.
Etienne shook his head, still catching his breath, "You don't recognize your family Gabe? We're all that's left!" Etienne used his free hand to wipe blood off of his face.
Gabe backed away slowly, "No…no you're not my family. I told myself I would just pretend like everything was normal and welcome you back calmly, but this is too much! The Etienne I know would never do something this violent! This, along with your newfound healing abilities, you can't be…"
Etienne closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "You know, I get it, Gabe. To honor your parents and to honor mine, you take care of me. And you do a damn good job, you found me as soon as I landed back in Oregon. But Gabe, do you know what I can do for them? To honor my parents, and to honor yours?"
"What?" Gabe's voice shrunk.
As hellish flames engulfed the vehicles around them, Gabe stared at Etienne, whose silhouette had transformed into something utterly inhuman, a wrathful demon incarnate.
"I can kill the people who took them away from us," Etienne clenched his fist hard, "That's what I decided out there. And I also decided I would follow through with my mission even if the killers are a part of my family."