A young man attempted to blink his eyes open, but the blinding light of the sun stopped him.
"Eti?" A voice softly called.
Etienne sat up slightly and slowly pried his eyes open. A dapper young man in a dark three-piece suit lunged from the foot of the bed and hugged him.
"Etienne!"
Etienne observed the young man intently. He analyzed his perfectly pressed suit, his shiny shoes and his hair, cut short with patterns etched into it. The young man looked at Etienne. He made a mental note of his handmade clothes frayed at the edges, his potato sack shoes that lay on the side of the bed. And his hair, wrapped up into a fluffy, unkempt top knot.
"Gabe?" The words escaped Etienne's mouth before he could think about it.
Gabe jumped from the foot of the bed and nearly tackled Etienne.
"Oh my god…" Gabe barely choked out between sobs.
They embraced for a few moments longer before Etienne pushed him off.
"Hold on Gabe, where are we?" Etienne snapped his head back and forth and examined each object in the room. His surroundings increasingly evoked a sense of nostalgia with every passing second.
Gabe released Etienne and settled into the chair by the bed. He wiped his thick glasses with the rim of his shirt.
"Sorry, I know this must be extremely jarring for you. We have a million things to catch up on, but to answer your question, we are in your room. At the mansion."
Etienne glanced back and forth, this time at a slower pace. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in, then exhaled.
Opening his eyes, he questioned, "I'm back in Astoria…"
Gabe smiled, "Back home! A private investigator I hired found you at the airport. You were beaten to hell and passed out in the middle of one of the international flight terminals. Bruises and cuts all over. The private doctor came by earlier…"
Etienne held his hand out in front of his face. Both of his hands were unnaturally black like obsidian. The striking darkness contrasted with his light brown skin.
Gabe looked at Etienne's hands for a second before continuing, "He said you were completely healthy, not even a scratch or a scar. He is coming by tomorrow to do some more tests on your hands and your chest."
Etienne lifted his shirt and stared at the large circle in the middle of his chest, the same shade of black.
Etienne quickly moved to the edge and jumped off the bed. He stretched his arms high into the air.
Letting them fall back to his side, he looked over at Gabe, "Wow…you look great, man."
Gabe smiled and nodded.
Etienne crossed his arms and shook his head, "I'm finally back. It's been…" His voice trailed off as he struggled to recollect.
Gabe put a hand on his chin, "It's been about a year if I remember correctly," Gabe stood up, "Give me a second, I have the exact date written here somewhere."
Suddenly, Etienne's entire demeanor changed. His face contorted and he turned away from Gabe. He spoke softly, "You said it's been how long?"
Gabe grabbed a post it note off a desk opposite the bed, "13 months and 10 days."
Etienne grabbed his temple for a second, before rushing out of the room. He yelled back, "I need to take a shower and wash my hair with the medicated shampoo! I feel like I have years of dirt caked on me. Can you call the barber, I want to get dreads like I had in high sch—"
Gabe grabbed his arm as he walked down the hallway, "You need to lie down. They say it can take weeks, months, even years for the trauma…for the trauma to…"
Etienne turned around and grabbed Gabe's arm with his free hand. He looked Gabe deep into his eyes, "Look at me, Gabe. You know me better than anyone, do I look traumatized to you?"
They looked at each other for a long time. Etienne's sharp gaze made Gabe turn away.
"Look, you still need to stay in bed for a long while, at least the rest of this week! You survived a plane crash for God's sake! You were off in lord knows where for a year, with lord knows who contracting lord knows what…"
Etienne leaned against the wall and smirked at Gabe, "Didn't the doctor give me a clean bill of health?"
Gabe shook his head vigorously, "No, no! The doctor said that with the rudimentary tools he could haul here on short notice, he couldn't find anything immediately wrong with you. Even with that diagnosis, he also insisted, very strongly I might add, that you need to come into the facility to get a comprehensive checkup!"
Etienne grabbed a picture off the wall. A beautiful older woman sat in an empty room with color gradient walls, "Yeah yeah, I'll head there soon. But hey, good job of calling him here in the first place instead of taking me straight there. I'm sure Mom would have applauded you."
A self-assured smile spread across Gabe's face, "Of course! I know how important the privacy of the Blessad family is. We wouldn't want to have a media firestorm surrounding the house every day. I'm sure that would be detrimental to your recovery."
Etienne hung the picture back on the wall. He slowly strutted to a sliding door at the end of the hallway. He pulled it back, and they both stepped out onto a narrow wooden balcony. On one side, they overlooked a cliff. On the other, a small seaside town was built dangerously close to the ocean. Houses painted with teals, salmons, and golds were visible as far as the eye could see. Miles away, opposite the town, was a large land mass, with a slender ribbon of a bridge connecting the two.
Etienne turned to Gabe, "There's no one I can count on in this world like I can count on you. Your input and your opinion mean everything to me. That's why I'm asking for your permission. Please, let me take a walk through town and clear my head. I'll be right back, and I'll go do all the testing and everything after that."
Gabe stared at him for a long time.
Etienne continued, "You can't expect me to sit in the house for weeks after I finally made it back home."
Gabe shook his head, "Still the same old Eti. Go. Whatever, I don't care. If I tell you no, you're just going to sneak out anyway."
Etienne nodded his head and walked back down the hallway. When he got to the doorway of his room, he turned around slowly.
"Gabe?" Eteinne called out meekly.
Gabe crossed his arms, "What's up?"
Etienne thought to himself, "No, I can't tell him about what I am yet. If I tell him what really happened out there…"
Etienne laughed and shook his head, "It's nothing!"
Etienne reached under the bed and laced up his platform boots as Gabe watched him. He put his oversized jeans behind the tongue of his boot and pulled down on his turtleneck sweater. He put a thumb up and exclaimed, "All ready for school, father!"
Gabe rolled his eyes and walked away. He called out, "I guess I'm glad you're still making jokes."
Etienne walked down the stairs quickly—a larger set of stairs led to a smaller set and then to the bottom floor. As Etienne finished going down the stairs, he turned back and looked. A giant painted family on the wall stared down at him. In the painting, Etienne's mother, the same beautiful woman from the smaller picture, sat beside his father, whose piercing gaze penetrated Etienne's soul. Ulysses, Gabe's father, stood to the right of the family, with Gabe right below him.
Gabe rushed down the stairs and fixed his attention on the canvas as well. He clasped his hands together and whispered to himself, "Father, Master Blessing, Miss Amaya…the Prince of Astoria has returned."
Etienne ripped his eyes away from the painting before bolting out the front door.
Gabe watched him as he ran out and shook his head.
He stepped down the stairs and walked over to the kitchen. Gabe reached for the light switch but stopped before turning them off. Gabe stared at the knife block knocked over on the counter. A dozen knives were scattered across the counter and the floor.
Gabe winced at the sight of them.
"Damn it, we can't afford to have these replaced right away. I'll have to go for the cheaper alternative," Gabe thought to himself.
He grabbed them all up quickly and placed them back in the knife block.
Gabe grabbed his chin and stared at the knives, befuddled, "'One is missing?" The realization hit him like ice water in the face, "I know I didn't lose it. Did he…" The unfinished thought hung in the air as he reached for his coat.