Chapter 2

"Wally West." His head jerked up, an instinctive reaction. And he found himself face to face with Linda Park.

"Uh-oh" he muttered as he shoved a crumpled handful of papers into his backpack. How had she learned his name?

Wally'd been thrilled when he'd been accepted into Central Community College's Forensic Science program. With his fake ID and the social security number one of Ms. Gyeon's deceased friends had "donated" to him, he'd been able to fill out all of the forms. By taking 24 credits a semester, he was scheduled to graduate in two and a half years. It wasn't ideal but, given his situation, it was a dream come true.

So to see Linda Park stomping into the room at the end of his fourth day of lectures, well…. His dream was on the fast track to becoming a nightmare.

She stopped up short beside him, her foot tapping impatiently on the strap of his bag.

He glanced up at her, one eyebrow raised. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

"Don't you 'ma'am' me." Wally fought the urge to cringe. "You know exactly who I am and exactly why I'm here. The hospital is irate with me! It's been half a year and I'm still not welcome back. The nurse told them it was my fault you ran off." She lowered her eyes into a glare. "I didn't even get a story out of it."

Wally widened his eyes, trying to plaster as much confusion and shock into his expression as he could. "I'm sorry, I really don't know what you're talking about."

He tried not to let the guilt eat at him as he gathered up his bag and rushed out of the room.

"What's wrong?" a tiny voice asked from behind him.

He looked down and found himself face to face with a pair of big brown eyes.

"Uh..." The little girl's head tiled as Wally scrambled for a response. "I'm…. I'm just….. lost."

The little girl nodded, fidgeting with her floral print dress. "I've been lost before. It was scary."

Wally kicked at a stone aimlessly, and it toppled into the crater before him. It was the first time he'd come to Central City Park since he'd landed in this world, and the damage his impact had made hadn't been completely repaired yet.

"Do you need help finding your mommy and daddy?" He glanced at the girl, and her expression was earnest and kind.

Wally chuckled but swallowed hard. "No…. They'll find me."

A clutter of texts book laid open, scattered around the floor of his tiny apartment. On the nights where he didn't have work, Wally spent his free time researching inter-dimensional physics and interplanetary relativity. Notes lay, illegible and smeared, across every free table and counter.

But still, he could not figure out how to get home. How could he, when he did not know where he was?

Ms. Gyeon's apartment smelled like mothballs and burnt meat.

Not that Wally wouldn't eat burnt meat. He wasn't the type to say no to free food, especially when that free food wasn't from one of the three restaurants he worked at. So when Ms. Gyeon offered to make him an authentic Korean dish, he jumped at the opportunity.

He'd never had Japchae before, but the noodles were sweet and tangy and even the charred beef was worlds beyond the grease soaked fast food burgers he'd grown accustomed to. From the tiny dining room table, Wally eyed the remaining noodles in the kitchen.

Ms. Gyeon sipped coyly on her plum tea, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "You can finish it, if you'd like, dear." An embarrassed grin slipped onto Wally's face. Busted. As he stood and made is way into kitchen, Ms. Gyeon said, "You're sweet to spend your Friday night with an old lady like me. Feeding you is the least I can do."

"I like spending time with you. There's nowhere else I'd rather be." Ms. Gyeon reached over and refilled his cup of tea as he scooped the rest of the Japchae onto his plate.

As Ms. Gyeon finished pouring his drink, Wally moved back to the table. As he sat himself down, the woman beside him gasped. "Oh, that's terrible." Wally's head perked up. On the small TV that Ms. Gyeon had muted in the corner of the room, the blurry image of smoke danced upon the screen. He moved closer to it, dread making his limbs heavy and his hands numb.

Through the noise flickering through the screen, Wally managed to make out the words "CENTRAL TOWER AFLAME."

"Ms. Gyeon," he asked, his mouth dry. "Could you please turn on the sound?"

When she did, Linda Park's voice, grainy and distorted, echoed through the speakers. "-department says that local firefighters have been unable to control the flames. Though the majority of the building has been evacuated, there are six residents still unaccounted for. While the source and cause of the flame is still unknown, police do not suspect any foul play to-"

"I need to go." Wally inhaled a sharp breath as he turned to leave the room. "I'm so sorry."

As he moved out the apartment door, he heard Ms. Gyeon call out, "Be safe!"

The papers had been filled with talk about the "Sensation of Central City." Six people pulled from a burning building at the speed of light. Countless fist-fights broken apart by an unknown force. One time, a bank robber found his gun suddenly replaced with a banana.

Wally had never intended to start fighting crime. There were no meta-humans here, no need for a hero of his special design. And he didn't want the people to get familiar with him, if he was only going to leave.

And yet, when the Central City News caught the blur of a man in an overly large red sweatshirt darting in and out of the scene, Wally couldn't help himself. In an unmarked envelope, slipped under the crack in Linda Park's office door, was a note that read only, "He's called The Flash."

'There,' he thought as he sped away. 'She got her story.'

On the one year anniversary of his crash landing on Earth 2.0, Wally threw out the box of Jasmine tea.

After a couple days of deliberation, he replaced it with another.