The abbreviation “etc.” stands for et cetera, which means “and so forth” or “and others of the same kind.” I could see some possible uses for this in narrative. Some are perfectly acceptable. You might have a character who has a tendency to use this term when speaking:

“I’m not fibbing. We were on that boat for days and there were plenty of fish in that lake—trout, smallmouth bass, yellow perch, walleye, et cetera.”

Or a character might reference an email, memo, or other document:

It’s not like the boss was all that original. The last company-wide email ended like this: “We’ll have to put our noses to the grindstone, keep our heads down, give it our all, etc.”

You shouldn’t use it in place of concrete and evocative description:

The office was poorly lit by one fluorescent light, the cushions of the chairs were flattened and frayed, the phone was a rotary dial, etc.

This use is lazy. The author wants to suggest additional details of age without having to do the work of evoking them.