"Nate, be cautious!", his mother yelled at him from where she was, "Don't go up too high!"

Nate, as his family called him, was climbing up the stone wall just above their fireplace. His hands were gripping the rough stone as tightly as he could. As a rather experienced climber, he was not worried about going up as high as he was already. He wanted to go further and reach the edge of the wall to get to see the view from there.

His muscles were burning by the climbing but he enjoyed that feeling, he loved it to push himself to his limits. There were around four feet left, he just needed to place his right foot on a stable place that would not make him slip. He turned around and saw how his parents were looking at him, making rather distressed expressions. Nate concentrated on reaching the edge and placed his foot on a place he deemed to be safe for placing his foot. His grip got tighter and he pushed himself up the edge of the wall, finally reaching solid ground he could sit on.

His chest was heaving and Nate was ringing for breath, the climbing had exhausted him more than he would have imagined. After resting for a few moments he looked down to his parents and grinned at them: "See? I told that nothing would happen to me, no need to worry. I am quite used to climbing walls like this one!"

"Don't stay there for too long! We need to go back before your sister gets home, she forgot to take her keys, remember?", his Dad yelled back.

Nate sighed and stood up, facing the city he was able to see from where he was. Tacoma, a city that was inhabited by around two hundred thousand people, was to be seen from there. Nate and his family lived there. In the state of Washington, not far away from the border of Canada. He lived here since he was born.

Nate remained as he was for a few minutes and then turned to the wall he needed to climb down. That was the most difficult part for him. Climbing up was relatively easy if the person who did it knew what he was doing. But climbing down? Nate did not like it. Too much focusing on feeling the wall rather than seeing it. One mistake could cost your life.

He placed his foot on the exact place he used to go over the edge, once again feeling his grip tighten around the stone. He immediately felt relaxed as he was doing the same thing he did countless times before.

"Be careful, Nathan!", his Dad said.

Nate, who was already halfway through climbing down laughed, "I already told you that nothing will happen. I've done this a thousand times alread-". His grip lost its strength and he slipped, falling face down to the ground. 

"Nate-!", he heard his mother cry. 

He knew that it would be too late to try anything other than cover his face, which he did. He placed his hands on his face and closed his eyes to not see the ground coming near to him.

And hit the ground.

 ______

"Doctor is he alright?", he heard his mother say. The whole place reeked like disinfectant, Nate realized that he was in the hospital. He wanted to open his eyes and tell his Mom that everything was okay but he could not do so. His eyes refused to obey his commands.

"Yes, Mrs. Walker, there's no need to worry," a man replied, "It is actually quite fortunate that he didn't break anything besides the fracture of his right hand, considering where he fell from. There may some slight discomfort he may feel and he will most probably be disoriented for a while, but it's nothing serious."

Nate was not sure what the doctor meant, when did he fall? He could not remember, to say the least.

He managed to open his eyes and was greeted with seeing everything twice, the room looked blurry and he could not make out the expression of his mother. She in turn immediately got close to him and hugged him, "Nate, my baby!", she sobbed, "Don't you ever go climbing again, did you hear me? Do you know how worried we were?"

Nate, in turn, felt his headache. He held his hand to his forehead and rubbed it, hoping that it would stop. "Mom, I'm alright but why wouldn't I go climbing again, where did I fall from?"

"Don't you remember? It was just an hour ago," his mother said,"we went to the forest to go hitchhiking and you wanted to climb the stone wall just above our fireplace."

"Fireplace...", Nate murmured and rubbed the back of his hand but he suddenly jerked up. Why was the surface of his skin so rough? He felt his hands shake uncontrollably and looked at them. His right hand had a splint on it, but he could detect some scars coming out from where the splint stopped. The left hand was not covered, there were burn marks visible on the back of his hand, not in every place but at least half of it was covered with them.

"These will probably remain as scars," the Doctor said. Nate turned to him, a middle-aged man with an unkempt beard, and let him continue, "If it weren't for you stopping the impact with your hands, you would've hurt yourself far worse than just that, you were quite fortunate actually."

The doctor turned to the door, "I'll leave you now, you're free to go Nathan. There's nothing we need to do, just be sure to use your right hand as little as possible. The nurse will give you a cream to lessen the burn marks as much as possible but don't expect them to magically disappear. If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Walker."

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"Thank you for your help!", Nate's mother said while she stood up.

"I'm just doing my job," the doctor shook his head and left the room.

Nate was in a daze, he unconsciously rubbed the back of his left hand touching every rough bit of his skin as he racked his brain to remember his fall. He panicked a bit because that was the first time he had to deal with memory loss, as little as it was. It was frightening to lose something as personal as your own memories.

"Nate, no need to stay here," his mother touched his shoulder, bringing him back to the present, "We'll go home and I'll make you your favorite food, alright, dear?"

Nate looked up to her and moved his legs, "Yes, Mom, let's go home." He stood up, although with shaky legs, but he managed to take his clothes, new ones his mother brought from home and changed himself. Not being able to use his right hand showed him the difficulty of changing clothes with just one of them. His mother had to help him.

The both of them left the hospital after taking the cream the doctor prescribed him and went home.

The house his family lived in was a two floored one. All of them slept on the second floor. While his parents had obviously the biggest bedroom, Nate was lucky and got the bigger of the remaining ones. His sister was a person who would probably need more space than he did but Nate liked that his room had some open space.

His mother told him that they would eat dinner an hour later, so Nate had nothing else to do than lay on his bed and watch TV. He could not continue to draw the picture he was currently drawing because his hand was broken and could also not play a game.

The show he watched was a rather boring one, so Nate stretched himself and looked up to the ceiling. The background noise the TV made put him feel comfortable. He lifted his left hand and looked at his burn marks, scars that would likely remain forever.

They were not that noticeable, it was only standing out because of the red color his skin had as it was burnt two to three hours ago. The cream he put on his skin cooled it and made it far less itchy than he would have imagined it to be. Nate moved his fingers and looked if something else was different looking but noticed nothing.

He heard his mother call him for dinner and wanted to stand up when the complexion of his skin changed in an unnatural way. The color that was red just a moment ago suddenly turned into an ash gray one. Nate touched his skin and it felt different, not as rough but softer?

If felt like he could poke his finger through his hand, which he did as curious as he was. What happened was contrary to his expectations, his finger went through his hand and it popped.

His hand popped like a bladder.

Nate screamed in reaction and looked at the place where his hand was supposed to be. It was not empty but filled with... smoke?

The smoke, that was also smelling like it, was formed like his actual hand was. Nate stared at his smoke-hand and went through it with his right hand. The smoke seemed to avoid the other hand of his and dissolved while maintaining the same colour, just as if gray colored air was moving around his right hand.

Nate's heart pounded, he was confused. 

This hand if he could call it was still there but was it the same?

Before he could continue to wonder his hand turned normal and made Nate feel really exhausted. He immediately felt like sleeping. He had forgotten what he was supposed to actually do and was surprised when he heard the door open.

"Nate, what is it, you screamed like you were about to die!", his Sister barged into his room, "We're waiting for you, dinner's ready." She did not say anything else and left Nate's room.

As he walked down the stairs, Nate sensed how exhausted he really was. He managed to join his family to dinner and ate his food as quickly as he could. It was a steak, his favorite food.

"Quite hungry, aren't we, son?", his father laughed, "Good to see that you're the same, that fall was quite unexpected, wasn't it?" He tried his best to lift the atmosphere as Nate felt that it was somewhat awkward sitting there after being injured like that.

Nate finished and told that he was tired. He left the table after assuring his parents that he was feeling good. He was actually happy that they were such loving and caring parents.

Nate closed his door and made sure that it was locked. He sat on his chair and turned up the light of his desk lamp. He made sure that the lamp was putting out the brightest light it was able to. He did not want to miss anything while he observed his left hand.

One hour had passed. The left hand of his had not changed since the initial change, nor had it done anything abnormal as well. He had long since engraved the picture of his burn marks in his brain. Nate was disappointed. Was it only his imagination? Had the fall done something to his brain?

Dejected as he was, he gave up on continuing. He turned off his light and went to sleep.

"Nathan! Wake up, you need to go to school!". Light invaded his eyes. His mother had opened the curtains.

"Mom", Nate groaned, "Just let me sleep for five more minutes!" He covered his face with his pillow.

"No five minutes, I let you sleep as long as you could.", his mother replied, took the pillow, and pulled his blanket away. "I'll drive you to school today, you've already missed your bus."

Nate groaned once more and forced himself to stand up. He went to his closet and took out some clothes he could wear. A blue t-shirt and some jeans. As casual as possible, he did not like to stand out.

"Nate?", his mother made it obvious that she was sniffing around room, "Nate? Are you smoking?"

Nate got flustered as soon as he heard something about Smoke, "Smoke... Wha-? No! How did you get that idea?!" His thoughts turned into a great mess, he immediately remembered how what happened to his left hand.

"It's your blanket... it just smells like it," she squinted her eyes, making a serious look, "Nathan Walker, are you smoking in my household?"

"No, Katherine Walker," he paid attention to specially emphasize her name, "I did not and won't ever smoke."

"Okay, I'll trust you for now," she sighed after she could not bear to hold eye contact any longer, "But I'll keep an eye on you!" She took a deep breath, "Alright, forget that for now, Nathan. I'll get changed now. I expect you to be ready in two minutes or you can walk to school today." She left the room.

Nate knew her threat could very well turn into reality if he did not hurry. So he took his backpack and put the books he needed inside. History, Chemistry, Math and Art. He had a bad taste in his mouth with just about thinking of math and the teacher, Mrs. Finch, who was a little, grumpy lady.

He put everything into his backpack, only his history book was needed. He looked around and found it on top of his closet, why ever it ended up there. He reached for it while stretching his whole body for it - the book was quite far away from the edge - and managed to touch it with his finger and slowly pulled towards him.

The book, though, did not seem to want to follow the way Nate wanted it to. Instead, it fell, right on top of his injured, right hand. He could not react fast enough.

At this exact moment his right hand turned gray, the same ash-gray colour the left hand had. The book went right through it. Nate was speechless, he stared at the book with a blank expression.

And laughed.

Nate did not know whether he could figure out this phenomenon or not but he would certainly try to.