Renat breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out of the classroom. He had spent this school day the same as all the others in the past few days; focused more on not having anything become stuck to him than on the lesson itself. [i]Calm down, stressing will not help,[/i] he thought to himself, [i]if you stress, you are more likely to act weird. Relax and act normal.[/i] But this did not help. He had also been avoiding his couple friends for the past couple days, fearing they might notice something different about him that his other classmates who couldn't care less. Though he also knew this would bite him in the butt, as Richard and Anna would probably now be looking for a reason he was avoiding them. They were probably on the brink of asking his parents what was wrong. 

Deep in thought and avoiding as many people as possible, Renat headed towards the park. The park was one of the several sparsely dotted across across the huge city, parts of a group of projects intended to introduce at least a little bit of vegetation to the harsh red environment. In the park Renat visited, there was a cluster of foliage which he had often liked to hide in when he didn't want to be found by people. [i]I need to tell them something. I can't lie to them, as eventually there will be holes in my cover up and if they find I lied to them, they will be more likely to report me, regard me as a freak and lose trust in me. But can I really just tell them about [/i]it[i]?[/i] Renat thought about his power. He had been trying his best to not use it at all since discovering it, as if it would be discouraged from ruining his life and just vanish. Though sometimes his curiosity got the best of him and he did small tests of what he could do. As far as he had discovered, he could bond with or absorb objects and manipulate their shapes. It took a lot of concentration, but he might be capable of more, but whenever he opened his eyes and saw the foreign growth on his hand or arm, he immediately focused on it falling off and then causing it to.

Shaking these thoughts out his head, he reached into his backpack and brought out his tablet. Renat had homework and a lot of the day's class work to catch up on. Before he started, he briefly mused on whether Anna and Richard were searching for him and, if they were, how long he would have until they checked this spot and he would have to come up with an explanation. [i]It'll come to me eventually...[/i] he thought, and got to work.