Ok, so I guess you guys are all going, what the fuck? Am I right? Yeah, thought so. I think I owe it to you to at least bring you up to speed until the whole "oh god it burns" scenario, I guess.

It had been a Friday afternoon and I was driving home from school. Hold it; I know what you are thinking. He's driving from school? Well, come on I am old enough to hold a licence, well a provisionary at least. I am eighteen and in year twelve. It is not much of a stretch to imagine that, is it? Ok, so I was kept back a year in grade ten, but it was my own choice. It was completely voluntary, I swear. I had been going through a few rough patches in my personal life at that point and my grades suffered because of it. I had to not only move schools, but also entire cities and on top of that, my parents nearly divorced half-way through the year. Note the word 'nearly'. They're still not exactly a happy couple yet, but they're getting there. We had to move due to my dad getting a job further inland, in a 'rural' community. Well, that's what they told us it was. I was expecting something a bit more, well, rural when I got there. However, I was reminded that many of Australia's inner townships had yet to remove their 'rural' title even if Toowoomba is the largest inland city in Australia. Therefore, my dad got his rural cash bonus as a doctor in a 'rural' area and the closest we got to the 'outback' were the truckies going between the cattle stations and Brisbane that used the main street since the by-pass hadn't even been started yet.

Um… I'm rambling aren't I? Sorry, I'll try not to do that too much, K?

Ok, so it was a Friday afternoon and I was driving home. My plan was to race home, grab my wallet, leave a note to tell my parents were I was going to be for the next few hours and then hit the mall with a few mates of mine by the time three o'clock rolled around. Ok, I'll be the first to admit that my plans never go off without hitting some kind of hitch, and this time was no different. Nevertheless, even I was surprised when my plan hit a snag before it had even started. Well, to be fair, the snag hit me. And no, it wasn't a pedestrian. I am not that bad a driver and I don't care what the old geezers say, not all us teens are bad drivers. I had been driving past some road works when I heard the loudest bang I had ever heard. It is had to explain until you hear the noise a car makes when it hits something solid, but you get the picture. At first, I thought a rock must have been thrown from the machines, so as soon as I had a chance I pulled over. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your point of view) I owned my own car, so when I saw the dent on the bonnet, I thanked that single fact and the fact that my parents weren't going to kill me for it. Ok, so my car wasn't exactly fab to begin with, just a second hand (probably third or fourth by the look of things), two door lancer that my dad picked up on the cheep (I'm not sure of the actual price, but it was under ten grand – good price for a car, really). However, this was the first real ding it had gotten and it was a beauty. The dent was the size of my head and, due to the position of the said dent and the fact that I was going at about 10 km per hour past the road works, the offending object was still there. I was quite surprised to find that is was a golden orb, roughly the size of a tennis ball. There was no way that this little thing had caused that much damage. From my limited understanding of my physics classes that my parents made me do, I guesstimated that this little ball would had to have been going pretty damn fast to have cause this much damage and the angle suggested it would have come straight down. When I looked back to the road works, I couldn't see anything that might have caused it to fly out like that, let alone at the speed required to dent the car that badly. I sighed and pocketed the ball. It would make something to talk about with my mates, I figured. The rest of my plan went, well, according to plan. The most exciting thing after that incident was nearly braining myself when I stood on one of my little sister's stupid toys and went for 'a short trip', barely missing the kitchen table on my way down.

It was ten to three when I got to the mall and Nick was already there waiting. I waved and called out to him as I walked up to the front entrance and he waved back, yelling something unintelligible. I figured out it was a warning when Adrian tackled me from behind. For a guy about 4 foot 10, a whole foot shorter than me, he was bloody strong. When he has you pinned, you aren't going anywhere, no matter how big you are. "Ok! I give. Let me go, ya great lunk." I called from beneath him. He laughed then helped me up.

"Well, you should be more aware of your surroundings, shouldn't you?" He quipped, faking a sage-like tone. I just laughed, then put him in a headlock and gave him a noogie.

"Now who should be more aware?" I laughed as he struggled uselessly. I mightn't look it, but I'm just as strong as he is.

"Ok, that's enough. Let Midget go Mark." Nick said as he walked up, "I don't want you killing him; it'll take forever to get the stains out. You know that."

"You know," I said, giving Adrian one last shove, "you're right. It ain't worth it, is it? Anyway, aren't elephants an endangered specie?"

"That's bull elephant to you." Adrian quipped, giving a fake show of disrespect. He then turned and looked up at Nick. That's not saying much since he has to look up to pretty much everyone, but even I have to look up at Nick. He's a good six foot something and built like a stick insect. However, with the amount he eats, I'm surprised that he fails to put on any weight. The bottomless pit, AKA Nick, could eat you out of house and home and still be hungry enough to eat the neighbour's house too. "Anyway, what's so important that you had to drag us out on a perfect Friday afternoon to go to the mall, hmm?" He was answered with a slap to the back of his head from me.

"Dumbass, the Dawn of War tourney is on today." I said, somewhat pissed at his sieve-like memory, "Now if Jacob and Rob would get here, we could sign up and get our team together."

"Oh, right." Was all Adrian said on the matter. Nick was about to call them, when the two walked up behind him and gave him one hell of a scare. Well, they would have, if Nick scares. Too much time watching horror movies will do that to a guy. Anyway, he just turned to them and gave each a whack for making them wait, then another for trying to scare him. Out of the five of us, I was the second tallest and silently proud of that fact. Both Jacob and Robert were about five and a half foot, still five inches shorter than I was, but still tall enough to avoid Adrian's title of Midget. It was something Nick thought of in all spontaneous his creativity and it stuck, much to Adrian's dismay.

We walked past the mall to the Gaming lounge and signed in our team. We got creamed in the finals. Hey, story of my life. Well, we still got the consolation prize; a cool hundred dollars each, not bad for two and a half hours of game play, if I do say so myself. We had made our way back to the mall plaza for a snack before heading home, when I remembered the ball. Not wanting to take it out in public in case someone nicked it, I asked the guys if they would mind coming back over to my place to show them and for a bit of a celebration at getting to the finals. We clamoured into my car and we headed off, swinging by the pizza shop on the way. I had already planed a little after-game party, anyway.

It was six by the time we got to my place and, of course, my parents were home. We spent the next half hour making jokes, eating, drinking and generally having a good time. Being the only driver, I did the good thing and opted out of having any alcohol, instead preferring to drink my fill of soft drink. Thinking about it now, I should have drunk as much as I wanted; with any luck, I would have passed out and thus prevented any of this from happening, but there is no use crying over spilt milk, now is there? Eventually, the conversation turned to the dent in my car's bonnet and I told them what happened. I showed them the golden ball and it got passed around. It was Nick that found the latch and opened up the ball. The entire top half opened up and inside was a plethora of digital read outs, exposed wires and, well, things, for want of a better word. Dead centre was a red button about the size of my thumb nail. We were all trying to figure out what it could be, poking things, speaking our theories, but in the end it all came to naught – none of us really knowing what we were talking about. I pointed out this fact and there was a murmur of disappointed agreement. Then Jacob had that wonderful idea.

"Why don't we push the button and find out just what it does?" He asked. We all agreed that this was the best course of action, but none were game to try it. Eventually I was forcefully volunteered to try it, seeing as I was the one who found it in the first place. I looked up for a moment, unsure if I should. But seeing the faces of both my friends and family, I smiled and spoke those immortal last words.

"Hay, what's the worst that could happen?" I push the button my world turned to chaos.