Gatekeeper's Apprentice
an excerpt

Casca was, all this time, following the wires into the wall. She paused at where the wires disappeared into the wall and looked at the spot. A frown crossed her face. “We need to get out of here now”, she said in an imperious tone.
“We DO need to get out of here before all the good cars are gone”, I agreed. “Get your butt off the chair fatso, the rents won’t want another dent on their chair.”
Casca started moving quickly towards the door, calling over her shoulder “You guys need to get out NOW. RIGHT NOW!” Her last words were shockingly urgent and I stared at X as he dropped the TV guide and stared back at me. Neither of us had ever heard Casca so insistent about something, and it was more this than her tone of voice that made us get up and follow her out. As it turned out we were not a moment too soon.
Casca literally ran out of the front door, followed by X and myself bringing up the rear. Casca ran down to where the walkway met the pavement and stood staring at the house, the puzzled look coming over her face again. X was out of breath, and to be honest, so was I. My body was telling me that running that fast after just waking up was DEFINITELY not cool.
“I have to go back and close the front door...” I started and turned around attempting to walk back to the house.
“NO!” Casca screamed, and threw herself on me. I wasn’t prepared for the shock of her body falling on mine and misbalanced and fell over into the lawn. The second I touched the grass, wet from the dew of the previous night, as huge fireball enveloped the house I was just heading back to, followed by the sound of a deafening explosion and the shattering of glass. My house went up in flames. That was the last thought that registered in my mind before a large chunk of wood from the eaves of the house planted itself square on my jaw and knocked my lights out.
The next thing I knew, X was slapping me, not hard, but just gently enough to make me wake up.
“Wha-What the...” I started, but I got the wind knocked out of me as Casca rushed in to hug me.
“Dude we thought you were DEAD”, X said, looking half relieved and half crazed. I wondered why, then I remembered what happened before I blacked out.
“My house man! MY EFFING HOUSE MAN!!! IT BLEW UP!?!” I shouted at X, as if he could somehow make it not true.
“Yeah dude, it blew up”, he said, looking down at the ground. He looked back up at me again to add: “But it looked effing awesome dude”.