"Hickory dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock, though before it could reach the top it realized how infinitely small it is in the grand scheme of the universe and vowed to change that."

It hadn't been what one would call the calmest of storms, far from it in fact raging thunder and lighting often enough to worry an epileptic though that was not a concern of young Ezekiel Slot, who was for one not epileptic and two not near a window at the present moment he was far to busy feeling like crap.

You see Zeke was not a pragmatic man, he had neglected to bring an umbrella with him on the previous days errands despite the dark clouds forming, and then the rain fell. Every drop on his rapidly soaking self reminded him of boyhood reminders that he would catch a cold in the rain which he took some small amount of pride in the fact that he hadn't caught a cold; oh no that's boy stuff.

He had a fever. His inner masochist giggled like a fool. Lying in his bed he was attempting to enter the peaceful land of slumber but the ticking of his clock kept him aware. How he could even hear it over the thunder was something he would concern himself when existence seemed worth it again.

"Wait a tick" he thought (regretfully in his present state he lacked the sense of humor to admire his unintended pun)

"I don't have an analog clock." he realized. Slowly, carefully, and (most importedly) painfully removed himself from the therapeutic membrane between his bed and blanket and faced the direction of this visiting clock while he saw no clock he saw his window facing the outside world, dark (as night often is), flashes of lightning, and trees, but what confused him was what appeared to be a metal stick rotating in place almost like a clock hand.

"Clock." he said around to no one in particular.

"tick" it responded, followed by a "tock."

"Just hovering..." he continued.

"tick" it chimed in.

"Outside"

"tock"

"My"

"tick"

"Window"

"tock" it continued rather apathetic to his present crisis of comprehension.

"This is odd"

"tick"

"seeing as how clock hands"

"tock"

"don't often hover outside

"tick"

"of windows especially"

"tock"

"when last I checked"

"tick"

"I didn't have"

"tock"

"a window for them"

"tick"

"to hover outside of."

"tock"

"Yes quite curious."

"tick"

"Tell you what mystery window"

"tock"

"I'll turn around"

"tick"

"and you go away"

"tock"

"Sound fair to you?"

"tick"

"Okay I'll do that ya big nut."

He turned his back to the visiting window, before he could complete his rotation he heard the sound of glass shattering and suddenly felt a rather sizeable hand grab the back of his neck and pull him through the now glassless window.

"Wet grass" he thought. "On my hands" his mind pressed on. though before his analyzations could continue the source of the sizable hand that had been holding him only moments prior let out what could only be described as a "pants pissingly" terrifying roar" Zeke thankful was far to soaked from the strong downpour to notice the side effects of his terror.

Staggering to his feet he was able to get a look at his destroyer.

"A lion?" he thought. Though he had never heard of lions with wings and scorpion tails before.

Thinking quickly he shouted "Look a distraction!" and pointed behind the creature. Against what he considered to be "all odds" it turned its head and looked in the direction he had pointed.

He would have liked to stay and muse on the creature's stupidity but instead opted to run his fever-stricken ass in the opposite direction.

"oh." he said rather solemnly realizing after he had only ran about six feet that there had been a considerably steep cliff five feet behind him.