"What is this... I don't... What's happening? Am I... I can't...... Where... How.... I.. I can't... My... mind.... Where?..."

Clock lay there, at the bottom of the hill, his eyes wide open. But he couldn't see. It was all white to him, not that he was paying any attention. The world around him was gone. No sight, no sound. His ears still rung from the blast that only he had heard. He lay there, motionless. His body was there, but his mind was far, far away.

He didn't understand what was going on. Waves and waves of information, relentlessly engraving into his brain. It took only a few minutes, but when he thought he couldn't hold any more, it just kept adding and adding. He felt like his brain would burst, spilling a whole new pond, completely made of words and pictures. All the information of the Forest, the land, the hemisphere, the world. Everything everyone could ever learn, everything ever recorded, all events, all inventions, all languages, arts, histories, empires, risings, fallings, sicknesses, cures, absolutely everything, all stored in one deer.

It was too much. This was too much, Clock was sure he would die from this. His bright blue eyes, now dull and listless from the experience, rolled back into his head for a moment, his eyelids twitching. He was coming back, at least only for a while. He finally looked around, and saw Forest again. It was hazy, his vision was blurring, but it was there. Bird chirps and frog calls were now slowly fading into hearing range. Clock took the slowest blink ever.

Was it over?...

His mind was now quiet. Nothing seemed to be going on up there. Nothing but blank thoughts. His mind had finally quieted, but it wasn't over yet.

Clock, with a new found energy, jumped up to his hooves quickly. His whole body shook, his eyes darting here and there, as if he was panicking. In a sense, he was, but he was partially unaware of what he was doing. Boundless energy surged through his muscles, forcing him to take off. He ran, full speed, nonstop. Trees passed by in a flash, but to him, it was all slowed down. He never stopped, he just ran and ran and ran. He passed everything at least a dozen times in only a few minutes. He was going at an unnatural speed, he wasn't aware that he was turning heads all over.

Clock never stopped running until well into the night. Frightened deer hid in safe places, like the Oak or the Ruins, where they knew he would avoid them. They stayed away from the open Forest, they could be easily trampled if they weren't careful. From early afternoon, to sometime past midnight, Clock ran. Finally, when the moon was still clear, he slowly, slowly came to a stop.

He managed to stop right where his family lived. Clock's mother and father rose to greet him.

His mother met him first, "Where have you been, Clock, I've been worried sick!"

Clock stared at her blankly. He still couldn't come up with a single thought. He wasn't even panting. It was as if he had only taken a stroll.

"Clock... Clock, what's wrong?"

Clock blinked. His vision faded, his mother blurred. The Forest disappeared again, into a peaceful, quiet darkness. Clock fell before his mother. His blue eyes closed, and he fell into a deep sleep.

"Clockwork!" His father yelled, coming over to see what's wrong. "What happened?"

"I.. I don't know... He was just standing there, and then..." His mother stammered.

"Hey, what's going on?" Stopwatch asked drowsily. "What's up with shrimpy?"

"Stop..." His father turned to him. "Something's wrong with Clock..."

"Pff, I bet he's just faking. The little baby." Stop came over to him and gave him a shove, "Hey, wake up faker! We know you're awake!"

Clock didn't budge. It was as if he was dead, but his breathe was just barely noticable.

"Come on, Clock, get up." Stop shoved him again.

Still, no responce.

Stopwatch didn't know what to say. Clock was alive, but they all knew he was a light sleeper. A shove like that would've woken him up by now. He looked to his parents, "Is... Is he dead?"

His father lowered his head to Clock's chest. He shook his head, "No, he's still breathing..."

"Oh, what did we do, what did we do?" His mother sobbed, "It's my fault, I didn't pay enough attention to him..."

"Come on, don't say that..." His father nuzzled her. "This was nobody's fault... We just have to pray... He might be all better by tomorrow..."

His mother continued to cry on his father's shoulder, Stop looking over Clock's motionless body. Stop felt... strange. He always thought Clock was just this shrimpy little wimp. But the thought of life without him... It didn't sit right. He couldn't think of why though, he just kept staring at his younger brother.

Clock just lay there. Nothing seemed to be happening to him. In truth, his mind was running through all the information it had just aquired. None of them knew how long that would take.