☎️ Hex support
by Sarina Dorie
🦆 Questmas Quackers
by Anthea Jones
2 min read
Table of Contents
The rising winter sun spills feeble rays across Chompy’s farm.
You spread your snow-white wings and stretch each meaty leg. Blood-tinged light creeps across the carrot patch, into your wire-shrouded jail, and activates the sensor. The automatic door squeals as it slides open, a rusty guillotine in reverse.
What do you do?
>> Eat
You peck for breakfast pellets, but there are none. Weird. Grubs it is!
>> Leave jail
You waddle towards the exit.
“C’mon, middlemeat,” cries Farmer Chompy. “Let’s get this done. Mrs Chompy’s written me a helluva list.”
Hmm... he’s not usually an early riser.
And what’s that hideous patterned garment he’s pulled over his denim? A woven bird’s nest of red upon green? He draws a blade from his belt, and, garnished by the dawn, it gleams golden with the promise of Christmas dinner.
>> Run
You tuck your wings, ease outside, and WADDLE!
Your orange feet flip-flop like a wind-up toy on speed.
Farmer Chompy grunts and toddles after you, belly jiggling, feet crunching on frost.
Then, just like a wind-up toy, you’re out of puff.
Farmer Chompy trips, squashes you with his girth, and holds his shiny blade aloft.
[Censored]
You make one-third of a succulent turducken.
>> Restart game
>> Skip intro
…garnished by the dawn, the blade gleams golden with the promise of Christmas dinner.
>> Fly
You spread your wings and FLAP. Even though you can fly short distances, it doesn’t matter because you’re still in jail. You get just enough lift to smash your head into the cross-brace. You plop to the ground. Stunned.
[Censored]
Turducken, anyone?
>> Restart game
>> Skip intro
…garnished by the dawn, the blade gleams golden with the promise of Christmas dinner.
>> Run, then fly, then raise a f#@$%n army
Popcorn time.
You sprint, side-step Farmer Chompy, and LAUNCH!
It’s enough!
Farmer Chompy twists and does his back in.
You bolt for the dam, quacking your bill off.
Your wild brethren heed your call.
You swerve and head the arrow formation, an avian rage-army seeking centuries of retribution.
[Censored]
Farmer Chompy’s turducken days are over.
Avian vengeance has begun.
Anthea Jones lives in Brisbane, Australia and writes quirky fiction and screenplays. This is much easier now she has annexed the kids' cubby house and banished the spiders and geckoes. She is the recipient of a Fishbowl Residency from the Queensland Writers’ Centre and has work published in EGG+FROG, Sci-Fi Shorts, Fifty-Word Stories and Five-minute Lit. Find her @writeranthea.bsky.social
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