Backstory

The Ghost Chicken died in a tragic egg-related incident. The farm’s official report says nothing more, which is standard — the report also lists the cause as “breakfast,” and the signature line has been left blank for years because nobody wants to be the one to sign it. What is known is this: one morning there was a chicken, and by second breakfast there was a slightly translucent chicken with a lot of questions.

It floats. It floats over your traps, over your walls, over the concept of being contained. Normal defences pass through it like it isn’t there, because, tragically, it mostly isn’t. But the Ghost Chicken is not immune to everything — only loud noises hurt it now. A bell, a chime, a siren, a gong: sound is the one thing that reaches through to the other side. Also feelings. Feelings hurt it terribly, which is why it prefers to haunt the far end of the field, far from the geese.

It does not peck so much as pass through things, radiating a low, constant, mournful clucking that the farm’s living chickens pretend not to hear. If you can stand the sound of a bell long enough to ring one in its path, it will fade — but it will be back. Ghosts always come back. Especially when there’s breakfast.