An interactive fable with three endings. The story branches, and you decide how it ends.
The oaks let go all at once that autumn, more acorns than the park had seen in a lifetime. A mast year, the chipmunks called it, and they knew what it meant: a gift with a bill attached. They read the fall for what it was and went to work, hauling their winter down one nut at a time.
The jays came down out of a clear sky, bright and loud and glad to be alive. They ate where they stood, and played, and let the rest lie. Mitch offered to teach them how to lay a larder. He offered twice. The door was open the entire autumn, and it only ever had work behind it.
Then the ground went bare. The cold came weeks ahead of its habit. And a bird named Javlin, who had never gathered a nut in his life, stood up in front of a hungry flock and told them whose fault it was.
He was charming. He was certain. And what he said went down easy on an empty stomach.
The story runs straight until the night the park has to decide. Then it stops and hands the decision to you. Take one trail and follow it all the way down. Each one ends somewhere different, and each one ends with a bill.
Three trails run out of that night.
One follows the earners as they try to hold what they made.
One follows the flock as it takes the stores and rules what it takes.
One follows the road a killing winter forces open.
Somebody loses on all three.
Choose your trail.