Hell Express: The Survival Games

Chapter 3-The Cakeland Kingdom

Drinnnnng

Drinnnnng

Corinne’s cellphone was vibrating and ringing on the bed. She went over and swiped to answer.

“Corinne.”

Eyes lit up upon hearing the familiar voice, Corinne smiled wide.

“Claire! Where have you been? I’m locked in! I tried everything and the door won’t budge, can you get the train staff to do something?”

“Corinne.”

“What’s wrong? Did you hear what I just said?”

“I’m here, open the door.”

As soon as the sentence was finished, Corinne heard knocking on the door.

Knock Knock Knock Knock

When Corinne heard that, she didn’t move towards the door, instead she stepped closer to Claire’s voodoo doll army.

“Corinne, what are you doing? I’m here, open the door for me…”

Corinne wasn’t sure if she accidentally put her phone on speaker, but her screen showed that she was indeed on speaker.

She glanced at the screen of her cellphone and that was when her eyes went wide. Her phone screen was plain red; realization hit her.

Ever since she got on to the train, there was no signal, and Corinne had the habit of putting her phone on silent. The ringing sound was not her ringtone either.

So, who called her?

And how did she even answer the phone earlier?

She said, ‘I’m here.’ If it was Claire, shouldn’t she have been saying, ‘I’m back’ instead?

Corinne felt like she must have been put in a trance.

“Why are you moving further to the back? Come over to the door and open it for me.”

The hair on the back of Corinne’s neck stood up as she shivered upon hearing what the voice said.

“...Jax, that…” Corinne gulped, “isn’t Claire, right?”

Jax pulled down his sunshades and looked at Corinne with his button eyes. Corinne had the feeling that Jax just rolled his eyes on her and said, ‘You think?’ as though she was stating the obvious.

The animals were shaking their heads, telling her to not open the door. Corinne doubted that she could open it even if she tried, since the door was stuck shut.

Her eyes went back to the door, and she could clearly feel the pair of malicious eyes staring at her on the other side.

Since Corinne wasn’t responding, the ghost outside became impatient.

“Open the door! Open the door! Open the door! Open the door!”

The ghost repeatedly said those words while it kept on knocking at the door as if it was trying to break it down.

With the ghost now screaming her head off at Corinne, Corinne placed her phone by Jax’s side, stepping away from the table while covering her ears to save her eardrums from those high pitched, piercing screams.

Jax stirred on his beach chair, annoyed by the ghost’s cries. He glanced down at the cellphone and tapped on it twice before he pulled out a tiny cloud of smoky energy.

His straw hands turned sharp and tore the dark energy into pieces, letting it vanish into thin air.

The ghost seemed to be shocked by the turn of events as she went silent for a second before she started to claw on the door.

Screech

Screeeech

The ghost was scratching and banging at the door, trying to tear it down. But no matter how hard it tried, the door still stood strong.

With how the ghost was practically attacking the door; this plain wooden door should have been broken down already.

Corinne suspected that they might need to abide some sort of rules, like they needed to get the permission from the owner of the room to enter. If not, the ghost wouldn’t try to trick her into opening the door for her.

Grabbing a piece of lightning tempest talisman, Corinne was about to slip it over the door to give the ghost a piece of her mind when she heard a screeching scream slicing through the air.

After that, Claire’s voice called out from the other side of the door.

“Corinne, it’s me, Claire.”

Corinne paused for a second, and went closer to the door, her eyes looking it over suspiciously.

“What’s my favorite color?”

There was a brief silence at the other end before Claire answered.

“Rainbow. You like everything colorful.”

“Okay. But anyone can guess that,” Corinne said, rubbing her chin.

Corinne could hear a soft sigh and a series of impatient little knocks on the door, the knocking was probably by Bellina.

“When we were in tenth grade, you used me as an excuse saying that you were accompanying me to do my science fair project after school, but truth is, you snuck out to buy Prince what’s-his-name stuff at some ComiCon.”

“It’s Prince Florian!” Corinne said.

Prince Florian was a fictional character from a visual novel game that Corinne was obsessed with.

Corinne was holding on to her lightning tempest talisman with one hand, while her other hand was on the doorknob. She glanced at Claire’s voodoo dolls and seeing that they did not seem to oppose it, Corinne tried the door. Surprisingly, the door wasn’t shut tight like how it was earlier.

When she saw Claire standing outside with Bellina, Corinne urged them to get in fast.

“Come in quick!” Corinne said.

Then, she took a quick scan of the hallway, but she did not see any ghosts outside. The entire corridor was dimly lit by foggy orange light, and she could only see darkness at each end of the hallway, it was like the darkness was going to devour her, pulling her into the deepest part of the abyss.

Corinne went into her room in a flash, closing the door and locking it.

When Claire stepped into their cabin, Jax was still laying on his beach chair. He briefly glanced at Claire and seeing that his master was doing just fine, he went back to chilling.

Bellina puffed up her cheeks and glared at Corinne as though she was unhappy because Corinne did not open the door immediately and that she had to wait outside.

Corinne flashed a wide smile and apologized to Bellina, giving the princess doll a bunch of candies. Bellina brightened up and skipped over to Jax showing him all the candies she got.

Claire’s animal voodoo dolls all surrounded her jumping up and down, their eyes lit up upon seeing what Claire had in her hand.

That was when Corinne noticed two dolls that she had never seen before in Claire’s hands. Both of them had horrified expressions glued on their faces. Claire used her bone needle and white thread to turn them into double dolls.

Double dolls are dolls that she could use when she faced danger, and the harm would be directed to the double doll.

“This one attacked me in the hallway, the other one was eaten by Bellina,” Claire pointed to one of the ghost dolls and explained what she encountered after she exited their room.

After Claire finished with her side of the story, Corinne signalled to the other ghost doll.

“This is the one that stood outside the door when you came back earlier?” Corinne asked.

Claire nodded and Corinne told her everything from the door getting slammed shut to the ghost pretending to be Claire and calling her, as well as the part regarding the ghost trying to break the door down to no avail.

“Did our family expect this to happen, so that’s why they packed our tools for us?” Claire asked.

“But how could they have known in advance that we would board a haunted train? And this is very odd, if this is a ghost train, how could I have not sensed it when the train arrived at the platform?” Corinne voiced out her confusion.

Corinne looked at Claire, her eyes went wide.

“How are we going to get off of the train?” Corinne asked, her voice laced with mild panic.

Corinne recalled what she saw earlier, a dark hallway and she couldn’t see the end of the corridor at all. It was like they were trapped in another dimension.

Claire shook her head, brows furrowed.

Frustration welled up within Corinne as her mind raced with thoughts, her fingers subconsciously rubbing on her jade bead bracelet.

She had been wearing this bracelet ever since she was a little kid. Her grandpa said that it was something that was passed down in their family for generations. It had special protection runes engraved on the beads.

Corinne gave up on thinking any further, she felt like her head was going to explode if she continued to rack her brain on this.

Annoyed, she grabbed her pile of talismans, puffing up her cheeks.

“I will blow up this entire place if I have to!”

Bellina perked up when she heard this and came over to sit beside Corinne, nodding in agreement.

Claire squeezed Corinne’s puffy cheek with one hand while squeezing Bellina’s round cheek with the other.

“Don’t act without thinking, you two.”

Corinne pouted and turned to Bellina, throwing the talismans into the air, and letting them rain down like confetti.

“We’re going to blow up this train!” Corinne said.

Bellina ran around the raining confetti, picking up the talismans and throwing them into the air just like Corinne.

Claire watched her childish best friend and her equally childish princess voodoo doll from the side of the cabin, feeling speechless.

Corinne was always so happy-go-lucky; she could be worried one second and calmed down by the next.

When Claire was contemplating what they should do next, a static radio noise cut in.

Bzzz

“Welcome aboard Hell Express Six, fellow soon-to-be travellers! I’m your lovely conductor, Katie. I wonder how many of you are still alive after the little fiasco earlier. I’m sure all of you are confused right now. Many questions are running through your mind.

Who am I? Where am I? What’s going on? Is this a prank?

First of all, no, this is not a prank and second of all, you are all on a train—Hell Express Six. As a trial traveler of Hell Travel Agency, I am not allowed to disclose much information. However, since I am a compassionate and kind person, I will use my authority to grant you guys one chance. 

Obtain the Traveller's Guide from our kitchen crew by ordering a suitable meal from them. But be careful. Don't open the door to those who are not your kind. There are different species on the train, be cautious of who you welcome into your cabin.

Oopsie! I just gave out a survival tip. Oh, how kind and generous of me! This announcement is brought to you by Hell Express Six of Hell Travel Agency. Toodaloo, trial travellers! Happy Survival!"

The message ended in another bzzz sound when the speaker was turned off.

Corinne and Claire exchanged a glance, both of them had only one thing in mind and that was to get the Traveller’s Guide.

To get it, they would need to order something from the kitchen crew.

They both wondered what the train conductor meant when she said different species and what sort of meal considered as a suitable meal?

The sound of a trolley being pushed down the corridor caught her attention, but that was not all. Corinne sensed a familiar chill down her spine as the temperature dropped tremendously.

Knock Knock Knock Knock

Corinne flinched when the knocking stopped at the fourth time.

Humans knock three times… Ghosts knock four times…

She learned this from her grandpa who was a shaman that practiced Taoist magic.

“May I take your order?”