Hell Express: The Survival Games

Chapter 4-The Cakeland Kingdom

Hearing that question, Corinne and Claire exchanged a glance. Corinne gave Claire a nod before she pulled out a paper cutout. It was a plain, white piece of paper, cut into the shape of a human figure.

Corinne mumbled an incantation while she drew a spell in the air using her fingers. In mere seconds, the human figure paper cutout floated down to the ground and moved towards the door.

The dining crew outside knocked on the door once more, impatiently this time since he did not receive any responses from either of the girls.

“Excuse me, do you want to order something or not?”

“Yes, yes. Um…” Claire spoke, catching the staff’s attention.

The paper figure slipped beneath the door. Corinne linked her senses with the paper cutout, so everything it saw, Corinne was able to see as well.

The staff was a skeleton. The skeleton was wearing a white shirt with a blazer over it, a red tie, and a black apron was tied around his waist with the words ‘Hell Express Six’ embroidered on it using gold thread.

A large silver dish with round lid was sitting on the trolley. His bony fingers were tapping on the handle of the cart, obviously losing his patience.

“What do you recommend?” Claire asked.

“The human brain meatballs and spaghetti tasted amazing, especially with the juicy brain juice that burst in your mouth when you…”

The skeleton seemed to brighten up, he opened up the round lid revealing said spaghetti that he so highly recommended.

Corinne, who saw the dish as if with her very own eyes through the paper cutout, instantly turned green, she covered her mouth feeling a rush through her throat.

She cut off her link with the paper figure immediately, and the paper figure slipped back through the door, lying on the floor lifelessly.

Corinne stormed towards the front door, tears welled up in her eyes threatening to flow down her cheeks any second, she covered her mouth with one hand while the other one was on the doorknob.

Right outside, the skeleton was admiring how the spaghetti was perfectly cooked and was confident that the humans will definitely let him gain entry when the door suddenly swung open.

He glanced up, a huge smile was about to curl up when it got stuck halfway. In the next second, his expression turned into a face of horror because Corinne bent over and…

“Blegh!”

The skeleton was petrified on the spot, his grip around the trolley handle tightened, his eyes were wide, staring at the pile of vomit on his newly bought pair of brand name leather shoes!

These were his new favorite shoes! He saved a month worth of his paycheck to buy them, and they were ruined by this human.

Anger boiled within him as he glared at Corinne.

Corinne looked up sheepishly, wiping her mouth as she smiled apologetically.

“You!” The skeleton growled.

Corinne could practically see the dark aura emitting from the skeleton.

An awkward laugh escaped from her lips as she took a huge step back into her room and slammed the door shut.

The skeleton must have been really mad because he kept banging on the door and shouting like crazy at Corinne for almost half an hour before he left.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Corinne smiled, “Thank god that he’s gone now.”

“Why would you do that?” Claire facepalmed.

Both Claire and Bellina were giving Corinne disapproving expressions while Jax looked at Corinne, speechless.

“I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t hold it in anymore,” Corinne said.

After a couple of minutes, the same wheel rolling sound appeared by the hallway and screeched to a stop in front of their door.

The same type of question, but this time it was a woman.

“Do you want to order something?” Her voice sounded sweet.

Corinne was starving, she looked at Claire and said with a little pout, “I want a triple cheese deluxe pizza, spicy Korean fried chicken, double fish patty burger with extra cheese, large fries…”

Before Corinne could list out her three pages long order of food, Claire thought for a moment before she said, “I can’t decide, what do you normally like to eat?”

“You can try Today’s Special. The chef made eyeball soup and human thigh sashimi.”

“Next!” Corinne cried.

After who knows how many times of the same thing, Corinne was losing her patience, so was Bellina; she was still a little doll, she needed to eat on time!

When the next dining crew came, Corinne held onto her talismans while Bellina stood beside her, balling up her tiny fists.

Claire wanted to say the usual stuff to test them, but Corinne punched at the door and yelled.

“Don’t try to trick me again with your spicy human brain, eyeball soup or whatever! I’ve had it! I have a storm of lightning strikes and I’m not afraid to use them! And I’m going to complain about you to the travel agency for not serving something edible and letting your customers starve!” Corinne finally burst because she was starving.

“Well?” after Corinne’s outburst, she was panting.

“...”

There was a brief silence before whoever was on the other side of the door answered. Claire swore that the staff’s voice was shaky.

“We got triple cheese deluxe pizza, spicy Korean fried chicken, double fish patty burger with extra cheese, large fries…”

Claire was stunned when the staff literally repeated the same order that Corinne said the earlier.

Corinne crossed her arms, nodding in satisfaction, “We also want dessert for our little princess!”

“O-of course, Ma’am.”

Corinne reached for the doorknob, “Don’t try anything funny, I’m not joking about giving you a lightning strike.”

Before she opened the door, she thought for a second and decided to send the white, human figure, paper cut-out through the door once more.

Linking her senses with the paper figure, at first, she thought she finally saw a living human being until she saw the death spots on the guy’s skin.

It was a walking corpse. He wore the same uniform as the skeleton she saw the first time, but instead of the blank apron, this guy’s apron was white.

The only thing in front of him was the same silver dish with round lid, Corinne wondered how he was going to provide the food she ordered.

She saw the corpse open the round lid, revealing a bowl of eyeball soup. This time, Corinne managed to prevent herself from throwing up.

The guy let out a ‘tck’ seeing that the dish wasn’t the one he needed, so he closed the lid and tapped on it a couple of times before he opened it again.

This time the eyeball soup was gone, and a slice of pizza appeared of the silver plate.

So, this was how they did it. The food they offered really depended on the dining crew themselves, they served whatever they wanted by tapping on the round lid and made food appear on the plate.

Corinne cut off her link with the paper figure and the paper figure slipped back to their room, returning to Corinne’s hand.

In the end, Corinne only opened a little gap and a pale hand slid in holding a huge plastic bag of packed food.

“Thank you,” Corinne immediately took the food from the walking corpse and went to the table with the excited Bellina to enjoy their lunch.

Claire, however, was more concerned about the traveller’s guide. Since the train conductor mentioned that if they ordered a suitable meal, they should be getting the guide at the same time.

She was going to ask the corpse about it when she spotted a ‘thank you’ card on the ground, it must have slipped out from the plastic bag.

Picking it up, she saw it had, ‘Thank you for ordering from me,’ printed in pastel colored bubble font. At the bottom of it said, ‘Please leave a five-star review for me, signed Larrie Mac Jr.’

When Claire was going to toss the card to the side, she spotted a tiny QR code printed on the back of the card. Beside the QR code, she saw a Hell Travel Agency logo printed on it.

Claire only hesitated for a second before she scanned the QR code, and an app was downloaded to her cellphone. She had no idea how Hell Travel Agency did it, but the app was successfully downloaded even though her phone still showed no signal.

When she tapped on the app, a message popped out right away.

It said, ‘Congratulations on your success in locating the Hell Express app! This will serve as a guide to answer many of your questions.’

Claire internally cursed the travel agency and the train; they were so cunning. If she didn’t spot the extra tiny QR code, she would’ve missed it. This app was the Traveller’s Guide.

“Corinne, come and d******d this,” Claire said, wanting to walk over to her best friend when she felt a pull on the hem of her top.

Glancing down, it was the hand of that walking corpse.

“Um… you guys need to pay for the food,” the corpse said.

The corpse had been waiting for quite some time outside, he was afraid that the girl would strike him with lightning if he made her mad. Realizing that they had forgotten about him, he mustered up the courage to ask for payment.

“Uh… right, how do I pay you?” Claire asked.

She had no idea what currency they took. Was it some sort of ghost money? Did they even take human cash?

“Here, my grandpa packed some joss papers for me,” Corinne said, stuffing a stack of joss papers for the guy.

The corpse paused, then, through the small gap of the door, he stared at Corinne bitterly.

“What?” Corinne tilted her head, then she glanced at Claire, “guess they don’t take joss papers as payment then.”

Claire rolled her eyes, “You think…”

The corpse retracted his hand back and after a brief second, he came back with a QR code. He used his other free hand to point at their phones, “We only take traveller points (tp).”

After Claire called out to her earlier, Corinne already downloaded the Hell Express app.

She hadn’t navigated through it yet; she glanced at the screen and saw an icon that looked like a wallet. She tapped on it and scanned the QR code.

The corpse seemed very satisfied after he received payment. He mustered up a really sweet voice that left the two girls in goosebumps.

“Thank you for ordering from me, enjoy your meal.”