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2024-10-29 19:42:56How would you feel if you got a free luxurious traveling package, but ended up in Hell?
Corinne wasn’t even joking when she said Hell, it was literally printed on her train ticket—Hell Express.
When she got the train ticket from the store associate at Wilmart, the train ticket felt thick and expensive, it was a cream-colored paper with a swirly gold font. It looked lush and fancy.
But now, the ticket was transformed into something that looked like it came straight out of a horror movie. The paper turned black, and the curved font transformed into a creepy kind of text. Corinne wasn’t sure if she was just imagining it or if it was real but holding the piece of paper gave her chills.
The thought of her being pranked popped into her mind and she started to wonder if there were hidden cameras around her just as the sound of radio static broke her train of thought.
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.
Pushing all the confusion aside, Corinne had one thing on her mind and that was to get the Traveller’s Guide.
To get it, she would need to order something from the kitchen crew.
She wondered what the train conductor meant when she said different species and what sort of meal was considered 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…
“What would you like to order? Today’s special is the human thigh sashimi served with freshly squeezed brain juice.”
Okay, now she knew what the train conductor meant by “different species.”
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Hell Express: The Survival Games Chapter 1-The Cakeland Kingdom
“Don’t worry, I’ll call you guys when we reach there,” Corinne said, “plus, Claire is with me, if you’re not confident with me, there’s still Claire right?” The Lin family stood on the platform of the train station. Corinne had her brown locks tied in a loose bun with a daisy hair tie, a bright smile spread across her small round face and her eyes beamed with excitement. In comparison with the young brunette who was obviously in a good mood, her elderly grandparents were smiling as well, however their smiles seemed strained. Concern painted both her grandparents’ eyes, and Corinne felt odd about that. But she thought that they might just be worried about her. She was already a twenty-year-old young adult, but she had never left her grandparents’ side before. They were the ones who raised her, and she’d never known her parents. Grandpa George and Grandma Jane said that they died when she was just a baby. She spent her whole life learning Taoist magic from her grandpa and martial
Hell Express: The Survival Games Chapter 2-The Cakeland Kingdom
When the door slammed shut, Corinne glanced up with a raised brow. What on earth? Is Claire mad at her because she asked her to get food while she was here laying around?Corinne did not hear anything from the other side of the door, nor did she hear the noise from the battle between Bellina and the ghost. It was plain silence.“Claire, are you mad?” Corinne went to the door, but when she turned the doorknob, it was locked.Corinne kept on rattling the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. She was stuck inside.“Claire, I’m locked in!”Corinne called out to her best friend while banging on the door.Claire could hear everything and all the noises that Corinne made, but it was like she was stuck in another dimension with all the sounds coming from all over the place.She couldn’t find her cabin and the hallway kept leading her back to the same spot. The lights that lined the hallway continued to flicker as she ran down the aisle and returned back to the same place once more.When Claire was
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
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 th
Hell Express: The Survival Games Chapter 5-The Cakeland Kingdom
A registration page popped up when Corinne tried to navigate through the Hell Express app.Please enter your traveller name.Corinne tapped on the screen.Sailor Moon.-Name has been taken.Superman.-Name has been taken, you may try Superman12345.“...”Corinne stole a glance at Claire and saw that she had the same identical expression as her; she must be going through the same thing.Cutie Pie Princess.-Name has been taken.‘Are you kidding me?’ Corinne thought.Fudge You Traveller Name.-Please refrain from using profanity words. Warning #1.“...”King of The World.-Registration Successful.“Corinne, what name did you use?” Claire asked, “I’m Doll Queen1113.”“...King of The World,” Corinne said, eyes twitching.Luckily, nobody will know that that was her name, it was so embarrassing. It was definitely better than Cutie Pie Princess... right?The app was fairly simple.There were a couple of functions: Profile, Shop, Forum, Customer Service, and Wallet.Both the ‘Profile’ and ‘Sh
Hell Express: The Survival Games Chapter 6-The Cakeland Kingdom
Maddie had never been treated this way before, she felt so embarrassed and mad at the same time that she needed to let this out, so she started to spam in the night round crew group chat.Lola, who was also one of the train crew that made night rounds, saw what Maddie said. Both her and Maddie’s role as night round crew was to make sure that all travellers were on schedule for bedtime.She scoffed at what Maddie said and couldn’t help herself from laughing at her co-worker, however, what she replied to Maddie was different from her mocking expression.Aww. Maddie, I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. Hope you feel better.Lola put her phone away before she ran late in making rounds.***Danny could hear the footsteps coming down the hallway.He had always been a night owl, asking him to sleep at 9pm was impossible. He had been tossing and turning around ever since the lights went out. When he heard the footsteps, his whole body froze, and he kept telling himself to sleep.‘Y
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When the time hit 10AM, a screen appeared in front of Corinne.Next Station: Cakeland KingdomA red button with block letters that said ‘Start’ was flashing on the screen.Corinne and Claire exchanged a glance as they nodded. Both of them clicked on the button and Corinne saw that her passport flipped open, and the stamp that represented Cakeland Kingdom appeared on the page.The stamp flashed a blinding white light, causing Corinne to pull down her rose-coloured sunshades from her hair and close her eyes at the same time.When Corinne opened her eyes again, she found herself standing in the middle of a town square, surrounded by buildings that were made from various types of pastries and candies.A few feet away from her was a chocolate fountain. A human statue holding a cake wand stood on top of the fountain and rainbow sprinkles rained down from the wand.‘Cakeland Kingdom…’ this thought flashed in Corinne’s mind.There were several people standing in the town square as well. Some
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When everyone finished making their introductions, Corinne got everyone’s names from Claire. The tan guy was Danny and the guy in the blue shirt was Perry.Growl!A loud grumble shook the air as the earth beneath them shuddered as if struck by an earthquake. Looking towards the window, Corinne flinched when she saw the red dragon’s eyes staring at them through the glass.“Guys, look!” Mia called out.When they walked over, they saw eight rectangular tags on the table.“Please select a name tag to confirm your role in the cafe,” Ava read the paper in her hand aloud.The dragon growled, trying to barge into the building, but the cafe stood strong. Corinne narrowed her eyes and then something clicked in her head.“We should quickly choose a name tag,” Corinne said and grabbed one.Everyone followed suit and Perry clipped the name tag with the word ‘chef’ on his shirt.As soon as he put on the name tag, his blue shirt and white washed jeans were replaced by a chef’s uniform. “What did yo
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Ace and John walked through the streets to the mayor’s office. Unlike the previous night where it seemed like the inn was in a separate dimension of its own and the world outside was in complete darkness, they could walk outside now at the very least, even though the streets were still empty.As they neared the gate of the office, Ace sped up, ready to scale the fences when unexpectedly, the gate yawned open like an ancient mouth. Unnatural shadows swirled in the air as if waiting for them.Both Ace and John exchanged a glance before they moved towards the gate, embracing the mysterious darkness beyond.Ace jolted to a stop, raising his arm in a swift motion to halt John’s progress. “What’s wrong?” John exclaimed, shock written all over his face as his eyes locked onto the flickering red light emitting from Ace’s watch.Tension filled Ace’s features as he stared at the alert from his watch, warning him of the lurking dangers behind the gates.Without uttering a word, Ace gave John a
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Claire’s eyes landed on Danny as a thought slowly formed in her mind. Danny could feel her intense stare.Danny gulped, “Why are you looking at me like that?”A smile crept up Claire’s face and the next thing Danny felt was a force pulling him back. He looked over his shoulder and saw Claire tugging on his straw strap. The tugging turned into a full on pull and in a flash, his feet were off the ground.Before Danny could ask what was going on, Claire swung him in the air like a fan and propelled him towards the truck like a human slingshot, or chick slingshot in their present condition.Danny flapped his underdeveloped wings as he soared through the air, and in a few seconds, he dropped to the ground with a splat, still a distance away from the truck.Claire couldn’t believe it, was this expectation vs reality? She expected Danny would have flown into the truck when she threw him over like a slingshot, but reality showed her otherwise. She overestimated the strength in his chick body.
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The longer the travellers were stuck in the survival game, the more they lost themselves.It started with memories from when they were kids, then their high school times, their college times; those memories were slowly being devoured. Recent memories were foggy but could still be recalled if they concentrated.At least there was a silver lining.Claire took a deep breath. That’s right, all they had to do was get to the goal. Claire walked over to Noby, the chick with round glasses flinched.“It’s alright,” Claire softened her voice, “everything will be alright, okay? Look at your traveller’s profile and try to calm down, try to recall what happened before the game restarted.”Hearing Claire’s gentle voice, Noby sucked in a breath and his recent memories slowly came back to him. Both fear and relief overwhelmed him: fear because he really lost a lot of his memories, relief because he still had his human side.“...I’m okay now,” Noby said, turning to look at Claire, “thanks.”Claire res
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“Willowdale Town?” she whispered; it rang a bell, but she couldn’t quite remember. Then, it hit her. That was the name of this stop.Corinne must be in this town somewhere, it’s just that she was stuck in the coop and in this game. She needed to get out.Claire began to snoop around and try to look for clues. After a little while of searching, she came across a folder and she began to pull out the papers inside. The first piece of paper was a newspaper cut-out that contained a missing person’s article.She brought out the second paper and it was the same, so was the third, and Claire’s mind began to wonder. When she was trying to bring out the fourth paper, she slipped on a round pen and fell off the table into what looked like a large sack from the inside. “Ouch!” she said as she landed on a hard object which happened to be a picture frame of a little boy when she looked at it. She looked around and she noticed that the sack was filled with personal items from different people, ke
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The five little chicks walked as fast as their legs could carry them towards the ajar door, the only passage of light into the coop; it seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel. “Wait, did you guys hear that?” Claire said as she suddenly stopped in her tracks, spreading her wings wide to stop the others from moving.“What? I didn’t hear anything.” Danny responded absentmindedly as he stroked the egg he carried like a baby.Claire moved a little closer to the door, and the sound came again. A chirp that would have been equivalent to a gasp escaped her beak. “There’s definitely something out there.” Claire added under her breath.“I’m not hearing anything. Let’s just be careful and follow the map to the star and get this over with.” Jason said as he waved his wings in the air.When he was done, he continued his journey toward the door and the other chicks exchanged glances before they trailed behind him; everyone except Claire, she was convinced there was something out there.Cl
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Chapter 8 - The Lost Town
Darkness…When Claire opened her eyes that was what first came into sight. ThompThompThompThen, she felt the ground shake. What’s going on? Is it an earthquake? Claire thought. She looked around, Where am I? And where’s Corinne? Claire thought, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. But she still couldn’t see anything.She touched the wall, it felt sticky. Gross…was she inside some creature’s stomach or something? “Let’s see…What do we have here? Do we have any unhealthy chicks today?”A loud, brittle, and hoarse voice could be heard along with the thumping sound. That was when Claire realized that it was heavy footsteps that caused the ground to shake.Before Claire could process what had happened, she felt herself being lifted up. Then, she heard a sharp, shrilling fan sound. The next thing she felt was pain, then everything turned dark.Ding![Party Quest: Escape the Chicken CoopParty Size: 5Party Members:Doll Queen1113Cutie Pie PrincessBlack CatSM KingGet me
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Chapter 7 - The Lost Town
Corinne, Abigail and John ventured to the southern part of the town. Before them lay a bustling market, filled with colour and life. Everywhere their eyes fell, vendors presented their wares beneath cheerful awnings of brightly coloured cloth.Rows of tables stood full with produce, meats and ready-to-eat dishes. Not only that, but they were selling a lot of eggs. Plain eggs, decorative egg-shaped knick-knacks, dishes made from eggs. No matter how much of a foodie Corinne was, seeing so many eggs in one place made her lose her appetite.The air was alive with chatter and the tantalizing aroma of spices and freshly cooked food. People of all ages meandered amongst the aisles, examining items and conversing.As Corinne and her fellow travellers strolled around the marketplace, she noticed every stall had a familiar symbol; a vibrant orange rooster with wings outstretched as if it were about to take flight. It reminded her of the weather-worn stone sculpture in the town square.“With how
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Kiki: Why did you come here?It was a new message from Kiki.Corinne was startled, her eyes moved up to the top right corner of the screen. There were no bars…There was no signal at all.What came after gave Corinne a shiver down her spine.Kiki: Why did you come here?Kiki: Run…Kiki: Why are you here?Kiki: You cannot be here, run!The messages came in one after another, but they gave off very different vibes, as though Kiki had a split personality.Then, a message instantly threw her to the North Pole. Kiki: I’m here…As if on cue, she heard knocking.Corinne’s eyes swept towards the door, but the knocking sound came from the window.That was when Corinne felt it, someone was gazing at her. Corinne turned her head and make eye contact with an eyeball. Someone was staring at her through the gap of the curtains.Corinne raised a brow, her room was on the second floor, unless the person outside was a ninja or Spiderman, the only thing she could think of was ghosts. And with the messa