Chapter 156: For Survival Reasons!
Finn yanked his hand back out of desperation—trip him, trip him, trip him!
And somehow... it worked.
Ardin froze midair. His leap stopped dead, like someone had pressed pause on him. His eyes bulged in disbelief as his momentum shattered.
Then, slowly—painfully slowly—his body tilted forward.
"No... no, no, no!" Ardin thrashed as though he could will the world to rewind. "You can’t do this to me! I cannot die like this!"
Finn and Chestelle stood on the other side, watching blankly as the great hero flailed in cartoonishly slow motion.
"You cannot kill me! I am the hero!" Ardin’s voice cracked, his rage echoing through the collapsing room. "They need me! Everyone knows who I am! You’re nothing but garbage, Finn Wiggles!" His eyes locked onto Finn with rabid fury. "I will rise from the ashes and kill you! Do you hear me?! I will not end here!"
Finn stared back, exhausted. His lips barely twitched. He could say something... but honestly? He didn’t have it in him.
’...Watch me think of something badass later and hate myself for not saying it now.’
"Say something, damn you!" Ardin’s rage only deepened as Finn stayed silent.
’Is he seriously getting mad because I’m not giving him a dramatic one-liner?’
At last, Ardin’s body tipped flat in the air, his face pointing straight down, sweat dripping, hatred carved into his eyes.
"I will kill you, Finn—!"
Those were his final words before gravity remembered him. His body plummeted like a stone into the endless abyss. His scream echoed, warping and fading until it was swallowed completely by the depths below.
Finn staggered to the edge, peering down. Chestelle leaned over beside him, wide-eyed.
"Do you think he’s gonna live?" she asked innocently.
"I don’t know?! I’m not God—why would I know that?!"
"I thought you’d know."
"...Why would I know?!"
"I don’t know."
"Okay..."
A beat of silence.
"Can I touch you?"
"You already are."
"Touch more?"
"...No."
The ground rumbled beneath their feet before a violent blast of light erupted from the hole Ardin had fallen into, shaking the entire foundation.
Finn squinted at the glow. "He’s dead now."
Chestelle tilted her head. "How do you know?"
"Forget it."
After the blast of light erupted from the hole, the entire building shuddered like it was about to shake itself apart.
The ceiling groaned, the floor splintered, and walls crumbled in on themselves. Every second, more of Moistvile’s rotten skeleton gave way.
Finn and Chestelle clung to each other for balance—well, mostly Finn clinging to Chestelle, since she was somehow perfectly fine while he looked like he’d gone through three seasons of a wrestling league in a single afternoon. His body was utterly wrecked.
’If this doesn’t make me stronger later, I swear I’m suing whoever wrote this script.’
What he really wanted was Seraphina. If the priest girl was here, she could patch him up, give him a smile, maybe say something encouraging. Anything was better than limping around with cracked ribs and bruised pride.
But with Ardin gone, that thought twisted into another. What happens to the Sacred Blades of Hope now? Where’s Seraphina? Where’s Majestria? Where’s anyone?
He glanced at Chestelle. Maybe she knew.
"Do you know what happened to everyone else? Majestria, Lickthorn?"
She shook her head, her tone casual as if she were describing breakfast. "Mm-mm. No. I just heard lots of screaming, then I fell through three walls."
’...Yeah, that tracks.’
Finn sighed, his chest aching with the effort. All around them, debris rained down. The ceiling sagged. The floor buckled. And here he was, stuck daydreaming about the priest’s soft hands.
’What the hell am I doing?! Focus, idiot!’
Snapping himself back to reality, Finn scanned the wreckage for a way out. Any path, ladder, or miracle-shaped door.
But there was nothing. Just collapsing beams, falling dust, and a timer counting down to when the whole place would crush them both.
Nothing.
***
"Damn it..." Finn muttered, glaring at the collapsing ceiling. Surviving Ardin’s psycho crusade only to get flattened by a building? Not exactly the heroic arc he wanted. The situation wasn’t just bad—it was annoying.
The roof in front of them caved in with a deafening crash. Time was running out.
’Think. Think. Think. Come on, Wiggles, use that wrinkly peanut brain—’
"What are we going to do?" Chestelle asked, her eyes wide with worry. "Won’t we just get crushed and be stuck here forever?"
Finn froze. Then it hit him. A genius plan. No—a galaxy-brain plan. So brilliant he physically patted himself on the shoulder. "Atta boy, Wiggles."
He grabbed Chestelle by the shoulders and locked eyes with her. "Listen carefully. I need you to turn into a chest. Don’t ask why. Just trust me."
"Why though?"
"JUST DO IT!" Finn shook her like a soda can.
With a sudden poof, Chestelle transformed back into a chest.
Finn stared down at her wooden form. He really, really didn’t want to do this. But he also really, really did.
"I’m gonna get inside you," he whispered. Then, louder: "For survival reasons!"
Taking a deep breath, he opened the lid. Chestelle rattled like a nervous puppy, which only made the whole thing ten times weirder.
One leg went in.
’Warm. Why is it warm?!’
Then the other leg.
She rattled harder, shivering beneath him.
"Stop rattling!" Finn snapped, sweating.
She stopped.
Lowering himself fully inside, the warmth only grew—soft, weirdly cozy warmth that made his brain short-circuit for a second. Why is this... relaxing? No. No time for that. Survival first, fun mindset later.
The building groaned above them, huge chunks of wood and tools of sorts crashing down. Finn stretched his arm out and yanked the lid shut, plunging himself into total darkness.
Inside was muffled silence, except for the thunder of collapsing walls and the sharp crack of splintering wood. His chest pounded in rhythm with every crash.
Please work. Please work. Please don’t kill me. And please don’t kill her either... though if one of us has to die, let it be—no, stop. Don’t finish that thought.
Then the chest rattled.
Finn froze. "Chestelle? Is that you? Or the building? Or—oh God, both?!"
The rattling grew worse. The chest lurched violently, throwing Finn sideways into the inner wall. Then forward. Then backward. His forehead smacked something that might’ve been her tongue, maybe her spine, maybe her tax records. He had no idea.
It felt like he’d accidentally boarded the world’s cheapest rollercoaster—one that had no safety bars, no tracks, and no guarantee you’d live to the end. More like a wooden tumble dryer of doom.
"OH MY GOD!"
It only got worse. Way worse. Finn kept smashing against the inside of her—his head, his arms, his back, every part of him ricocheting like he was the last marble in some cosmic game of Pachinko.
He wasn’t even sure if Chestelle was in pain. She hadn’t made a sound. Is she fine? Is she unconscious? Oh God, what if she’s enjoying this?
Finn screamed—not just in pain, but because it was also kind of fun. A horrible, bone-shaking, organ-reshuffling kind of fun. Like a carnival ride built by lunatics with no permits.
Side to side. Up and down. Slam, slam, slam. His body was getting tossed around in ways he didn’t know the human skeleton was capable of handling.
The scariest part? The thought of the lid popping open mid-spin. Just flinging him out like loose luggage. Please don’t open. Please don’t open. I’m trusting you, Chestelle—you living suitcase of doom.
Outside, the noise was even worse. It sounded like hell itself had cracked open: wails, groans, screams—except Finn quickly realized it was just the thirty-year-old wood of the place finally giving up on life. Every beam snapping, every nail shrieking its last rusty breath.
The jolts grew harsher. The chest wasn’t just rattling anymore—it felt like it was being launched. Hurled from wall to wall with brutal force.
Finn freaked out, clinging to absolutely nothing. "OH MY—WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING OUT THERE?! UGH—MY SPINE! NO WAIT, THANK YOU SPINE, I NEEDED THAT POP!"
***
Eventually, the rattling stopped. The violent shaking, the bone-grinding crashes—gone. All he felt was one last heavy smash, like the chest had burst straight through a wall. Then... nothing.
No rattling. No debris. Just the sound of rushing wind.
Finn’s stomach dropped. His body lifted. Wait. Wait wait wait—why am I floating? It hit him. They weren’t falling anymore. They were flying.
"...Oh hell no."
To where? Who knew. Hopefully far away from that collapsing deathtrap. Hopefully not straight into another one.
But then the chest betrayed him. It started spinning—hard. Like some possessed washing machine on demon-spin cycle. Finn’s body slammed around inside, every bone in him rattling like dice in God’s hand.
His head crashed against one side. His knees bashed into another. His stomach did Olympic flips he never trained for.
The chest kept twirling, sending him into a nauseated blur until—
WHAM.
It slammed into the ground. The impact rattled through Finn’s body like a cruel punchline—made even worse by the fact that he’d smashed against the inside of Chestelle’s chest-form, groaning in pain.