The End Chapter 1 3rd Draft

Days Remaining Until the Apocalypse: 354

There was one thing that Finn missed: adventuring. Memories of it were fresh in his mind. He sat on his couch, and payed close attention to the material he was sitting on. It had the same cloth and cushions as yesterday, the day before that, and the exact day seven years prior to that. It was a weird couch. Surely, it should've shown signs of aging, but it remained smooth, moderately soft, and unwounded. The seventeen-year-old's face brightened when he saw a penny under the cushion, but the light quickly faded when he recognized its origin. He remembered it from a past adventure with his brother, Jake. Hours after they dealt with the monsters, Finn found the penny Jake tossed aside and left it under the cushion for safe keeping. As Finn continued to think about that day, he realized that, in hindsight, the penny was the only worthwhile thing that came out of that little adventure. No worthwhile change took place. Finn and Jake were still physically capable of doing a similar adventure, but there was one thing that was missing: a sense of purpose. The older Finn knew that the little penny, despite serving as a reminder of a more childlike time, was nothing more than a token of a mistake that almost got them killed. Nothing is what most of his past adventures amounted too, but at least as a kid, he had the illusion of purpose. But as Finn got older, he began to see that nearly every major thing that happened in his life appeared to loop back to where he started. As he further delved into his memories, a cycle of stagnation seemed to haunt Ooo, and Finn grew miserable.

The young man himself became stagnant; he didn't move from his home for several days and actively avoided talking to others. Much to Jake's annoyance, Finn decided to stay home while he went out. Finn didn't care to remember how he convinced Jake to go on his own. When he left, Finn shut off all means of external communication. He locked the doors, shut all the windows, turned off the phone, and disabled the machine that gave video messages.

If ignoring others were a sport, Finn would be the champion. Somehow, he stayed on that couch for several days; he only moved to block communication or to use the bathroom. Concerned about Finn's weird stillness, BMO, one of Finn and Jake's robot companion, tried to feed the human a sandwich. The robot had to improvise using leftover meatloaf instead of normal lunch meat. The silent rejection of the meatloaf sandwich was even more puzzling to the robot, because Finn was always an avid meatloaf lover. Even though the attempts were fruitless, BMO kept trying to nudge the sandwich in the sandwich in his mouth.

Considering that Jake didn't return home until dusk in recent days, BMO was frustrated about the lack of any true alone time. To show this anger, BMO clenched its fist and tried to stomp with great force. Jake saw that it was trying to express power in this situation. However, despite knowing that BMO had a legitimate reason to be angry, Jake almost let out a chuckle due to the robots' small, plastic body. Given that BMO's creator designed it to be cute, its angry expressions would follow suit.

"Can't we just call a doctor?" said BMO.

"No," said Jake. "I know a sickness when I see one, and my bro clearly doesn't have one."

"But he hasn't been letting me feed him. I doubt that he's even had a glass of water since he went quiet." BMO hopped onto the table and grabbed the glass of water. Jake watched as the robot try to put the liquid in the human boy's mouth. Alas, Finn prohibited any entry; the water only succeeded in coating his lips.

Jake laughed. "Take it easy BMO. Let me try pry him open."

BMO didn't want to listen to Jake. It tried to summon all its strength to pry open his mouth, but since Finn's shirt wasn't the most stable ground, BMO fell to the ground emitting a faint whimper.

"You okay?" Jake said as his face shifted from joy to concern. His arm stretched out to grab BMO. Unfortunately, upon grabbing the little robot, the three could hear several bones cracking. Jake let out a yelp and let go of BMO, which caused the robot to land face first onto the wooden floor. After regaining his posture, Jake looked up at his brother. In a departure from what little he had done within recent days, Finn turned his head toward Jake and began to arch his eyebrows. His faced slowly formed to express his worry for adopted brother. In the transition from a neutral to a worried, Jake and BMO could see that there was no energy nor passion in flowing through the boy. All they were left with was a silent, still, and worried face staring right into their souls.

Jake, being rather fed up by Finn's strange behavior, tried to have a word with him. Unfortunately, since he had to rest due to injuries, Jake couldn't show that he had any influential power over Finn. Nevertheless, Jake tried to converse with his brother.

"Dude, what's been going with you?" Another audible crack came from Jake as he tried to point at his brother. Due to this, the dog groaned in pain. His attention shifted to his robot friend. "BMO, I need the first aid kit from the bathroom." By sending the robot off, Jake turned his attention back to Finn. "Please, the princess has been sending me on missions made for two. I can't keep doing this alone!"

Finn remained silent. The robot returned and handed the kit to Jake. Being incapacitated, Jake had to have BMO give him the needed medicine. "Which one was it again?" asked the robot. Speaking meekly, Jake replied, "That green bottle." In the bottle was a sort of lotion with a color that corresponded with its bottle. BMO rubbed the lotion on Jake and wrapped his broken limbs in bandages.

"You will still be healed by tomorrow, correct?" BMO finished taping the last bandage and went to retrieve to rib brace.

"How else would I be able handle what's going on lately?" Despite injuries, Jake was still able to produce bits of light-hearted sarcasm when spoke.

"I wonder what type of magic the princess put in this stuff." As BMO walked back with the brace, it looked at the bottle with a sort of wide-eyed fascination. "I wonder if it works on computers."

Jake lifted his head up slightly. "Princess Bubblegum doesn't believe in magic. I should know, because I remember her making an entire city of wizards mad." Jake also remembered that it almost got them killed, but he refrained from telling the innocent robot. "At least she's good at what she does." He then plopped his head back into the couch.

Jake was finally in a state of tranquility. Even though hurt to be healed, the lotion going to work was more bearable and beneficial. The only thing missing would be a warm bath, but moving at this state would damage his body mid-heal. Before he passed out on the couch, he took one last look at Finn, who went back to his initial, emotionless expression. Before drifting off into dreamland, Jake made a mental note to make sure that Finn comes with him the next day. Since Jake was out of commission until morning, BMO decided that the best way to relieve boredom would be to play with Neptr, another household robot.

Finn waited until he was certain that not a soul was watching him. By that time, it was already midnight. He stood up and walked slowly to each window. Each step was delicate to ensure that no sound would come from the old floor boards. When he made it to a window, he would just stare into the moonlit field for about five minutes. Unless he counted the insects, not a single soul could be seen. This happened with every window, and the only thing of notable throughout the process was the tall grass moving to the strong gusts of wind. The last window he went to was in the kitchen. He pulled up a chair and stared at this window much longer than the other ones. Someone else's words rung in his.

"You weren't supposed to have your wishes come true," he whispered to himself, mimicking the original speaker. "You were supposed to die." He looked toward the clouds that glided through the sky. He then, for a moment, stopped replaying his memories. He spoke as if someone was within his sight. "I know you're out there," he said. "But where are you?" Finn remained in that spot for the remainder of the night.

The next morning, it was apparent Jake had overslept. He was supposed to meet the princess at the crack of dawn, but he rose from slumber at about noon. In his rush to get ready, he didn't notice that Finn had moved from the couch. It was only when he reached his phone he realized why he over slept so late: his alarm clock was shut off. Through this past week, Jake hid the one electronic he needed to keep up with the missions. Finn treated the new alarm clock in a similar manner as the communication devices. It looks like his brother found out where he hid the it. Jake, being faced with the fact that his brother sabotaged him, felt an increase in one emotion: anger. He marched toward Finn, who was still staring out the window.

Finn heard faint babbling. The voice was faint, but angry. He didn't care though, because he could finally rest. As his brothers became louder and angrier, a tired smile formed on his face. "A sign!" He thought. "Finally, there is purpose." A distant cloud of smoke was the apple of his eye. Its' thickness was enough to make it stick out in the blue sky, and size of the orange flames resting at the bottom made it clear that it was only a few miles away. His heart was like the foreboding wildfire: his contempt, thick and toxic, knew that such a disaster gave nothing but waste, but underneath were the flickering flames, who wanted nothing more than the call of adventure. But for Finn, he saw his own smoke as being trapped, which left it to linger inside. Too much contained smoke can kill a young flame. Finn sought to burn bright. To do so, he'd have to remove waste to make room for fuel.

Finn felt his eyes get heavy and passed out after the moment of bliss. He had no dreams while he was unconscious; staying awake for at least a week probably made him too tired to do so. Between the long stretches of darkness, he could catch short glimpses of Jake doing something. Unfortunately, the only thing he could make out was the appearance of a train.

Finn was pleasantly surprised when awoke. Within his vision, he could see a seat from a familiar train. His mind raced back to his 12th birthday. The memory was slightly blurry, but he remembered that Jake had set up a murder mystery for him to solve. He hadn't seen this train since that birthday, and it was nice to see it in its normal, rather calm state. Of course, Finn believed that it could be improved with another pretend mystery. For five minutes, he lied there admiring the outdoor scenery. However, such beauty was halted by the feeling of hunger and thirst. Finn knew that the previous days were catching up with him; he couldn't ignore his needs for much longer. He rose out of his seat.

Still somewhat tired, he felt the need to rub his eyes, which gave a passenger time to approach him. Because Finn had a limited field of vision, he didn't notice that his brother was only a few inches away. This left Finn slightly startled when the first person he saw was unfamiliar. The stranger's defining feature was his skull mask, which was complete with glowing red eyes in its sockets. Finn's first instinct was to jump back away from the potential threat, but the action resulted in the boy ramming into Jake. Any fear that Finn had dissipated when he got a better look at the stranger. Anyone with cleared eyes could see that skull mask was rather simple and smooth. This, combined with the unrealistically round designed, made it look like it came from a toy shop's Halloween bargain bin. The red eyes, while they glowed like your stereotypical monster villain, only served to enforce the toy-like design of the mask. The only thing remotely unnerving about the individual was the absence of a left hand. Jake, who didn't understand why his brother jumped back from the little stranger, pushed Finn away from him.

"Did I scare you, sir?" said the stranger.

Finn mustered up the will to speak. "Yeah, but only a little."

"Well, that's a relief." The stranger then pulled a newspaper from the cart and showed it to Finn. "Would you like today's issue of Ooo Weekly? Our paper has gotten a very popular recently." He then pointed to the stacks of wrapped foods and canned drinks. "Food and drink are also available. All items are just 50 cents."

Finn looked at the items and saw that one of the drinks was iced coffee. He didn't like it as much as warm coffee, but it was better than nothing. Lucky for him, he left some gold in his pockets; he had just enough to buy the coffee and three breakfast bars. The stranger was visibly disappointed by Finn's refusal to buy a paper. As the stranger went to approach another passenger, the employee he was covering for came into the train car. He tipped the small stranger for buying him enough time to use the bathroom. The employee was a neatly dressed fellow with bags under his eyes. The stranger, relieved of this humbling duty, sat down in the closest seat. When the stranger sat, he couldn't help but pay close attention to Finn, who was too busy eating to notice him. He tried to begin a conversation with Finn.

"Hey, human," he said, "Now that I'm no longer bound by the staff rules. I can sell you a paper at a better price." He flaunted to paper in Finn's field of vision.

"Did you steal that?" Finn asked. The possibility of such an act annoyed him.

"No. You misunderstood me." He started to get a little nervous. "I work for Ooo Weekly, so I have easy access to these things. You can get a paper anywhere else for half the price they have here. It's a scam if you ask me!"

"I'm out of cash." With that, Finn returned to eating.

Just as the stranger tried to grab Finn's attention again, Jake began to seek it as well. Not knowing what Jake would say, the stranger waited for an opportunity to regain the human's attention. Jake tried to pry an answer off Finn, but every attempt was met with small shrug and smile. Naturally, this made Jake evermore confused. Just as it appeared that Jake had finished talking, a regal figure, identifiable by the copious shades of pink on her apparel and body, peeked up from her seat and attempted to fish answers out of Finn.

"Finn," she said. "I won't tolerate this behavior again. We could be in the middle of a crisis right now; we need all the man-power we can get."

"Don't worry," said Finn. "The town is only a few miles away. Jake and I dealt with stuff like this before." He put on a confident grin as he continued to chew the bar.

Finn wasn't in the mood to listen to his companions. His focus was on the potential of his future encounter. He tuned out everything else that the others were saying and focused solely on his surroundings. The cloud of smoke was the first sign his opposition's presence. Now, Finn was determined to find another. One would be all that he needed to locate the entity. Finn looked to his left, but nothing was out of the ordinary. He then looked to the right, and the cloud of smoke was in clear view. Finn had a hunch that the area the foreboding figure covered would be too obvious of a place to investigate. Much to the other's displeasure, Finn went to investigate the other train cars.

Finn knew that the staff had strict rules against its passengers jumping between cars, but the presence of a potential threat would likely be enough to excuse his behavior. In each train car, he paid close attention to everyone and everything around him. The slightest abnormality would be enough to know where the threat lied. He listened closely, but it seemed like the only thing that could be heard was the train trekking and the passengers blabbing. He considered the possibility of listen to conversations, but there were just too many to process. Initially, he had the same bad luck with his sight. The infrastructure was of high caliber, but not perfect. He wouldn't want it any other way; anything too perfect was a sure sign of danger. The passengers were no different: nobody was shady nor unrealistically innocent. Most of the people he saw were same sugar-constructed, unchanging, and non-human civilians he grown accustomed to seeing.

He knew he reached the end of the train when all that was left was the conductor's car. He figured that, by hoping around between cars, he already broken enough rules on the train. Disrupting the conductor could result in serious legal trouble. So, to fulfill both his duty and some legality, he decided to just give a little peak into the car. As he grabbed the handle, his head suddenly started pounding, and his vision started to become distorted. However, Finn was undeterred in achieving what he intended to do. Finn watched several horror movies in his lifetime, so when he saw that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the conductor's car, the sight raised a lot of red flags. He shut the door and looked back at the cart where he came. Finn didn't want himself to fall victim to standard horror flick routine, but he realized that, with all the observations that he made, the enemy had silently cornered him.

"So, this is your plan," Finn thought. He looked at the cars' rooftops and noticed that all avenues for getting up top of train had been removed. "The only way out of here is where I came. You followed me to this spot, didn't you? I bet you're behind that door, waiting for me to return so you could land an ambush."

Finn smiled and clenched his fist. Even though he didn't enjoy how he easily for the enemy's trap, Finn had satisfaction in figuring what his rival was doing. Expecting a fight, Finn charged back in the passenger car at full force. His head immediately started pounding again, and the reality he saw before him was distorted beyond recognition. Everyone and everything around him went still, except for one person. He was a creature unfamiliar to Finn; he was a humanoid skeleton at first glance. But what covered his limbs and skull were arteries, and inside the ribcage lied much of his other internal organs. He drew two swords out of the ground. Both swords had identical characteristics: shape, length, width, handle, and metal were all the same. The only difference was the jewel ingrained in the blade's handle. One had a ruby, while the other had a sapphire.

The monster threw the sapphire sword, and it landed with firmly into the ground with its handle skyward. Finn could see the anticipation in his rival's eyes; he waited for Finn to grab ahold of the weapon. He looked the steel blade as it shined in what little light there was left. Finn looked the skeleton in the eye and smiled. They looked each other in the eye, and, despite the circumstances, they knew that they were equals. Finn and his rival grabbed their blades and began to clash.