When a situation escalates and you want to describe how things ended up, use the verbs terminar or acabar.
To express "ending up doing something," conjugate terminar or acabar and follow it with a gerund (the verb form ending in -ando or -iendo). Both verbs are completely interchangeable here.
| The harmless joke ended up creating a lot of chaos. | La broma inofensiva terminó creando mucho caos. |
| The boy saw the mask and ended up crying. | El niño vio la máscara y acabó llorando. |
You can use this structure in any tense, but it is especially common in the past to describe events that got out of hand.
| I thought it was a harmless joke, but we ended up cleaning the floor. | Pensé que era una broma inofensiva, pero terminamos limpiando el piso. |
| We ended up bursting the bag because of the scare. | Acabamos reventando la bolsa por el susto. |
| I lost control, broke the mask, and ended up crying. | Perdí el control, rompí la máscara y acabé llorando. |
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