PLEASE READ THIS WARNING: I do not own Rio, Jewel, or any character or theme used in the Rio film. They belong solely to Blue Sky Films and 20th Century Fox.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the final chapter of Love? It's been bled out with no access to actual Rio movie [though the DVD comes out tomorrow XD]and worth an hour's Googling on love and millions of gallons of heart juices. Hopefully you all will like it; it's almost seven thousands words, my longest yet.

I will not be dead, though, and I'll go focus solely on Next to You. But for this story, this marks the end of a great philosophical story on love.

To everybody: Thank you all for all the great stuff you said, though yes, I SHOULD stop killing everybody. Yeah. :/ Anyways I know the extent of philosophy laden in this story, and I've taken a lot of thought into what you all have said, the blend of 'logic and emotion' and all these 'connections' and 'plot lines'. I appreciate everything you all have done for supporting me through these tough times; you won't believe how much I've cried over this story. So thank you. Sincerely.

I won't talk any further except:

P.S. I bet you didn't expect this… I'm confused of the specifics of the movie. I probably won't, though, once I get the movie.

P.S.S. I highly suggest you having 'Sia- My Love' in the background. It brings the mood. :)

~Jewel~

Love and hate coexist- everybody knows that. What nobody knows is they don't really know their boundaries. You could love a person so much and swear you'd die for him or swoon that you'd do anything for him, and the next day just hate his guts and stop at nothing to torture him perpetually for something he did. Similarly you could hate a person for everything he lived for and hold a grudge for him, but the next moment love him simply because all the negativity was false, and in fact he cared, loved, stood by and protected you. That's the power of love. Oh, and hate, of course.

The same applied to life and death. One moment you could be living, minding your own business, trying to achieve something and help somebody, all in the name of love, and next moment death's hand smacks you down, just like a fly swat, and you wouldn't even know what hit you. It makes no sense, though, that two forces could intersect with each other so easily, warring with one another… and the worst part was, you'd never know when or where exactly which of the two would dominate- there was no winner, in the end.

Life lingers and drags on for what could be an eternity. Imagine yourself like this- nobody to love you, all by yourself out there, entrenched in a vicious cycle that dragged you down, no purpose in life. When you look back you realise that such a situation, frankly, is disturbing, to be completely solitary with nobody to be by your side to protect you, or have a shoulder to cry on, when you have nobody to love you… life would be completely futile to live.

So I knew why Fernando was doing this. The fact is, from the moment Fernando jumped into the plane, he knew he was sealing his own fate. He had no other reason why he should live- if he dissolved without a trace, let's be frank, would the real world even care? Who would know if he disappeared from the face of the Earth? Sometimes when we're less than nothing in this world, we try to make our mark, by doing something out of love. We want to do something justified and for the sake of somebody else, to feel like you've made a better part of their lives and removed their sorrow, even just a tiny fragment of it. And life rewards us with untimely death.

Nigel is a babaca. It's needless to say how truly evil and sinister he is- the moment I looked into his eyes, I knew that his mentality was warped. The blaze in his eyes said it all- eyes, after all, were the windows of the heart, and I knew that somehow he wasn't going to conform with whatever his masters commanded him to do. When some external force is controlling your fate and destiny, the natural reaction was, obviously, to rebel against it.

This is why I'm partially unsurprised that Nigel flies in and assaults Fernando physically. Or at least, that's what my mind told me, that I shouldn't feel surprise because there was no foundation for it to be built on, but that's not the case. You heart hopes on something baseless, too, that tells you that something unreal would happen and something inevitable would never occur, only because you hope and desire for it to be like that. So my actually feelings were of utter shock and stupefaction, and it caught me off guard. Murphy's Law states that if anything that could go wrong, meaning if someone could totally ignore your own feelings or someone is vulnerable enough to die, then they will. You think that it's only a blind spot that is almost invisible, but the fact is that life is enough to screw you over like that. One moment you're about to save many birds and feel the contentment of doing a great deed, and the next get pushed over by a mentally unstable cockatoo to your death.

Life is unfair. No, any idiot could say that; life is blisteringly unfair, to the point that it could take everything you planned for and your heart and guide you down its desired path, to mislead you and think everything was ok, and suddenly turn the tables on you and suddenly you're checkmated. But that was the real world, and that is a harsh fact that is unacceptable, that someone is controlling us and there's nothing we could do about it… not like Nigel, who had the liberty to break free from it. There is never any freedom in life, or even in death.

An ear-piercing scream resounds in the plane when Fernando falls off the plane, killed by Nigel. It's a familiar shrill, yet one that is so loud that it hurts my eardrums, and it takes what could have been an hour, though it was a five-second scream of horror, to realise it's coming from my throat. My vision is unclear, enveloped by a shroud of tears that won't allow me to see my surroundings, the villain and my… my closest friend. I can't see everybody's expressions, my own sadness working against me, and my mind yells at my vocal chords to halt. But it doesn't stop the tidal wave of sorrow from crashing upon me, washing me away with no sense of control but rather being controlled by my emotions. No freedom ever exists in life.

I know it's exaggerated and melodramatic, but my emotions are all in control of me. I glare at Nigel, suddenly with a vengeance, after what seemed like a geologic age, my face tear-stricken. "You animal," I said through my teeth.

I could see Nigel's smug arrogance, one that wanted me to tie him to a stick and roast him alive, that announced him the victor and that he would be undefeatable. "My dear, don't you think you're stating the obvious here?" he taunted, making me snarl.

Then I felt a wing on me, and without thinking I jolted my head up, and I looked into Blu's eyes. They were full of concern for me, that I had experienced such an emotional breakdown. Blu… I had only met him for three days- three days, and he proclaimed that he loved me. I had suspected that to be only surface-deep, premature infatuation that was almost rootless, vulnerable to the breath of the wind. Now, I desperately needed him to protect me, and even after all we had been through… he still stood by me, not abandoning me or loathing me… he loved me. It's something you can't come to terms with, but have to in the long run.

Blu… when I looked at him it was a strange feeling. The way he made me feel… it was extraordinary. All of those grudges and hatred that I had previously harboured, they… they all vanished in the wind, and they were replaced with a new feeling. It was a type of glowing warmth that filled my heart, that threw away all the burdens and sorrow I held, and gave me strength and comfort. It gave me hope, no matter how irrational, and that nothing could ever make his love waver. It was irrational, his love, that he should crave my company and my happiness, that he should feel so ecstatic just by being next to me, and feel so painfully concerned just by seeing me shriek in agony. The fact is, I reciprocated all of this; it's just that it hadn't happened to Blu just yet. But I knew one thing.

I love Blu.

There was a glint of determination in his eyes, though, and it told me that he would be there to guard me, to aid me when I needed it. And suddenly, even though it was only mere minutes from when I wailed sorrowfully, a new strength filled me- love could do that, to instantaneously wash away all the grief in your heart and replace it with determination. It was only because of one thing, and that was Blu's presence.

"Don't be afraid, Jewel," Blu assured, and suddenly that emotion got eradicated. I knew that this was the climax of it all, the place where everything ends, when one side has to lose while the other emerges victorious. "I won't fear," I answered. "Not when you're with me."

Before I could take a glimpse of Blu's reaction, I heard Nigel laugh sinisterly, a malicious cacophony mixed with a crazed instability. Even without him saying, I knew what he desired to inflict. He wanted to kill us- just the furious and oppressed, glazed look in his eyes was enough to infer from. He didn't want to obey his master's commands or be withheld from his own emotions. He wanted to fight and emerge triumphant over two carcasses. And he would stop at nothing to accomplish that, too.

With one smirk, he dived in for the kill, one moment with his wings open and about to take off, and the next right over at us, already lunged for Blu's throat, his talons grappling and squeezing oxygen out of it. Naturally Blu's face twisted in agony, turning blue, even, and he squawked in pleading. Naturally an urgency to do something overpowered me, especially when he was a mere foot away from me, and I attempted to knock him off from Blu- if he continued to that for too long, he would strangle Blu to death- but to no avail. His talons were as if they had roots entangled in the ground, tightening around Blu's neck to suffocate him…

Then with one powerful jerk, still grasping Blu's neck, he raised his talon from the ground for one brief instant before slamming it back down on a different position, pulling me with him. This time he placed Blu's neck on the edge of the hatch, where if he made one push forward, he would push Blu –and me, chained to him- over to our watery graves.

But because of the sheer force of which he jerked Blu, it sent my flying over the edge, with the chain thankfully keeping me attached to Blu… though I knew that we were checkmated. What was the use? The moment Nigel took over and controlled everything, with his immense strength and ability to search and destroy… we were no match for him. Life is Darwinist- where the fittest survive, no matter how little justice or holiness is in their hearts, and the weakest are overthrown despite all good intentions, wiped off from the face of the earth. Everything had to be perfect for the real world.

"Jewel!" Blu yelled hoarsely, but I couldn't see him. Under me was a glossy, black liquid that threatened to swallow me up if I fell into it, and fear clenched my heart. My vocal chords tried to yell in terror, but my throat felt blocked, rendering me speechless…

"You see this, my feathered freaks?" Nigel yelled over the howling wind, taunting us. I could imagine, plastered on his face, a grin of insanity. "This is the REAL WORLD! This is how it ALL ENDS! This is where you all DIE!"

The real world… the real world was manipulative, and it could choose to reward one or curse one. And the worst part was that one was totally helpless in such a situation. No matter how you looked at the real world, the end would always remain the same- death. It's only a matter of time before you close your eyes for the final time, before you exhale your final breath, your heart pumps for the last time. The real world was unfair- you could lose everything you love and treasure, your emotions completely toppled, every part of you ripped to shreds and nobody would miss you. Equality never matters much in the real world, or the fact that people love you, or that whatever it did to you, it would cause the whole world to end. In the real world, you die.

I clamped my eyes shut- I knew that this was how it all ends, where we all die, where I would never see the sun rise or hear Blu tell me he loved me. I could only hear the wind screaming in my ears, and all I could see was the darkness of my eyelids' interior as I braced myself for death to befall me, for me to fade into the eternal darkness…

But then I felt myself being flung back into the plane, where Nigel jammed Blu's neck back into the center of the plane floor again. There was a look of disgust in his face, his mouth twisted in a scowl as he looked on at Blu's helpless and vulnerable face. "You don't deserve to die like that," Nigel said with every word contemptible and laced with rage. "You deserve to die slowly" –he tightened his grip around Blu's neck, forcing a squawk of pain out of him- "and painfully, you little prick." Nigel's face jerked forward closer to Blu, to enforce every word he said and deepen the pain of every moment under the binding talon and the lack of oxygen… Blu cringed in pain; his throat emitting violent coughs frequently…

I knew that we were going to lose, and it was no point prolonging this fight anymore… yet when I saw Blu like that, it hurt me deeply, driving a spear into my soul. To watch him die… it would be absolutely torturous and unbearable, to see the one bird who loved me disappear from the face of this earth, to witness the eradication of your source of happiness and joy, to see your refuge and your place for comfort die, die right in front of your eyes. Life told me it was all over, but love told me that I had to do something, as I let my emotions take control, to at least give us a fighting chance.

So I tried to shove Nigel away from Blu, but it was one swoop of the wing- one hard slap in the face- to send my flying away… and along with me, because of the sheer force, Blu was yanked away from Nigel's grip [though I did not premeditate this], pulled by my flung body. However, because of the impact, we crashed into the perimeter of the plane; an untidy and unstable cage on the pinnacle of a stack of miniature wire prisons lying against the wall rattled before it plummeted from above, where gravity would drag it down to crush whatever was in its path. In this case, it was me, and suddenly everything begun to move in slow motion.

Blu noticed this, as well, and he inhaled deeply and sharply, his pupils shrunk into his eyeballs. "Jewel!" he exclaimed, seeing I was frozen with shock and rooted to the floor, stupidly staring at my befalling doom without doing anything to prevent it. He made one jerk of a push that forced me to move away from him, but because of the chain, dragged him in the direction he pushed me and fate strategically placing him upon the gigantic, obvious yet virtual red X imprinted on it where the cage fell upon him with a metallic clang.

I thought I had shouted loudly when Fernando died; now I hollered with all my lungs' capacity, until my throat was hoarse and I could feel the vibration of my vocal chords in my ears. "BLU!" The cry was blood-curling, as I rushed by his side, where the cage had bounced off the other side. His eyes were slits now, barely open but the crown of feathers on his head was not stained with crimson, a liquid that would normally scare the living daylights out of me but now urged me to fix it… though I knew I couldn't. I could see my own wings get stained from the profuse bleeding, and I saw Blu's consciousness fading away. I internally kicked myself- why did I have to be so freaking STUPID?

"Jewel…" He said weakly, clamping his eyes in agony. My heart almost stopped beating- Blu… he was so weak… and he was going to die. Although obviously, eventually in the real world life would end, no matter how much you remind yourself this or prepare yourself for it, even when you were previously on the edge of it, you could never see someone die. No, scratch that- I could die; it's something I'd gladly take in exchange for following what your emotions drive you to do. But to see the person who loved you die was a whole different issue. It was going to kill me on the inside.

And to my absolute fury, Nigel cackled in another bout of laughter… which served not to demoralise me but to fuel the flame of my anger. I snarled; on his face was a mentally unstable type of happiness, the sadism written all across his face to see his prey weakened… it sickened me to the core, that people in this world would enjoy the misery of other people… the way he laughed evilly and the injustice of the situation… it infuriated me; the rage was overwhelming me.

Suddenly, I felt something rise in me, an invisible force that took over my soul and my mind… it was one that I did not anticipate, one that I had thought I had not possessed, one that caught me by surprise. It was pure anger, sheer, seething rage that overtook my senses, and made me lose control of everything. It overthrew all logic that my mind had harboured, and all the barriers I set up to prevent emotion from dominating completely. But like I said, you never are prepared enough.

I don't know how it happened, but I lunge for Nigel's throat, and even though I tell myself I am fatigued, I feel empowered by a new strength- vengeance, and it gives me strength. I forget everything and my priority right now is to eradicate the source of true evil, and not just in the fairy-tale evil but malicious at its finest, and that is to kill Nigel. And once I made up my mind, there was no stopping it.

A new power, that potent physical strength that I never knew I had, considering that females are stereotypically stronger than males, filled me and, without any warning and to my and Nigel's surprise, I managed to successfully pin him on the opposite side of the plane's perimeter, and even more surprisingly, I was airborne, flapping my wings to stay in the air with Blu dangling below me. Nigel initially put up a fight, his face twisted in white-hot fury and flapping his wings to attempt to fling me off, but my grip was strong enough to prevent Nigel from writhing away… while my expression remained furious at my love's injury.

Suddenly all the rage in Nigel's face melted away to reveal something else- shock, fear, vulnerability, defeat. It was one that villains would never show, one that nobody wants to feel, one that would people would conceal lest they give their enemies the motivating spirit to continue going and finish them off, the fuel to the fire. Nobody would ever feel like this unless they knew they were truly trapped, completely defeated, nowhere else to run before the battle would end for them. It was like chess- you could do all you can to bring down your opponents' pieces, but eventually something would trigger a checkmate, to the surprise of everybody who stereotyped upon it.

Rendered speechless, and seeing it would last that way unless I did something about it, I tightened my grip around him, until he choked for breath and his face started to turn blue, but I didn't stop increasing the taut of the grip. All that I could think of was Blu, and the way he taunted him, and the cage that fell upon him… I was only retaliating. I was only retaliating out of love for Blu, because I had to be there to protect him, to ensure he would survive instead of being killed mercilessly by someone more powerful that you are. Only the people who possessed true hatred, the people who hated people just for the joy of seeing their grief, deserve such harshness of life…

But the face is, life is always harsh to the victimized, not the victimizer.

The door bursts open to reveal the leader smuggler, and from the angle of his face away from the door, he hadn't witnessed much. However, what greeted him was a sight that horrified him- all of his precious birds, sans the two Spix's Macaws, had all been released by an ignorant yet brave but now dead Brazilian teenager, one of the Spix's Macaws with a limp body and the other having his prized possession, the cocky cock of a cockatoo, pinned down by the throat against the wall, with a crazed, furious, truly look of revenge.

"Idiot!" He exclaimed, and catching me off guard, he swiped me off with immense force away from the cockatoo, like garbage tossed aside by a force too powerful to control. And with one smack from the powerful human hand, with everything to lose yet with nothing left, and everything went blank. It was so abrupt, a blink's time span for my near victory, having emerged from the rubble of my heart, for something to interfere and subsequently destroy everything you did, everything that occurred before it, everything that you could have done, everything that you could have lived for… gone. Gone forever, smacked down by the fly swat of fate.

I didn't even know what hit me… I couldn't even stay to see what would happen next, or to see who would win. It wasn't a checkmate- in chess the checkmate was when the king would be eaten if it stayed still or moved away. It was, in actuality, a stalemate, where the king was cornered yet if it remained perfectly still, it would not be eaten, yet the eight squares around him held danger. It only had to remain stagnant, never changing or surrendering to the enemy and succumb to the losing pressure… a stalemate. It meant a draw, but no one ever thought that those who threat the king… they could be eaten. Eaten up by other traps fate laid on the chessboard…

All I could know of was that the battle was over, and that I had lost consciousness when the leader smuggler thwacked me, with the injured bird who loved me chained to my foot as I fell into the black glass of the ocean that awaited me and my love.

And there we'd die, cruelly at fate's hands, yet romantically in love's eyes.

.

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.

.

.

This is what heaven looks like- it's not a place where floors are fluffy clouds or with angels trumpeting away with a gargantuan deity on a throne staring at you. I could tell it wasn't a flaming, raging fireplace of doom where torture was laid at every corner of the place, but instead this is what heaven looks like- it's a sandy shore with a lovely sunrise, its reddish-orange hue painted onto the clouds as they drifted past, and the sector of the rising golden sphere peeking over the horizon. On the opposite of the shore is a clear, azure-tinted ocean that reflected the sun's rays back into my eyes, glittering like a huge diamond sheet on the sand.

I knew I had died. There was no mistaking it- we were right above a huge stretch of the sea, and I had drowned to death when I fainted. Was there a need for further explanation? One moment you'd feel like you'd almost make it, you'd almost defeated the enemy, and you're a millimetre away from that taste of victory, and then life decides to turn the tables on you, knocking you out when you'd least expect it, and then while you're asleep and not able to resist or move, it silences you forever.

Death is always portrayed as a romantic notion, where Jesus died on the cross to save the world from their sins, where the hero would sacrifice himself to save the damsel-in-distress, where somebody dies for the purpose and the sake of loving somebody else. But when you die due to an unexpected circumstance, like a heart attack that takes away from you in one swipe, or from the cruel ways of the world, like when all those victims of natural disasters… how is death even worth it? It's the end that nobody wants to face, yet forced to accept… who would want to face such a fate? To die for absolutely nothing… how do we even feel like we did anything, anyway?

Heaven, however, is beautiful. It's a permanent home where you could do anything you wanted, free from the chains of the real world, free from the pain or sorrow that existed in reality, free of all the negative emotions that bound us down… in Heaven, there was only one emotion- love. Everybody would love you and treat you like his own, protecting you, always keeping you filled to the brim with happiness, with the contentment of knowing you are worth something in another's eyes. To me, of course, the most prominent person that possessed all these qualities was Blu. He had saved me countless times, and his presence alone, the way he wanted me to be happy and wanted to ensure that I was loved… that was all I needed- love. Love, love, love…

My eyes roam around for my love, and eventually I find him right next to me, sleeping and watching over me like a guardian angel, lying on the floor motionless and dreaming peaceful dreams.

"Blu, wake up," I say, donning a welcoming smile and shaking his body for him to leap up and talk to me, telling me that we had won the battle, even if the enemy was undefeated, we managed to accomplish the goal. In short- bring joy to my heart again.

He does not awake. I remember the first night we spent together- upon that artificially-built structure that was his then-deemed comfort zone, where he slept right next to me, and as a stranger who had a crush on me, could only offer his company. I enjoyed it thoroughly, I remembered that night, to the point where I didn't want to wake up and face reality again. I remember in the morning too, that it had taken a considerable amount of energy to arouse him from his slumber. It would be the same too. "Blu," I mutter again, rocking his body again, this time with more force. This leads to his back- which was turned to me, at first, to roll over, his face that was in the opposite direction to roll over to me.

Accompanied with the jangle of metal, his head slumped inches away from me, where it wore a crown of dried blood and his eyes did not open.

"Blu!" I yell, the decibel level heightening, as I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. "BLU!" I yell even louder, again. His head bounces about around the neck, but his beautiful chocolate irises do not emerge. Nothing happens.

"Don't play games with me, Blu," I threatened, the rage suddenly pumping in my veins. "Don't fool around with me. Wake up now. Wake up!" I slam my wing on his chest, hoping it would spring him out of whatever prank he was playing upon me. It felt like punching a wall.

"Blu, don't do this…" My threats were getting weaker, the energy getting sapped from me, and my temporal rage was trashed away. "You told me you love me, remember? Wake up… don't joke… wake up… WAKE UP!" I shrieked the last two words out, until my vocal chords snap and my voice comes out hoarse, like a violin played too excessively. Blu makes no response.

By this time I am desperate. I place a talon delicately on his chest, and after a while, I feel absolutely no heartbeat.

Blu was gone.

Gone forever.

Gone.

"No," I muttered, pressing my talon deeper into his chest, pumping it as if it would spring him back to life. "You must live, Blu. You must live. You mustn't die. YOU MUST LIVE! BLU!" I shriek his name with enormous auditory intensity, close to his ear to sacrifice his hearing sense, at least, to resurrect him. I continue pumping, with the ridiculous notion that if thrust my claw over and over, it would spark a heartbeat and he would live, leaping up to his feet where he would pull me into his wings. It's a fantasy that we desire to happen, but of course life never gives us what we want.

It was then that it struck me- I wasn't in Heaven. Heaven was a million miles away- I was still entrenched in the real world. It struck me that this… this was the same beach I had fallen over, but this time, I hadn't fallen into the ocean. I had landed on this fine bed of sand, cushioning the impact as we landed and leaving the enemy to escape. Of course this was the real world- why else would I be on a freaking beach, or that Blu's head had bled and we were still chained together, or that now, I felt a spear smash through my diamond heart, sending fragments spray everywhere.

Blu… Blu had been struck by the cage, directly onto him like a large gabble of justice, crushing him and subsequently killing him… and the worst part was, it was all my freaking fault. There were so many factors that pertained to his death; so many that I couldn't count them with the grains of sand on this beach. It had been my fault that he was dragged into this crazy place, dragged on the journey with me, that he fell in love with such an insolent fool, that he had to learn love the hard way, he left me and had to subsequently rescue me from death, that he had to be with me all this while, that I was under that cage and he had to save me and get dragged to take my place.

How in the world is this romantic?

Love… it's such a hateful emotion; irony at its finest. It could motivate you and deter you from doing all the wrong and right things, it could rebel against logic and claim the throne of your thoughts and actions, it could drive you to do the most insane of things. It could tell you that something impossible was worth fighting for, it could chain you to another person and make him suffer for all the mistakes you did, it could tell you that in the real world, life was worth living the fight. You could quote 1 Corinthians 13, like they all do in weddings, for a definition of love but nobody ever notices the one thing about love- you would lay your life down for your friends, even if your life was way more valuable than the jerk and fool of a friend.

Love hurts. People use it so freely that they never really comprehend the true meaning of this quote. What it means it that love has two sides- its stereotypically Cloud-9, heavenly feeling, whereas the other… it was unpleasant. That wasn't all- love warred against logic. Love told you to do what logic told you not to do, to risk everything and do all the stupid things, to do something because you loved it and create massive repercussions, to involve someone you love to take the fall… and he did. He fell for me, and that was completely stupid, absurd, and ludicrous. I wasn't worth it. I never was.

Blu… he loved me. He wanted to make sure I saw another day, to ensure that I would wear a smile on my face just with his company and did everything he could for me. He used his life to save mine… how, in this way, is this making me happy? I had been such an idiot- if I had told Blu that I indeed had loved him, and wanted to be with him for the days of my life like he would, he wouldn't consider his life worthless compared to mine, and he had to put his under the hammer… now my soul felt like it had been ripped apart. It was all my fault… I couldn't put the blame on anybody but myself. Was… was this what love did? I knew that what Blu did was out of love, to save me and protect me, but what I felt… it was definitely love's effects. Just like how love wanted the significant other to be happy and protected, love wanted to avoid him to be sad, or in grief or pain or suffering or cruelly killed…

And before I knew it, I realised that I was crying, fiery-hot tears flowing down my cheeks, as my mind entwined around the truth- the truth that Blu, the person who loved me and the person I loved back, was dead, gone forever, plucked away from this earth and thrown into another place far, far away. My feet caved in and I slumped myself on Blu's carcass, bawling my eyes out and my tears staining his perfect, cerulean body. All I saw was darkness, and all I could feel was overwhelming sorrow, one that overflowed and drowned my heart, one that had my soul beg for help, and one that took my life and punched a humongous, irreparable cavern that would stay forever. That hole would only be filled with Blu, the bird I loved, but he's dead.

Blu is dead. The very statement brought anger in me. Why did life have to do this to me? It wasn't fair. You look at the Al-Qaeda and Hitler and all the bad people in this world- life lets them inflict horror to the world and terrorize millions, but yet the innocent? The innocent are punished by having everything taken away from them, in one strong draft everything is blown away like dust, or in one stamp of the gabble dreams are pulverized into smithereens. The real world… it was a lovely place, the romanticist would croon, that life was wonderful and that nature would provide everything and you would live beautifully and fulfil your dreams… when all it did was fulfil your nightmares, it killed you unceremoniously and in fact, natures worked against you. Promises of happiness were shattered and sorrow was thrust upon you like the weight of the universe upon your shoulders.

I didn't know how long I cried. I cried, sobbed, wailed, twin streams of saltwater flowing down from my eyes, as I grieved for my loved one, the only who wanted me in this world and provided happiness for me… he was gone for all eternity. I would never be able to see him again or look into his eyes and say 'I love you' or 'You complete me' or 'Why did you have to die for me?' I would never be able to feel the warmth of his presence, or when he embraced me. I would never be able to spend forever with him.

"Why? Why? WHY? Why did you have to leave me?" I yelled. Why did Blu have to leave me like this? I ask. Why did I have to be so freaking stupid to have left him in love, with no reciprocation and having him subject alone to protect me and suffer the real world's harshness… it wasn't fair. It wasn't bloody fair, and I knew that somewhere, the real world was smirking in victory, and it didn't give a crap about what I felt.

Perhaps, I thought, this was some sick trick that my mind was playing on me. Maybe I was only dreaming, or even some Inception crap. Maybe I would just wake up and find a different place, a place where Blu was still living and I could tell him how much I loved him. Or that in Heaven, Blu was somewhere else, and this was only a dummy. Perhaps, even, Blu wasn't dead. Perhaps I had placed my talon too lightly, and had not detected his faint heartbeat of life. Perhaps Blu had managed to stay asleep all this while, and he was only unconscious- his heart may have an erratic rate, too, so the time where I felt for it I couldn't find it. Perhaps Blu was still alive…

…even though I knew that was only a fantasy.

I looked into Blu's face. It used to bring happiness to me, to see him with me and see him love me like I was perfect… when I was not. How many times have you felt like his, when you look into the person you love and find his heart beating for you, and find his eyes the window to his soul, and find that he would protect you forever, like he was your guardian angel? That feeling was now blown away with the win, vanished in some cruel magic trick of life, tearing my heart apart and making my soul incomplete again. What was the point of attaining freedom when you were chained down by the loss of somebody who completed you? Freedom is, in fact, unattainable, a myth, another empty promise of life.

All Blu was rewarded with for his love for me was a crown of blood, and death in the hands of a wire cage. I didn't know what to do, at a loss, a hole in my heart punched. I held him in my wings, as if it would help, as if the warmth of my embrace would ignite the life back in him.

"I love you, Blu," I whispered, my vision still shrouded by the tears that stung my eyes. I hear no response. The words crash upon us like a meteor from the sky, but nothing happens.

I looked into his eyes, and I pressed my beak to his cold, lifeless beak, one that I knew would not kiss me back, not reciprocating the movements of mine. But nevertheless I kissed him with all I had- simply because I had to repay him somehow. Even if it's worthless, it had to be something.

I don't know how long I stayed there- the sun had emerged completely from the horizon, yet nobody had seen us, an innocent, dead Spix's Macaw and his love. Did it matter to the real world if we were sad? Did it matter to the real world if someone died, and everybody who loved him would be torn to shreds, spilling tears enough to make the Pacific Ocean and hearts broken so badly that they were like dust- people could step on them and never know?

Love and life could never co-exist. Emotion would tell you to do what logic told you not to do, and vice versa, but honestly, logic was the ultimate victor. Logic would tell you that something is going to go wrong, and therefore it will go wrong. Logic would tell you that you have to be clear-headed, that things impossible won't happen, and things likely to happen will happen. Logical thinking keeps you from wasting your time worrying, or hoping. It prevents disappointment. Imagination, on the other hand, only gets you hyped up over things that will never realistically happen.

I felt under me a carcass, a dead body that would never be sprung back to life. I felt in me a heart that would never be complete again. I felt the real world laughing, cheering in jubilation and victory, and crushing me with immense sorrow, where words would never able to describe it, where happiness evaded me and instead I was stuck in the real world… chained, burdened, constantly given empty promises that would never be achieved.

"Blu… don't leave me... I love you..." I mumbled, my vocal chords already strained, a last effort to resurrect him, but all is futile.

This was the real world, where love was only a fanciful notion, where life was a torture and fantasies never come true. Blu was dead- this was a fact that couldn't be reversed in any way possible.

This is the real world, my friends, where you feel like you could achieve something or you know something is going to happen, even though it is completely absurd, and life decides to turn the tables on you and you're falling down a bottomless abyss.

This is the real world, where promises are hollow, empty, will never be completed. And I am, as well, and would be like this forever.

Ending Quotes:

"I am the first person to tell you that I do not understand love. How can you love your new haircut, love your new job, and love your girlfriend all at once? Clearly the word doesn't mean the same thing in different situations, which is why I have never been able to figure it out with logic." ~Jodi Picoult.

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armour, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." ~Neil Gaiman.

Reviews, as usual, are appreciated very much, thank you.

And this is where we've come to:

~THE END~

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