Bia's Road to Insanity

It had been 16 years since the tragedy that took place, she remembers it like as if it happened yesterday. Ever since the incident, Bia changed her name to Krystal in honor of the rest of her family. Krystal had woken up from her slumber, and climbed out of her nest, another nightmare, she thought, but when didn't she have this same nightmare?

Krystal trudged from her small nest in her hollow to a nearby branch outside of her home, it was a beautiful morning, she could hear her neighbors engage in conversation, she heard children's laughter as they flew from tree to tree, apparently they were playing a game of tag. Krystal took a glance at them as they zipped by her home, not bad for a couple children, she thought. Krystal remembers playing similar games with her family too, before the tragedy happened.

Krystal had succumbed to the devastating memory once more, images of it flashed in her head, the tragedy that left her to be an independent Spix Macaw. She remembered spending time with her family in their hollow, and everyone was doing their own thing at the time. Tiago was pranking Blu with another spider prank as shown in the middle of Rio 2, Jewel was cracking open Brazil nuts, Carla was listening to her MP3 player, and of course Bia was reading a book about butterflies.

Krystal remembered being bitten by a spider, she thought it was Tiago's non-venomous spider he was using to prank Blu; however, when she took a glance at the prank, she looked at this new spider with dread. This spider bit her on the tip of her wing, and it swell up. Before she had time to react, she was beginning to feel lightheaded, and she was sure that she was going to faint right then and there; however, her last glance at them before succumbing to this venom would be the rest of her family getting bitten by this spider.. what a quick moving spider, Bia thought, before finally passing out.

Bia woke up in a dark room, the only light source was a few dim, small lightbulbs that made their home on the ceiling, and the ceiling provided a few sounds of drips and drops of water, colliding with the floor below. Bia tried to move her wings, but she couldn't move, she tried to move her legs, but she couldn't move them either.. has she fallen to the effects of sleep paralysis? No. She could move her head. She examined herself, she was on a cold slab of stone, and her limbs were tied down with thick ropes of vines. Bia tried to move again, but they were too strong for her.. then she remembered, she has a strong beak!

Bia didn't hesitate, she aimed her beak to the vines on her left wing and with a little struggle, she managed to break that wing free! She then moved onto the right one, breaking that one free too. Once both of her hands were free, she sat up and untied her feet with both of her wings, she was free! She then felt around for an exit in this dark room, the only light source she had was a few dim, small lightbulbs on the ceiling; however, she did see a little bit more light.

Bia looked at this source of brighter lighting, and it was revealed to be a small boulder blocking a way out, and by further analysis, any macaw can go and crawl through this space! "I'm free!" Bia thought; however, it wouldn't be long that she heard groaning from behind her.. her family.

"Hello? Ugh.. where am I? Why can't I move?" Said this voice, Bia recognized this off the bat, Carla. Bia ran to Carla's side, and Carla was ecstatic to see her sister not tied down. "Bia! Where are we?! Why can't I move?". Bia couldn't solve Carla's first question, but she did notice that Carla was stuck in the same way, she couldn't move. "Don't worry, Carla, I'll get you out of here!" Bia reassured as she started to take her beak to her sister's bonds, and after a few minutes, Carla could move again.

Bia and Carla shared a deep embrace, until what Bia remembers to be the last of the waking groaning.. Tiago. "Aaaah! I can't move! This is a nightmare! Somebody, anybody, help me!" Tiago screamed, Bia and Carla went to his side and reassured him that everything would be ok. "It's ok, Tiago, we'll get you out of here. Bia, show me how you got yourself and I free, quickly!" Carla commanded. After brief tutoring of cutting vines with one's beak, Tiago was freed by his sisters.

"Let's get out of here" Tiago said, trying to fly towards the exit, but flapping his wings wasn't doing anything, what was wrong? "Hey, why can't I fly? Why do my wings feel lighter?" Tiago questioned. To all of the siblings' horror, it was revealed that their wings were clipped to prevent flight.. strange. If they were tied down, what need would there be for wing clipping? "We have no time to mull over that, I found an exit after I freed myself earlier, we need to move, NOW!" Bia commanded.

Bia, Carla, and Tiago worked together to push the boulder, free at last! They were about to leave, but they heard maniacal laughter.. Nigel. The siblings wanted to run, but that was until Nigel was looking at something other than the slabs the children were bound to, he was glancing at two more slabs in the room. Blu and Jewel.

Nigel flipped a switch that brightened the room, it nearly blinded the siblings to go from almost pitch black darkness to a fully illuminated room, but due to fear of being seen by Nigel, they kept their flinching to a quiet eye-covering via each others wings. The children quickly hid behind a large rock in the corner of the room next to the exit, this was the same boulder blocking the exit. From here, Bia calculated that they would see all of what Nigel was doing, but he could never see them.

"It appears that you two haven't awoken yet, you can't seriously have died from that spider bite, now could you? We hadn't even begun the fun yet!" Nigel said viciously, he flipped another switch next to the one that brightened the room, or should we say.. a small cave by the interior design. The switch caused Blu and Jewel's bodies to convulse, and from what Bia saw, Nigel was electrocuting them from nails that he hammered into her parents' wings and feet and hooking up wiring to these nails, this reminded her of a very familiar situation that she's heard of before. The cave was filled with an unending melody of Blu and Jewel's screaming and crying, electricity filled their nerves and veins, it felt like as if they were on fire and getting stabbed in multiple places. Nigel flipped the switch again, Blu and Jewel smoldered.

The siblings had different reactions to what they witnessed, Bia was covering her face, Carla was holding back tears, and Tiago was straight up pissed off. Why would Nigel do this? Blu and Jewel were almost knocked out, but they lifted their heads up to look at each other, they were in disbelief to find that they were tied to cold, stone slabs. "Now that I have your attention, I've come to you with something you must know. I have you two and your precious children tied down, you just can't see the kids right now because their stone slabs are in the darkest corner of this room! Once I'm done with you two, I'll take the liberty of displaying your bodies in front of the children as I perform torture on all three of them" Nigel said as he glanced at the parents with a malicious look.

"Leave our children out of this! What did they ever do to you?!" Jewel yelled. Nigel turned to her and got in her face, Jewel retaining a fierce look on her face. "Because you two pathetic fools decided to breed, if only two Spix macaws like you have wronged me in the past, I'm sure your children will do the same, just look at what you did to me! You two rendered me permanently flightless! EXPLAIN THAT, WHY DON'T YOU?" Nigel scolded. "Jewel did nothing to you! I'm the one who pulled that fire extinguisher and attached it to your ankle and sent you flying into the airplane's propellor! Don't torture Jewel! Please, please let her go!" Blu pleaded with Nigel.

"BWAHAHAHAAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHA!" Nigel laughed, "Do you really think Jewel wasn't involved too? Can't you recall that me and my human servants caged you and your Jewel? You two somehow escaped from your cages, set all your friends free, and now look at me, I'm a brokeass macaw with no human servants! Just an annoying, lovesick frog and a stupid, mute anteater! I have no money! All I have is a want to quench my revenge!".

"Nigel if you let us go, we promise not to say a word to anyone, we'll move to Minnesota if we have to, we promise to keep away from you, just please let us go and don't torture us! We can even-" Jewel said before she was interrupted by Nigel.

"Heh heh, you see, I cannot let you do that. Don't you recall what I said about you two breeding to make more Spix macaws to wrong me in the future? While I may not be able to take out every single Spix macaw, I can get rid of you two and your children... we'll just call it.." Nigel picked up a small, circular saw "..Population control".

"At least if you kill us, can you please keep us out of our kids' eyes? None of them should see this.." Blu pleaded once more, but Nigel rolled his eyes. "I had enough of your pathetic bullshit, it's time to begin" Nigel pressed a button on the small buzzsaw, and the device whirred to life. "Don't watch!" Whispered Carla to her siblings, she covered up her siblings' eyes as much as she could, but there was no way she could block their full view, fear kept all of their eyes glued to the torture.

For the sanity of the siblings, they couldn't stop watching. They watched as Nigel dug the spinning buzzsaw into Jewel's left leg, she screamed at the top of her lungs as fiery pain shot up from her leg into the rest of her body, she felt blood rush out of her severing limb and heard it fall onto the floor, she watched as all of the tendons were being cut from the limb, she was getting close to not being able to control that leg, she sniffled back tears to keep her dignity through the torture, she didn't want to wake up her presumably sleeping children, she didn't want them to watch this. Unfortunately, the children were already watching the horrific torture of their beloved mother, Carla gagged, Tiago was close to crying, and Bia's psychology was undergoing a change.

The buzzsaw finally tore apart the bond between Jewel's leg and the rest of her body, and the leg landed on the cold, stony floor of the small cave with a loud thump, and blood poured out of the severed leg, and it poured out of Jewel's body, she was feeling lightheaded and painful. Blu looked at his wife with worry and fear, he knew that she was going to die right then and there, he almost cried, but it was as if their love allowed them to read their minds, Blu was concerned about waking their children and having them watch this.

Nigel didn't want to cut off the rest of her limbs, he knew the severed area would cauterize itself as long as Jewel laid down on her back on the stone, but she was tied that way from the start. Nigel started to come up with another idea, he found a blunt rock the size of a normal human hand, and walked towards Jewel. "Y.. y.. you're not going to just throw that at me, r.. r.. right..?" Jewel said with worry. The children remained hidden, despite the want to fight and immediately kill their parents' assailant. They had no chance.

Nigel went to Jewel's side, and took this big rock and smashed her severed leg with this rock, Jewel screamed at the top of her lungs again, forgetting about her children that were probably sleeping, in fact, she no longer cared about their slumber, she wanted them to see this so they could have their chance at escaping with their beaks to break the vines while their veil of darkness still hung over the stone slabs. This was ironically the same idea Bia had, and Jewel felt dreadful as she didn't come up with this earlier, perhaps she would've gathered her children and her husband and get them all back to safety, they'd live a normal life again.

The rock came down and met with her severed leg repeatedly, and the collisions stopped, only for Nigel to walk up to Jewel's left eye. "Nigel! What are you doing! Nigel! Stop! NOOO! NOO! NOOOOO00000!" Jewel pleaded, and Blu caught onto Nigel's diabolical idea. "PLEASE DON'T DO IT NIGEL! SHE DID NOTHING TO YOU! IT'S ME THAT YOU WANT! NIGEL! NO! STOOOP!" Blu pleaded loudly, he tried to struggle, but his earlier electrocution made him too weak to move.

Nigel smashed Jewel's left eye with the stone, and this was responded with Jewel's crying and Blu's screaming. Each time the stone met with Jewel's left eye, half of her world got more darker and more painful, until finally half of her world darkened forever. The area around her eye had swollen, and a part of the eye's sclera hugged the bottom of the rock, yep, Jewel was blinded in her left eye alright. Blu threw up on the stone floor around Nigel's feet, and the children looked away in respect for their dad, and they almost puked to see that their mother's left eye had been damaged beyond repair.

"Blu! I knew I would expect you to make my beautiful, silky feathers covered in your stomach acid! No matter, congratulations on making your torture 4 times worse than already planned!" Nigel scolded. "Nigel, there's something you don't understand, you could never torture me worse than making me watch my beautiful wife get relentlessly beaten!" Blu responded. Nigel didn't respond, he saw a part of Jewel's sclera on the bottom of the stone he was holding, and he had an idea.

"Eat this!" Nigel yelled. "What?! Eat my wife's eye!? No! I will never do that! I will never ever do that!" Blu screamed. "Alright, Blu, if that's how you want to play it.." Nigel said. Nigel went over to Jewel's side, but not with a rock, with a container of liquid.

"Bia, what is that?" Tiago whispered, "Is he going to do some sort of Chinese water torture?". "You birdbrain! For that to happen, there needs to be a bucket of water slowly dripping onto our mother's head whilst she wears something to cover her face, it's not meant for physical torture, it's psychological torture" Carla retorted. Bia examined the liquid in the clear container, the water was clouded, but it was more clouded than just contaminated liquid. Was he going to make their mother drink bad water? No. It couldn't be that, it's way too easy. "I want Jewel to have every single drop of thi- whoa! Almost dropped this on you when it wasn't time yet! Be lucky I caught it when I did!" Nigel said. What Bia observed was that Nigel failed to catch a single drop, it landed to the floor and it corroded a spec-sized hole into the floor, this wasn't good.

"Tiago, Carla" Bia whispered, "That liquid is a powerful acid that can melt through anything, if Mom comes in contact with that substance, it'll burn through her wherever it made contact". "I can't watch! I've had enough of this!" Tiago whispered as he felt lightheaded. "No! Don't pass out on us, we need to stay awake so we can find the opportunity to attack Nigel" Carla begged.

The children resumed watching the horrific torture, the sight of their beaten mother made them heartbroken. Nigel wiped aside the smoldering liquid, to find that the floor was still intact in that area. "I knew this contaminated, warm water would burn you. Be lucky that I'm nice enough to not make you drink boiling water, it is known to swell the throat, I enjoy your screams of pain, so I won't render you speechless" Nigel stated. "What, are you going to make me believe that's water? You don't know what that is, that's-" Blu said before he was interrupted by Nigel. "Don't spoil the surprise for your wife, my pitiful Blu, in fact.." Nigel said before taking the next course of action.

He forced Jewel to drink the hot water, it wasn't that bad only what made it bad was what was IN the water. Jewel felt prickling in her stomach, which reminded her of bug bites.. she was given parasites via ingestion. "What did you do to her?!" Blu yelled. "I fed her parasites via this warm water, if you don't eat Jewel's remains of her eye, she will die and not be given the antidote to kill these little fuckers invading her digestive system" Nigel challenged.

Blu didn't want his Jewel to go through this. He wanted her to be happy, he wanted her to be alive, all he ever thought about was her.

"I'll do it" Said Blu, "I'll eat Jewel's eye remains". A smile crawled to Nigel's face, "Well then.. you've finally come around. I'm so proud of you, you won't regret it" Nigel said sarcastically as he displayed the blunt stone with Jewel's eye's remains. "Bon appetite!" Nigel winked at Blu. Blu extended his neck as far as he could and grabbed as much as the remains as he could, and he swallowed them. He even went as far as to lick off the remains that attached themselves tightly to the rock, and he swore he saw a part of Jewel's pupil. Blu felt tears run down his face as he did this, he felt bad, but he'd do anything to guarantee the safety of his wife.

The children looked on from their hiding place, while they were sickened at Blu's actions, they couldn't help but admire their father's bravery and for a second, they swore they knew what love was like, nonetheless, they wanted to stop Nigel so badly.

"Alright, Nigel, I did like you ask, please give Jewel the antidote! Please!" Blu pleaded. "Alright then, Blu, I'll give her the antidote" Nigel stated as he held another container of liquid, was the same liquid going to counter the parasites inside Jewel's body?

Nigel quickly poured the liquid on Jewel's body, it burned her and blood began to pour from her feathery skin, Jewel was screaming and crying, writhing in her bonds. Jewel felt tears go down her remaining eye, she turned her head to Blu, conveying without words that her end is imminent, in fact, her crying was quieting down to painful groaning as the acid burnt through her delicate skin and onto the stone slab she laid onto, but the stone remained intact.

"JEWEL! JEWEL! JEEEWEL!" Blu screamed, but the only response was a quick glance at Blu from Jewel. Their eyes met, and Jewel blew a kiss to Blu, she gave a small smile and quietly said "It's ok Blu, it'll be ok.. It's all over now..". Jewel closed her remaining eye, her nerves shutting down and her wings stopped writhing, blood pooled around her body and poured onto the floor. Darkness's cold embrace surrounded Jewel and her body went completely still.

Jewel was dead.

"Je.. Jewel.." Blu moaned through his tears.. "Nigel.. you said.."

"I know what I said, it's a pitiful thing, isn't it? Watching her soul just leave this cruel world just like that? I guess I neglected to mention that while the parasites die from this liquid, this acid would also kill your wife" Nigel pitifully said, but his sadness was a facade.

"M.. Mom..!" Tiago whispered and he backed up into Carla, and she didn't react, she was crying softly at what she witnessed, and Bia was rocking back and forth right beside her siblings, her pupils as small as a pinpoint. "You're a monster, Nigel!" Blu said, but he finally gave in to resistance and began to sob.

Nigel's stomach growled. "I guess I neglected to eat a meal before doing this, torturing your enemies can be quite the thing to make one extra hungry" Nigel looked at Blu. Licking his beak, Nigel went to the switch near the wall, and the children knew better than to think that Nigel was just turning off the lights so he could get a bite to eat.

"Brace yourselves!" Bia whispered to her siblings. Nigel flipped the switch and Blu's body convulsed more severely than the last time he electrocuted his victim, Blu felt the electricity rocket through his body and his stomach thrusted skyward, Blu had his eyes closed and he screamed, and he began to smolder. Pain filled his body as if he was on fire, his vision swam in and out of focus all at once, and he fainted, drooling on the stone slab. Nigel flipped the switch to "off"

"Your feathers are dark, but the skin needs a bit more... tendering.."

Nigel then flipped the switch again, setting the voltage to a higher number on the terminal. Blu didn't wake up, but Nigel knew for a fact his victim wasn't dead.. at least not yet. After about 6 more minutes, Nigel turned the switch off. "Blu... Blu.. Blu, wake up!" Nigel slapped his unconscious victim, Blu's vision came back into focus to meet with Nigel's face in close vicinity.

"I can't help but mention your annoyance tonight, could you believe we've gone all day? Look at what happens, things can happen in a day, you go from a peaceful life to grieving the loss of Jewel. Revenge can be a bitch, can it? Here, I have this syringe here, in a few minutes, your body will become completely numb. You won't be able to feel anything, I'm at least kind enough to give you a painless death" Nigel stated.

"I.. can't.. I can't.. do this.. please.. somebody.. help me.." Tiago said as his world spun, he couldn't keep his balance.

Tiago fainted.

"You idiot!" Carla whispered, "Don't you remember our plan?! We have to ambush him into that pointy rock! We have to impale Nigel". It was true, there was a sharp rock next to Nigel, he's be so careful as to not run into it this entire time.

Blu's numbing process completed, and Nigel finally licked his beak in anticipation. "Before you go, Blu, thank you".

Thank you? For what? Blu thought.

Nigel effortlessly tore through Blu's skin with his talon, and no pain was felt, but Blu was experiencing a new source of blood loss. Nigel pulled out muscles and put his beak on them, tearing through them like scissors through a piece of paper, and he chewed through and swallowed Blu's wing tendons, Blu could no longer move his wings. Nigel ate through Blu's intestines, and avoided any waste materials that could've been transported through those fleshy tubes at the time of this torture. Nigel ate through Blu's lungs too, and Blu had immediate shortness of breath. Blu was running out of time. Blu had been losing blood.

Nigel ate voraciously, blood splattered in all parts of the room, and blood was splattered on Carla's body, much to her horror. Nigel even threw out unwanted organs, such as Blu's stomach and his liver, and Bia puked, although Nigel couldn't hear it through eating his dinner.

Blu felt dizzy, he felt heavy against the slab, he heard his ribcage pop out of place when Nigel finally took aim for Blu's heart, and the children didn't have enough time to ambush when Nigel ripped it right out of Blu's chest! The heart was still beating in the psychopathic cockatiel's beak, and he ate it as it beat a few times going down his esophagus.. it was the most delicious piece of Blu he tasted yet!

Blu couldn't say anything, he gagged and gasped for air, but all was in vain. Blu closed his eyes and got into a comfortable position, not like it would matter.

and then he was gone.

"Thank you for providing me with food" was the last sentence Bia heard before she became dizzy, she couldn't keep her balance, she looked to Carla as she met with the earth below her.

Bia had fainted.

...

"Krystal! Krystal! Hey! Snap out of it, Krystal!"

Krystal snapped out of her daze, of course she was reliving that horrific nightmare. She met up with her older sister, Carla. "Hey, are you still reliving those nightmares? Don't worry, my dear sister, I've found some treatment options we could try after school today". It was true, Krystal had been reliving that same nightmare, it even affected her in school. Those memories would be intrusive, they'd haunt her every single day, and she never got a peaceful night's sleep. To others, her disconnection from reality would last up to 2 minutes, but to her, they'd feel like forever.

Carla still kept her fluffy appearance, but she was taller and slightly slimmer, and she looked almost like their deceased mother. Krystal had even looked like her deceased parents. Krystal was the most intelligent of the three siblings, she knew what they had to do to live alone, and throughout the rest of their childhood and into their adult years, they kept their responsibility of attending school.

"Yo! Are we heading to school or what?" Tiago called from the upper part of the hollow, and he flew from his small nest to his sisters. Tiago looked at Krystal, and he knew that look. "Poor Bia- I mean.. Krystal.. she's still reliving those memories.." Tiago somberly stated, "Hey, Carla? Why did Bia change her name and all of our last names from Gunderson to Bleu?"

Carla looked at her younger brother and decided to answer. "You were still unconscious through that fateful day after Mom died of being burnt by acid, I was able to carry you and Bia to safety in that forest, and we made it back to our hollow without.. of course.. our beloved parents" Carla showed signs of sadness, but choked back tears and continued to speak "We wanted to do something in honor of them, but Bia insisted that she'd change her first name because she dearly loved both of them like we did. She changed her name from Bia Gunderson to Krystal Bleu". Tiago looked at his older sister, "A crystal is technically a jewel.. which was our mother's first name, and Bleu is french for blue, and that's the color that gave our father his first name.. I see..".

"Alright guys" Krystal resolved, "Enough moping, let's get to college before we're late". "Agreed!" said Tiago and Carla.

And so Krystal, Carla, and Tiago set off to their college-like school. It was just another day, but how can Krystal keep up her sanity with this Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? The only thing keeping her from going beserk on her classmates was the presence of her siblings, who kept her calm when she got worked up.

It was just another day for the Spix macaw family.

Yep, another day.

Just another day.

And this is the end of chapter one! Will Bia/Krystal be able to remain stable for the rest of the school year? Will she ever get psychological help for her PTSD? Find out in the next chapter of Bia's Road to Insanity.