Do you know why babies cry when they are born? Because of pain.

For a long time, humans didn't even need to breathe; they were just nourished by their mother's umbilical cord. But when we are born and the air enters our lungs, it's a very painful experience because we have never done it before.

Literally, the most basic thing in human life is painful to learn, and the child has to tolerate that pain until it becomes... a thing of the past. Until they get used to it to the point where it no longer hurts.

But the child in this story was different. She didn't cry when she came out of her mother's womb; the girl laughed. Fernanda let out the most delightful laugh a newborn could. This made the doctors look at her in shock, perplexed, fascinated, proud, and amazed.

For the first, and only, time in human history, a person was born laughing. For her, what was painful for everyone else was merely intriguing. Feeling her lungs expand, the air going down her nose, was ticklish, it was funny.

The girl made the whole hospital laugh because she was born blessed with positivity. And always making people laugh with her kind and gentle way of being.

From a young age, she was blessed with a fertile imagination, creating animals, events, and people in her head. When she heard a story, watched a cartoon, or played a game, she would enter it and, using her own imagination, leave fantasy in the dust.

She was an only child, and her parents weren't very present with her. They both worked a lot, constantly leaving the girl unsupervised or in her own corner, and almost never paying attention to the things she said or did.

The child lived many adventures in her head, creating her perfect utopia. Her "once upon a time" and "happily ever after." 24 hours a day, the girl smiled. Played. Jumped. Laughed. She was happy in the world she lived in.

So happy that, honestly, people found it strange.

"Does she have a problem?" her mother said to her father. "She talks to herself, plays by herself, laughs by herself. My God, does our daughter have a problem? Is she retarded?"

But the man did not respond, only focused on his cell phone, much more interested in whoever was chatting with him. When he realized that his wife was talking to him, he looked confused and lost, having no idea what had been said.

That only enraged his wife further, and the two started another fight. It was constant, in fact. They fought in bed, at lunch, at dinner, blaming each other.

Fernanda just watched all the fights, frightened, not knowing how to help, wanting to escape and hide so as not to take part. Under the bed, the table, or even in the closet. She just wanted to hide from all the chaos at home.

She would eventually hear people saying that her parents' marriage could no longer be saved. She would have to choose between them.

But those were just words, theories, speculations; they hadn't happened yet. So there was no reason to be afraid. The girl just smiled hopefully, trusting, believing, surrendering to that feeling of tranquility.

Her life was good. She was a good girl. She was born a happy girl for a happy life.

And nothing would take away her joy.

Did her parents separate? How great, that means she has two houses to live in now.

Did her father marry a stepmother who hits her and doesn't even care? At least he found someone who makes him happy; she just needs to try a little more and soon she'll win her new mother's heart.

Does her mother mentally abuse her, cursing, belittling, calling her an idiot, stupid, retarded, deluded, crazy, foolish? It's just her rough way of speaking; deep down, her mother loves her.

She was the joy of the house; she could see that because she was the only one who smiled. If her parents were incapable of smiling, then she would do it for them. She didn't have a sad life, and if she did, she would make it happy. Because that was the girl's gift.

But, as time went by, the girl found it increasingly difficult to hide in her happy world. Her imagination began to weaken, the world wasn't as colorful as she wanted, the sounds, voices, people weren't as real as she would have liked.

And the more time passed, the closer the girl came to facing the sad and cold reality. A reality she refused to accept; she was a smart, clever, and creative girl who would find a way to escape it.

If she was unable to transform her imagination into reality, then reality would become her imagination. She would definitely find a way because she was stubborn, more than anyone else.

The girl started drawing on paper what she imagined, giving a more realistic visual to her creations. When she was on an adventure, she made sounds with her mouth, spoke, acting like the people in her head. Breaking glass, the sound of the wind, explosions, mud being stomped on, flight, songs. The girl made the onomatopoeia of everything that happened in her head, giving a more realistic sound effect to her creations.

Even though she imagined the most fabulous things, her body knew it wasn't real... in the end, she was standing still and frozen in the same place... Just a poor, sad girl making sounds with her mouth, staring at nothing while scribbling on pieces of paper.

No, it was possible to make it more realistic: Fernanda started jumping. How so? Jumping to where? To nowhere, the girl began jumping in the same place over and over again, for hours, sometimes even running from one side to the other. Because this way, she sweated, her heart raced, her adrenaline increased, and her fantasy intensified.

On the outside: She was a pained, lonely, strange, and ridiculous child running from one side to the other, making strange noises, talking to herself. But in her head, the most fantastical worlds erupted and danced, the craziest battles occurred, the most intense loves, the saddest dramas. Everything went in tune with her movement, reality at the mercy of the tip of her pencil with the tip of her tongue.

What a sad girl? She was the happiest girl in the world. She didn't accept what she didn't want because everything could be fun and joyful with the right touch.

Then came school, and the happiest girl in the world began to live with other real-life children. While the other children aspired to grow up, the girl wanted to stay small. While they aspired to the real world, the little one took refuge in her imaginary world.

And she was happy in her world, so happy that it was bothersome.

She laughed loudly, too much. She spoke loudly, too much. Played too much. She was so used to being cheerful and helping others be cheerful that there was no other option for her. It was as if this was her complete goal, to be happiness incarnate. On the rare occasions when she felt she was being dull, she tried to force herself to be funny just to keep making others feel comfortable with her.

The other children couldn't be like that. If you laugh too much, it's kind of exaggerated; it doesn't fit well in society. Speaking loudly is so unbearable; no one wants to hear what you think. It's strange, looks like, when it's clear that someone want's to be heard, it's  a bother to hear.

It seems that when you know what someone is looking for, you don't want to give them what they want. Especially when you're a child.

The existence of that girl, who radiated joy, was unsettling. Perhaps it was envy, pure discomfort, anger, impatience. But for some reason, the girl's joy was disturbing.

So when she laughed, the other children would mimic her laughter to make her uncomfortable. When she spoke loudly, the other children would tell her to shut up, calling her a show-off. They said how she always wanted to be the center of attention. When the girl showed she existed, all the other children looked at her as if she should disappear because there was no place for someone like her in the world.

And some children started to get physical, especially seeing that no one seemed to care about the girl. They twisted her wrist. Threw her from the school bleachers. Dirtyed her. Hit her. Cut her hair and clothes when she wasn't paying attention.

The adults? They were nothing; she was just another girl, nothing special. They didn't want to know about her; in fact, it was annoying to hear her ask for help and cry. Didn't she know how to defend herself? The girl only complained about how her peers treated her and didn't even try to make friends. How annoying she was, conceited, needy, exaggerated.

How she was just a plain, uncouth girl.

But Fernanda wouldn't let this fact shake her spirit. The other children just didn't see the world the way she did; she just needed to show them. After all, she was a good, intelligent, and cheerful girl. Who wouldn't like her? In movies, the nice person is always loved by the audience; everyone always feels pity and loves the nice and cheerful person. Everyone adores the innocent...

In movies.

If she kept smiling, if she continued to show how amazing she was, then they would appreciate and admire her too. It would be exactly like in cartoons. She just needed to smile, and eventually, she would captivate everyone around her.

So the others kept trying to break her: Physically, mentally, emotionally. At home and at school. Everyone gave their all to see that girl cry, give up, stop, accept that she was wrong.

But she kept smiling, remained hopeful, kept trusting that, at some point, everyone would see her as the special person she was.

It was okay to eat alone in the bathroom; it meant it was more for you.

It was okay to walk alone around the schoolyard, sometimes hiding to avoid being hurt; just pretend you're playing a secret agent.

It was okay if your parents didn't care about what happened at school; if no adult cared about what happened to little Fernanda, it showed she was much more independent than the other children and could handle her own problems.

It was okay to be alone because it made it easier not to be part of the real world.

The real world hurts; it is just pain, sadness, suffering, all that is bad. While the good things only exist in our heads.

But what if... that loneliness went away?

What if someone came along who treated her as she was? Special!

One day, that's exactly what happened. A boy came into her life. What was his name? He had many: Thunder, Felipe, Vincent, so many that it was hard to keep track. Choose the one you like best.

This boy moved to her school when they were both in the sixth grade, and from the beginning, he was fascinated by the girl's joy. For a while, he watched the bullying happen, avoiding getting involved because he didn't want to suffer the same fate by helping a stranger, but he was curious about how far that girl could go under such pressure.

He observed and followed, noticing the girl's pattern. She always went to the bathroom when the situation became too much to bear. Standing near the school courtyard pillar, exposed for everyone to see, while seeming to use the object as shelter. Joining the school ping-pong table even though everyone rejected her, not only playing but defeating those who faced her in the game. Even though this only made the ordeal worse later, the girl was not stopped from being herself.

No matter how many times they mocked her for being neat, she never gave up on answering the teachers' questions correctly. No matter how much they laughed at the way she walked, she never gave up on walking with her back straight and her nose in the air, with complete pride in herself and who she was.

No matter how many times they yelled for her to stay down, to cry, to hate, to disappear. The girl never stopped being herself, never letting bitterness triumph in her life.

On a determined day, the boy was playing a battle game with a friend in his notebook; the idea was simple. Each of them would choose a monster from a famous cartoon, and they would fight on the page, drawing attacks and taking away life.

By coincidence, it was a cartoon the girl was familiar with and she ended up interested. Without any fear, she approached and asked to play. The boy's friend immediately stepped away, not wanting to have anything to do with the school joke, but the boy, intrigued, allowed and played with her.

Fernanda gave him a beating; her knowledge of those characters was much greater than his. But that game made the boy see how she was... cool.

A friendship formed between the two. For Fernanda, it was her only friendship in life; for the boy, she was the only true friend in that school. His other classmates teased him for paying attention to the girl.

For Fernanda, something new emerged. She had previously had no interest in contacting anyone, completely convinced that the real world had no place for her. Now everything had changed because by making a friend, by starting to be seen, by having someone who listened to her, who shared the same interests, by having someone who understood her, it seemed that, finally, the realization that she existed had hit her. The realization that she was part of this world.

The boy was the first person in history to ask about her feelings and to tell her that it was okay to feel them. Something the girl had never considered before because, after all, she only felt joy, didn't she?

Fernanda wasn't greedy or selfish; she didn't want to be popular or be the only friend in the boy's life, but she wanted to feel special when talking to him. She didn't want to live alone; once you've known the warmth of the sun, shadows become too cold.

So the girl, who had previously learned to find refuge only in her mind and now had an anchor pulling her back to the real world, constantly switched between moments of joy in one world and another.

But as time passed, she found it increasingly unfair. Having to be alone. Having to control herself. She could no longer hide in her fantasy world because she was spending too much time in the real world. Noticing the contrasts between what was in her head and what was real.

I am happy all the time. I feel other emotions sometimes.

I can be friends with everyone. There are people who don't like me.

There is no place for me in this world. I am part of this world.

I am nobody. I am a special girl.

Both worlds clashed. The one she created and the one she lived in.

All thanks to her newest friend who always talked to her. He began to protect her at school, talk to her about her home life. He started to show her that, in the real world, happiness existed.

Little by little, she began to let go of her fantasies, finding the courage to live in the real world. If the girl tried hard enough, she could change everything. If she had at least one person who saw her as special, who believed in her, then she could change the world.

But unfortunately, a car accident took her friend away, leaving her alone in the world again.

Bullying returned, along with mourning and depression. Fernanda could no longer return to her fairy tale because she had become too established in the real world. No matter how much she tried to imagine, she could no longer make it real enough to escape. Recreating her friend in her head wasn't the same as having him there. Drugs to help her hallucinate were only temporary. Now the girl found herself trapped in reality.

The cold, painful, cruel, and sad reality. Where she was beaten. Where she was hated. Where she was alone. Disbelieved.

The reality where her life was miserable.

Even if she tried to smile now, she wouldn't be able to because she was tired of escaping. Perhaps this was her life. Perhaps she just had to give up... on having friends, on smiling, on being happy, on being herself.

Give up on existing and living.

NO!

It came strong in the girl's heart; if the universe was stubborn in its machinations to prevent her from being happy, she was stubborn squared.

If it was trying to create a situation where she either changed or died, then she would take that bull by the horns and make the universe change.

She would, once again, shape reality to her will. Where everyone could smile, where no suffering would continue to exist.

She would reject every last fragment of all the bad parts of life. She would make everyone happy. She would be happy. She would change the world.

She rejected parents who didn't love her. Rejected peers who beat her. Rejected adults who ignored her. Rejected mourning. Rejected sadness. Before, she believed the real world was only suffering, but her friend showed her otherwise. There were indeed good things in life, but the bad ones were so much more prolific, powerful, and widespread that they overshadowed the good.

That's why people couldn't be happy, or believed it was impossible to be happy, because they only focused on the bad parts. So if she could get rid of the bad parts, everyone would see that she is real.

For days, weeks, months, years, the girl lived her life smiling. Rejecting all the bad things, trying to help everyone she could, trying to start project after project of charity and care, but only she didn't work. No one supported her, no one saw her, no one wanted her.

She couldn't change the world on her own, but as long as she didn't change the world, she would always be alone, because her friend was a one-in-a-million chance.

At least, that was what she thought and feared.

She had to change, she WOULD change. The girl declared, shouted, said, and thought.

The whole being of that girl longed for one thing.

That was her longing: to change everything.

And her stubbornness against the laws of nature was so great, so immense that there was no comparison with anyone in history, that a law of nature was dragged to Fernanda.

Lily didn't know who that girl in front of her was, because the virtue of hope had been invoked by the girl's fervent hopeful stubbornness. By the powerful belief that she could indeed change the world. The child had never heard of that girl, had never noticed that girl. To Lily, until that moment, she was just a girl.

Nothing special, except for the obvious fact that she was special.

The virtue was amazed and confused as she saw the girl in front of her, equally confused. Many had hatred for the dark virtue, and that made it hard to find a candidate among many. But today, the candidate had found her.

Lily did nothing but smile; for the first time, it was not she who sought a human. She had been sought, she was the one receiving the proposal from a person's heart.

She didn't waste time, a one-in-a-million chance, and after offering the deal, she herself killed the girl in front of her. So that the most powerful heart she had ever found could not escape.