A long time ago, there was nothing; it was just darkness. But at some point within this darkness, spheres began to appear. How? It is not for us to know. They might have emerged because they needed to, they might have gradually formed until they were born, or perhaps they had always existed. There are many ways to theorize, but it is a fact that they came into existence. For thousands and billions, trillions and zillions of human years, only they existed. So much time had passed that, honestly, you could say they had no beginning. If they did, it was so long ago that there is no trace of it. If there is no trace, then one might say it is as if it never existed.

They wandered through the eternal void; there was no direction, no stopping, no gravity guiding them, so they simply traversed the darkness, or whatever you want to call it. Until, at a certain moment, something impossible happened—or rather, not impossible because it happened, but statistically minute, a probability so small that the zeros in the number could be called infinite. It was like something that could only be the work of destiny, something that was meant to happen despite so many improbabilities. What, exactly, you might ask? Well, they collided. All of them, at different points throughout the vacuum, traveling at thousands of miles per hour, all ended up meeting at the same point. All the spheres collided at once, and, well, they weren't just spheres; they contained magic, they contained feelings, they contained fantasy, science, everything.

These spheres were the 20 virtues, and they even contained life.

When all these spheres collided, it was not just the creation of the universe; it was also the creation of a very special couple. Names? They never had such things; the only ways they were referred to throughout their lives were as Mother and Father.

Consciousness was the first thing formed in that explosion, even before their physical bodies materialized, and the pair watched as the world formed, feelings flowed, and the most virtuous rainbow of the world was being assembled, remodeling and deciding all the laws of nature. The Father was perplexed, and the Mother was fascinated. The first sight they had was literally the greatest and most beautiful event in history. As their bodies materialized, they both observed.

She was much more emotional than he was. He was much more analytical than she was.

When the explosion finally calmed, the 20 spheres that originated everything descended carefully right before the couple. Each one glowed with so much glamour, power, and majesty. Those spheres were not objects; they were creators of everything, they were everything. They were the universe as it should be. Tears streamed down the Mother's eyes as she watched, amazed, her creators. The Father did not cry; he just contemplated, speechless at the magnitude of the power he was witnessing.

Time passed. How much time? It is hard to say—seven days? Seven years? Seven decades? Thousands and billions of years? It is so difficult to speak precisely. The important part is that time passed. The Father and Mother did not age; they were not affected by the passage of time, so they didn't even notice that things were slowly changing. They were not on Earth or in its creation. No, they were in their own palace created by the Father.

They were not human, obviously, but they were also not deities per se, as only the virtues deserved that title. They were prototypes of gods, celestial beings but without any trace of true majesty. Over time, the pair became a couple, lucky to find true love with the only other person by their side. Or perhaps, the fact that only each other existed led them to fall in love. Maybe becoming a couple was the only option to avoid being forever alone.

The two were very powerful; coming directly from the virtues, they had direct contact with all of them, with all creation, and with all matter. Thus, they learned to manipulate it to their will, transmuting one element into another, building and destroying everything at their whim. But with the Earth itself, they did not interfere, as they saw it as the most blessed planet by its creators. They built a tall castle in the sky, and there, a separate room where they kept the spheres. The Father wanted to study them, and the Mother wanted to worship them. One feared them, and the other loved them.

To the Father, they were synonymous with power. If they created everything, including them, what would stop them from destroying them someday? If that happened, the couple would have no chance. The only alternative was for him to learn to control them, to discover how to have them under his command.

To the Mother, they were synonymous with wonder. If they created everything, including them, then how magnificent were they? What else could they create? What more could they do? The only way to have this answer was if she could control them, to have them under her command.

Thus began their research to see if they could control them. They could manipulate their creations, so surely they could have some control over the virtues themselves. At some point along the timeline, the couple entered the hall and chose those that seemed to be the weakest of the virtues. The virtue that resembled a small point, rather than a sphere, and the one that contained musical notes dancing across its lines.

He placed his hand on the small one, and she placed hers on the musical one. The Father tried to control it by force, and the Mother tried to control it with affection.

From that little ball, a massive power overflowed. A power that, even if attempted for eternity, could not be tamed. The willpower of that virtue was untamable, and it was the one subjugating them. And this virtue? It hates to lose. The Father tried to control it by force? Then it would tear off his right arm in return.

From the musical notes, an equally massive power overflowed. This virtue was too free to be dominated. But the Mother tried to control it with affection. So, she would receive a blessing for her love.

The ability to hear the essence of each virtue.

After that day, the Father became bedridden, trying to recover from the loss of his part. And while he lay in the room, agonizing in pain, feverish and weak, the Mother remained alone in the room, among the virtues, listening to the essence of each one of them.

They did not speak. They had no voice. But just their essence, sensing how the Mother loved them, was enough to make the virtues touch her.

The glass sphere made her relive that wonderful moment of the explosion of everything, and the rose made the woman feel loved by them as she saw the moment when they created her.

The purple and red spheres made a pang appear in the woman's belly. She still did not understand, truly admired, assuming they had done something, but she did not yet comprehend that she was pregnant, with twins no less.

The blue sphere marked the innocent woman, making her feel so good, implanting the thought that she was a good person.

The green sphere made a flower bloom in front of the woman, while the brown one gave her a dog.

The violet sphere gave her an idea, based on the gifts from the green and brown spheres.

With this, the wine-colored sphere took the opportunity to implant a dream about the Mother.

The orange sphere joined with the transparent one to grant her the certainty that her plans would come to fruition.

The gray sphere gave her the courage to carry out her thoughts.

The golden sphere told her what they could do to achieve what she dreamed of.

The yellow sphere comforted her, making her feel immense joy with that idea.

The multicolored sphere was the only one that refrained from bestowing anything upon her. It is a harsh virtue that does not grant gifts; you learn to possess it.

The blood-red and black spheres, seeing that this would not work, tried to thwart the Mother by filling her heart with bitterness and despair. They wanted those foolish ideas to leave her mind.

But, in the end, the white sphere drove away all the bad omens, as it filled her with hope. Hope that she could do it the right way. Hope that she could impress all the virtues. Hope that she would see them someday.

Her idea was simple: if she could give life to the virtues, then they could bless the world with all their power. They could be perfect, but as long as they were just spheres, their abilities would be limited. If they could move, act, and think like the Mother and the Father, then they would certainly be much better.

Incredible, the arrogance of this woman, to think she should improve upon perfection. The virtues had graced her in her innocence, without truly calculating where all this would lead, for there was still a force in the world that some virtues did not understand: evil.

An evil that distorted all the innocent grace she received into a mistake. The greatest mistake ever made in history.

The Mother told her plan to the Father. They did not have the power to control them entirely, but perhaps, just a little, even if it were 1%. If they could take just a piece, it might be enough.

He loved the idea. After all, if they could make a copy of each virtue, they would have a power minimally capable of defending themselves if they attacked.

Time passed, and the couple had two beautiful daughters, perhaps too beautiful. Graced by their own youth and life. The two carried the genes of their parents but were of entirely different races. They were truly loved throughout the time they lived with them. But by that point, both parents were already obsessed with the idea of giving life to the virtues.

After some work, the Father finally managed to extract 1% of a virtue. The Mother knew how to do it, but only the Father had the true skill to handle them.

The first virtue to emerge was Time, then Joy, then Darkness... one by one, all the virtues were created. That 1% of energy was converted into a being. They did not carry their exact memories from when they were in the spheres; it was more like a distant and blurred past.

The Mother and the Father made a point of naming each one of them. Gradually, the number of beings living in that place grew, with the Father pleased to have his own army, the Mother grateful to have more children from her dearly loved virtues, and the girls confused by the strange appearances one after another. The wingless one loved their company. The winged one, not so much.

But everything would change after a certain day. Only two virtues remained to come: Death and Hope.

The Father then decided to bring Death, but this one was not as simple as the others. He could not even control 1% of it, as it was so aggressive. He had managed to extract it, but the virtue refused to take on a human form.

The Mother and all the others watched as the man struggled against that essence he was extracting. They did nothing, as they were loyal only to the Mother, whom they had blessed, and she did not want to help, as the melody of death echoed in her ears. It was not that the virtue did not want a human form, but that, for this virtue to exist as a human, something needed to fall.

So the Mother just watched as the Father was killed by his next creation. His blood merged with the blood of that essence, and it began to shape into a beautiful woman. Someone screamed at the door, but it did not matter, another daughter was there.

"Mother!" The insistent screams of the two watching everything brought the Mother back to reality. For a brief moment, she looked at the two with disgust. But then she remembered that they were her firstborn and genuinely smiled.

"Girls, meet your newest sister. Isn't she splendid?" she said to her daughters, who continued to stare in shock like two idiots. Her beautiful new daughter, Michelle, the perfect name for her, murmured something, and her two simple daughters ran away in panic.

But who cared about them? The virtues were here, her true daughters. Well... almost all, now only one virtue remained.

She could not wait any longer, just one more, and they would all be there. The Mother then extended her hand, blindly excited and thrilled. Forgetting that only the Father had the skill to extract just a piece of the virtue, the Mother could not separate and found herself struggling against the virtue of Hope in its entirety.

The virtue tried to escape, finally understanding that it would not work, and would have succeeded if its 19 sisters had not come to help the one they saw as a Mother. For an hour, they engaged in a tug of war, with the virtue rejecting them and all of them confronting it.

Until, finally, the virtue broke with the struggle. Using all the power and experience it had acquired over the years, the Mother reshaped one half into a girl with whitish eyes. The other half, seeing everything, also reshaped into the image of the first, but only one of her eyes had turned whitish, as this part represented the side of Hope that tried to escape the Mother's grasp and failed, the side that was disappointed.

This was the Mother's greatest mistake, the consequences of which she would still have to face. She tried to correct perfection, to dominate the sovereign. She tried to dictate how the virtues should be. And now, she had created a virtue made of 50% of each side, far more than she could control.

And now, she had given them human forms, making them vulnerable to evil.

A virtue that would not listen to her, as it was now confused and corrupted. Now, it was just two girls, with too much power. One girl who did not know what to do, while her sister knew too much.

Lalá and Lily were born.

Lalá, the quiet twin, who only observed without any expectations. She wanted nothing, came into a world she knew she shouldn't have, only waiting for everything to end in disaster. The twin who had already given up on everything long before things happened.

Lily, the cheerful twin, who made friends with everyone. The twin pampered by the Mother for being so cute, intelligent, and playful. The clingy twin who loved being the center of attention and despised the fact that the Mother shared her love with all the other virtues.

Lily was an ambitious girl, as she was born wanting to be unique. To be special.

Lalá was a complacent and resigned girl, as she was born knowing her sister planned to cause trouble.

Lily wanted to be the only virtue, the only hope, the only one for EVERYONE. Lily was born to be special and loved, and others stole her spotlight.

Lalá only watched as Lily killed all the other virtues, after all, 1% cannot stand against 50%. She watched as she faced the Mother and expelled her. She watched as she killed her.

Lalá watched as Lily recruited the generals. She watched as her sister killed, humiliated, distorted, manipulated, and destroyed.

She just watched. For she simply had no hope that she could win.

Lalá did not believe in anything. She loved her sister because she was a part of her, not to mention that Lily had always been so forward and powerful compared to Lalá. What could she do but watch?

And she just watched as the embodiment of chaos moved towards her as just another part of her sister's games.

After all, as always, Lily wants to be UNIQUE.