Far, far beyond our solar system, there is a planet entirely covered with volcanoes, and in the mouth of one of these volcanoes lived a small folk. They were very unusual by nature: spiteful, selfish, and self-absorbed. The foundation of their existence was to harm their neighbors. They were entirely made of lava, and in their chests, they held a small black stone.

They lived in isolation, not communicating with each other, and if they did bear offspring, it was only a forced measure to prevent their race from dying out, not out of love. They lived this way for time immemorial, and probably nothing would have changed in their lives if not for one event: one day, on the very edge of the crater, one of these little beings woke up and went about his habit of ruining his neighbor's mood. Suddenly, he discovered that his neighbor's house had blackened and frozen forever, just like the neighbor himself.

At first, the little being was delighted and decided to run to the center to tell everyone about the unusual harm he had done to his neighbor. Almost reaching the center, he realized that he was not the only one there. Thus, they learned that their home was dying; the volcano was going out. Since the folk were spiteful, no one wanted to help anyone. Everyone only thought about moving their house closer to the center, where the temperature was still high. And so they parted ways.

But with each passing day, more and more houses and their residents remained frozen. Soon, the volcano was almost extinguished; only the center remained hot, housing just a few dozen closely packed little houses.

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And in one of those houses, in the very center, lived a girl made of lava. It seemed that she was no different from the others, that she had the same red bubbling body as the rest, and that every morning she did harm to her neighbor. But something in her distinguished her from the others. One day, she saw a little lava person fall and hurt himself, and at that moment, she experienced very strange feelings. She wanted to HELP him... The girl was astonished by such thoughts; why would she help some unfamiliar boy? But from that day on, such things began to happen to her more and more frequently, and suddenly she heard strange sounds in her chest. There was something there, and it was making a noise: THUMP-THUMP. With each passing day, the sound grew louder, and inside it became hotter. Now, in the girl’s chest was not just a small stone but a huge, glowing red heart. The bigger and hotter the heart became, the fewer un-frozen residents remained.

One day, the girl went out to admire the remaining houses in the volcano and to say goodbye to them. By then, there were only a few living little beings left, and they were no longer hot; their movements were slow; they were freezing. The girl felt such a deep sorrow for her folk, and she felt so sorry for her beloved home, that she tore out and crushed her fiery heart. The heat from her heart was so strong that it caused an earthquake and awakened the volcano once again. A miracle occurred: the lava began to melt, and the little folk returned to life. Once thawed, everyone came to see what had happened and what had awakened the sleeping volcano, but they found nothing; only small stones were scattered in the square. Not thinking for long, everyone went about their business, doing harm to their neighbors and concocting new malicious plans for the morning, and only one little boy decided to pick up an unusual stone. Something drew him to it. He put the stone in his pocket, and after a while, he heard a strange sound coming from somewhere: THUMP...