I woke up reluctantly, and what finally woke me were incomprehensible pokes at my body. Opening my eyes, I definitely didn't expect to see a parody of Sun Wukong. Though even being a monkey, he looked much more like a human than all the life forms I'd encountered before.
Most importantly — he could speak. Not by transmitting thoughts through emotions, but in a simple and understandable language, though it looked more like a mixture of Eastern languages from my past life. [ Image ]

"Interesting," he said after a few more pokes with his finger at my body.
What exactly interesting he found in me at the moment didn't really interest me much. My head, or in my case its equivalent, was filled with many questions, though I was a bit afraid to start a dialogue... I noticed that the "pressure" from the monkey would be even stronger than from yesterday's acquaintances. But it seemed I'd encountered a non-aggressive and very reasonable representative of the "local fauna."
I stirred and began to slowly get up. All this time he was intently examining something in me, as if looking into my very essence, and this was a bit nerve-wracking.
"Hello, who are you?" I decided to end our mutual staring and start a dialogue. Transmitting my thoughts was becoming easier and easier. It seems this form of communication is embedded at some instinctive level in beings like me. If only I could understand who I am...
At this moment his squinted eyes from under bushy eyebrows became round, and his mouth opened in an O shape. A second later he had already jumped back several meters from me.
"You're sentient?!" he shouted excitedly, starting to point at me with his monkey finger.
"You too?!" I decided not to lag behind him.
Calming down, he approached me closely and began extremely actively sniffing me. Honestly, this was strange, I was even taken aback for some time. Before I could properly object, I heard a whole machine-gun burst of questions:
"Where are you from? Why don't I sense a single element in you? How did you become sentient while being a lesser spirit?" incomprehensible questions began pouring from him.
"Stop-stop-stop, let's first have you answer my questions, and then I'll answer yours," I managed to say before he started asking new questions. "I'm here, you could say, for the first time... So, what's your name? Where are we? And what kind of beings are we anyway?"
"Excellent! My name is Wong, and I am a tree baboon spirit... A higher spirit already at seven hundred thirty years old!" he finished the sentence with pride. Judging by his constantly twitching tail, he wanted to know everything possible about me. Right here and now, but decided to restrain himself.
For several hours, I only listened to all the incoming information from the talkative Wong. And gradually began to understand exactly what world I had ended up in.
One of my theories was confirmed — we're now in the spirit world. This place even its native inhabitants don't fully understand. As Wong says: "You can walk along an already familiar road, but ultimately end up in a completely different place."
Here exist two main types of spirits — spirits of darkness and chaos, and light with harmony. Only this doesn't mean they can command darkness or light. No, this only indicates their further path of development, or the direction of their energy.
All spirits gradually, but surely, become stronger and more intelligent as they live — this applies to both the first and second types. Their main difference is that light spirits are peaceful by nature. They see no reason for senseless violence. Why? After all, they become more powerful and smarter as they comprehend themselves and the world around them. And also as the quality, density, and quantity of their energy increases. [ Image ]

While dark spirits are more inclined to chaos and destruction — they can become stronger from killing other spirits, absorbing their energy. This can't help but affect their already not very adequate minds. After all, spirits themselves are energy, so when absorbing foreign energy, a spirit absorbs the essence of another spirit, which greatly shakes their psyche.
You rarely meet an adequate dark spirit who won't attack you in the first seconds. Essentially, dark spirits weak in will rarely can stop themselves from such an easy way of becoming powerful. Mired in devouring their own kind — they're no longer called simply dark spirits, but possessed ones.
As he said, determining exactly which element a spirit belongs to can be very difficult. Sometimes you simply don't see external signs of their orientation. You don't sense which direction exactly he or she belongs to. Moreover, some spirits know how to masterfully hide their energy.
And according to Wong, there are a great many spirits. Both dark and light can be spirits of water, cats, or even some inanimate object. But the main inhabitants of the Spirit Realm are still spirits of the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air. As well as spirits of various animals with the addition of the four elements, for example: spirit of a stone badger, spirit of nature, if its energy is properly mixed with water and earth energy, and this list can continue almost endlessly.
Spirits themselves can live infinitely long, but the oldest spirits simply become uninterested in further existence. Such spirits simply dissolve into the world's energy. According to my new acquaintance — he became a higher spirit despite his young age by the standards of all spirits in general.
"What's this higher, lesser spirit?" I asked with bewilderment. This often slipped through his stories.
As it turned out, there's a gradation of spirits. All spirits are born lesser, except for the great ones, of course — those, as spirits themselves remember, have always existed.
My friend, leaf-head, turned out to be the same lesser spirit. Their main features are: the mind of a five-to-seven-year-old child, low energy density and small quantity of it. Usually they can't control their element far from their body.
The next level is a middle spirit: their energy is already denser and the reserve of such spirits is several times larger than lesser ones, and their minds more resemble human teenagers. They control their element much better, and already consciously try to understand themselves, the world, and their abilities.
The elite of spirits are the higher ones. They don't differ much from an average human, often even wiser in some matters. Some of them can transform into various creatures. All their energy parameters are several times better than middle spirits, and most importantly — the appearance of their own energy source, meaning they don't need a place well-saturated with energy to replenish their reserve. Their own generated energy is enough for living in human terms. Higher spirits can use their element however they please. Understanding of related areas of the element begins to appear. Take the same water element — further understanding of it will give not just control of liquid, but already allow changing its state of matter.
Ancient spirits are almost the very concept of something specific. They appeared much later than the Great Spirits. Ancients are stronger than higher spirits, often have some quirks, so it's better to avoid them by a wide margin, especially if you're not sure whether they're dark or light. They may not be tied to a specific element, or be almost its embodiment. As an example, Wong took Tui and La, the Spirits of the Moon and Ocean, who by the way haven't been seen on the spiritual plane for a long time.
Hearing familiar names, memories of a once-watched cartoon about a boy with tattoos immediately crashed into my head. Now I really see the similarity of creatures inhabiting it and those I noticed in the animated series. It even became much more joyful from this news. Still, if the story here follows the same scenario, I'll be able to personally participate in these events!
I need to find a path to the human world as soon as possible, and most importantly — become human again. Of course, life as a spirit has its advantages, but being human is closer to me.
Meanwhile, Wong continued enlightening me. The most powerful spirits are the Great Spirits — Raava and Vaatu. As far as Wong knows, they always fought only with each other — you could simply not touch them to live peacefully further. Their parity lasted for centuries. From his words, it turns out that with the coming of the avatar era, the life of spirits changed dramatically. The balance maintained during the struggle of the great spirits is gradually being destroyed.
Raava, even while living on the spirit plane, unconsciously supported and helped the appearance of light spirits, while Vaatu took excess dark energy from the dark ones. Now there are many times more dark spirits than light ones, and they've become much more aggressive.
As far as he knows, many millennia ago his kin often feuded with humans, and now they have to pacify dark spirits. On the material plane, humans for the most part no longer remember spirits — after all, human life is short, as is their memory. But many spirits that managed to adapt on the human plane began mutating into various animals. Only some exceptions had enough strength to remain the same, like dragons and spirits of some specific place that passively nourish their existence.
When he finished his story, Wong began asking me about everything I knew about myself. In his life, he had never seen a spirit like me. Being lesser, I already have a small but working source that generates a type of energy unknown to him. And being a sentient lesser spirit at that, in his opinion, is generally something beyond reality.
I didn't tell him about my real origin. After all, I know him very little, though he seems quite reliable. Maybe sometime later, when I can trust him more.
Not getting coherent answers from me, he waved his hand, but looked quite satisfied. Almost all the sentient spirits he knows are very boring in his opinion. They just meditate or do their own business and ask him not to bother them. And with those who could keep him company — he himself doesn't want to make contact, says they have too many cockroaches in their heads.
"Ha, what's your name?" he asked embarrassedly, rubbing his head at the same time. He just remembered that he doesn't know my name.
I myself got stuck for several minutes — many names came to mind, but I felt with every fiber of my soul that the time for a real name hadn't come yet.
"Hey, that's not a problem! I generally learned my name when I was already a higher spirit, and it just came somehow, probably you're just not ready yet," Wong said, seeing my difficulty. "For now I'll just call you friend!"
"You don't mind being my friend?" he asked excitedly.
Agreeing with him, I was once again amazed by his sincere joy from simple communication. He must have been lonely without a conversation partner, since he's so happy about simple things in my understanding.
And I wasn't against his company — it's definitely safer next to him, dark spirits won't threaten me. Seeing that I would stay with him for now, his face took on a happy expression. For a spirit, he has too lively facial expressions...
"Good friend, let's go, I'll show you how strong I am," he said, puffing out his chest. As it turned out, dark spirits had recently settled near the nearest water body, attacking light spirits under his protection.
In order to somehow help their lesser brethren — they fight off their territories from the dark ones, who keep trying to snack on peaceful spirits, since not all are capable of giving a worthy rebuff, some of them don't even have attacking abilities.
During the journey, he began telling about times when he was just beginning to become aware of himself and how he bothered everyone with his questions. And most likely, other spirits probably just decided to give him the task of protecting spirits so he would finally leave them alone. And he was happy to help the defenseless.
Walking along a beaten path, we came to a small water body where dark water spirits had settled. They looked like overgrown earthly piranhas. There was a whole pack of them led by a middle spirit and three lesser ones.
"Stay behind me, usually middle spirits already know how to use various tricks," all this was said with a serious expression, his whole appearance acquired some animal grace, and his step — springiness.
Obediently standing behind him, we began approaching. As the distance shortened, the spirits began growling, taking responsive steps toward us. Though the leader seems to sense that the monkey poses considerable danger to their lives.
Having almost approached them, I began to feel their emotions — excitement and simply enormous hunger predominated there. In my head I kept hearing: "Food! Faster! Mine!" However, only the lesser ones were shouting, the middle one was silent and preparing to attack us.
Tension was building when suddenly the dark spirits jumped at us in unison. Wong, not losing his composure, increased his wooden staff to almost five meters, and killed three lesser ones in one blow. Seeing such quick dispatch, the middle spirit slowed down a bit, but still continued his desperate attack.
The spirit was already a meter from us when suddenly Wong bound his body with his elongated tail and simply flattened him into multicolored energy particles.
I didn't have time to properly be surprised by such quick dispatch of the spirit, when most of the energy from the destroyed spirit, flying around Wong, absorbed into my body.
With the last particle of energy that entered my body, pain flooded my mind. It felt like touching a nerve in a tooth, only the source of pain was his entire spiritual body.
"Oh, how's that?" I managed to hear from Wong as the world went dark.
❄️____________________________________________ ❄️
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Thank you for your support!!!