It was early in the morning and Daniel was walking to school. The school was just two blocks away from his home so he never took the bus. Winter was ending, but it was still cold outside, which didn’t help him stay awake. All he could think about was his bed and a pile of blankets while Akriel and Degdror were hovering around him bickering. They have been at it all night until he drove them out of his room last night around three o’clock.

With all the bickering, Daniel wished that he couldn’t hear what Akriel and Degdror were arguing about. About halfway to school Daniel stopped, turned around towards Akriel and Degdror and said. “Stop it. You two have been arguing since yesterday. This has to stop. Akriel, you are a good spirit and you are older, you should be smarter and just let it go.”

”Let it go? Are you out of your mind?” Akriel said.

“Yeah, just let it go. You have been arguing all night. Nothing can be so important.” Daniel said.

Akriel and Degdror both gasped in shock.

“This is important. The result could have cosmic consequences.” Akriel said.

“Then let’s hear it. What’s the argument about?” Daniel asked.

“You have a staircase in your house that leads up to the second floor. I say that it has eleven steps and Degdror says it has twelve, based on that the floor of the second floor counts as a stair. I say it’s thirteen because the floor on the second floor is not a step.” Akriel said.

“That’s what you have been arguing about?” David asked looking at them like he was looking at two monkeys scratching their butts.

“Let’s put it this way. To climb the stairs, to the second floor, you have to climb eleven steps. That means you lift your legs eleven times. But if you want to actually walk on the second floor, you have to lift your legs one more time and that means you have to climb another step. Following that logic, the staircase has twelve stairs. Argument over. Are we clear?” David said and looked at them. 

Degdror was sticking out his snake-like tongue towards Akriel and making fun of him. Degdror actually made fireworks explode around him as he did his victory dance as Akriel hovered, his hands crossed, sulking.

‘Cosmic importance. How did I get stuck with these two buffoons?’ Daniel thought, turned around and continued walking to school. ‘Only one more year and I’ll be left with only one of them. Maybe then it’ll be quieter.’ That sounded like a dream come through but Daniel still didn’t know which one to choose. 

After a few steps, Daniel heard them arguing again behind him. He gripped the tip of his nose, between the eyes, and sighed. He turned around and angrily asked. “What are you arguing about now?”

“Ketchup.” Degdror said.

“You are arguing about ketchup?” Daniel asked with an irritated look on his face.

“Yes, I claim that ketchup is jam because tomatoes are, technically, fruits. Akriel doesn’t agree.” Degdror said.

“Just… Just keep me out of this one guys. If you don’t stop arguing when we get to school I swear that both of you will spend the next eight hours with duct tape over your mouths.” Daniel said, gave them a cold look and started walking to school.

Every human got a good and a bad spirit when they were born. The humans had both spirits until they were eighteen when their subconscious mind chooses one of the spirits as their companion for the rest of their life. Every human could see the spirits of other humans, but they couldn’t hear what the other spirits were talking about. Only the person to whom the spirit was attached to could hear what the spirit was saying.

Most of the people’s sub subconscious mind chooses the good spirit. Good spirits showed others that the humans were good, because there was an unspoken stigma about evil spirits. If you had an evil spirit as your companion that meant that, you had evil things in your mind and most people didn’t even want to talk to you. Even finding a job with an evil spirit as a companion was practically impossible.

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Not all bad spirits were the same. There were the truly bad spirits that manipulated their humans into doing evil things, some bad spirits that enjoyed giving bad advice to their humans, others brought misfortune to their humans and then there were evil spirits like Degdror. He was a joker, he liked messing with Daniel, playing pranks on him. He did give him some bad advice from time to time and laughed when Daniel ended up looking like a fool, but he wasn’t truly evil, he was just a prankster.

People with good spirits as their companions didn’t have such problems. Good spirits were also different as evil spirits. There were those that also manipulated their humans to turn completely good, do everything to help others and nothing for themselves. Some good spirits gave good advice to their humans, others just brought luck to their humans.

However, something was wrong with Akriel. Akriel didn’t act like a normal good spirit. When Daniel was little and his parents bought him a toy, he always talked about how Daniel didn’t deserve anything, because he did nothing good, nothing to help other people. In school, when Daniel was eating his lunch, Akriel sometimes started yelling at him that he was selfish for not sharing his food with others. He even yelled that all the students in the cafeteria were selfish for not sharing their food with hungry people from other countries. One time as winter was starting Daniel passed a mother walking with her child. They were eating ice cream and Akriel told Daniel to take their ice cream and throw it in the garbage because it was cold and they could get sick.

Daniel was worried that if he kept Akriel as his companion he would be making the wrong choice.

One day, six months before Daniel’s eighteenth birthday, Akriel acted out. The three of them were in a store, Daniel was buying a new charger for his phone and Akriel started flying around the store as if he was upset. 

 “What’s wrong Akriel?” Daniel asked.

“Everything! Don’t you see it?” Akriel yelled upset.

 Daniel and Degdror exchanged a confused look and Daniel said “No. What do you mean?”

“This is a horror shop! A horror shop I tell you! Humans living in poverty built all of this in inhumane conditions! And you are just standing here, not doing anything to stop it!” Akriel yelled.

“Calm down Akriel.” Daniel said.

“Calm down? How can I calm down when there are humans suffering all around the world and you are doing nothing? Nothing!!! You are just standing there selfishly thinking about yourself!” Akriel was yelling. He was really upset so Daniel bought a charger and headed straight home. All the way home Akriel was yelling about how humans are selfish and cruel.

“What are we going to do?” Daniel asked Degdror.

“I don’t think that Akriel will calm down. I think he lost his marbles. I’ll go to the spirit realm and tell them about this. I’ll be back in a bit.” Degdror said and Daniel continued to head home.

When Daniel and Akriel got home, Akriel was still ranting about how people were selfish beings and how they don’t deserve to live. Half an hour later Degdror returned from the spirit realm with a spirit in a white doctor's coat. 

“What happened?” Daniel asked Degdror silently.

“I told them about what happened today with Akriel and they asked me a bunch of questions about his past behavior. I told them about the strange good things and advices he was giving you so the doc came with me.” Degdror said.

As Daniel and Degdror were talking, the spirit doctor sat down with Akriel and listened to what Akriel was saying. He asked him a bunch of questions and when they were done, he took out a small phone from his coat and called someone. Two nurses with a small wheelchair appeared out of nowhere and the spirit doctor came towards Daniel and Degdror.

“It’s good you came to us. We have seen this happen before to older good spirits. When good spirits get older than two thousand and five hundred years they have lived with too many humans and too many times seen how cruel mother nature can be.” The spirit doctor said.

As the spirit doctor was talking the two nurses put a small crazy jacket on Akriel, buckled the leather straps and put him in a small wheelchair while Akriel was yelling that the world will end and that evil will win and kill us all.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to take him away to treat him. I’ll put in a request to the spirit distribution center to assign you a new good spirit.“ The spirit doctor said and gave him a card. “When you want to check the status of your case you just say the word on the card and you will get information on the status of your case.” The spirit doctor flew towards the nurses and Akriel and they were gone.

Daniel and Degdror sat in Daniel’s room, confused.

“They took him away.” Daniel said baffled.

“Yeah, I’m goanna miss the old fart.” Degdror said.

“I have no good spirit.” Daniel said. “I’ll be eighteen in six months and I don’t have a good spirit.”

“So what? You have me.” Degdror said.

“But. It’s unnatural. The others will look at me like I’m a freak.” Daniel said looking at Degdror with a frightened look on his face.