Tire-some Trials
Wandering through the chaotic void, Klein stumbles upon many iterations of his own soul, some were battling, all much much stronger than he. They all seemed different people almost, some older some in the springtime of youth, and even a few only 3 or 4 or 5 years old. He is surprised by how much stronger even the souls merely of age 3, the same as him, he noticed one of the 3 year old avatars of himself, a relatively weaker one is crying bundled in a ball, and a very solid one seemed to be fathering him. 'Could I get that much stronger so quickly? Is that really me in the future?' Klein has his doubts, sincerely in disbelief, it is well known and excepted as fact that strength takes time to build. In fact, Klein rushing it lead to the destruction of his physical brain.
Klein walks to a solid looking youth around 6, and he asks him "How did you recover from the brain injury?" The solid youth gives him a wide eyed stare --- "I? I did not... not recover... I stayed here... Some of you... us.. I... we... DID recover, just not me... not I... I can't recover because HE told me how he did it... that monster... He is a monster..." the 6 year old looking youth mutters to himself over and over again, giving Klein's "current" incarnation a clue 'I must not learn from others how to leave... or else I never will.'
Klein readies himself and decides to pick a fight, everyone here seems to be stronger than him, everyone here as been here longer. The 6 year old solid looking youth was Klein's first target, if he's going to lose Klein figured it should be against someone much stronger than him. Klein throws a barehanded strike at his lost self, the older one simply looked at his fist and told it to cease. "You know, physical attacks aren't the Dao of this place... Maybe learn to dance, that might do you some good hahahaah! Learning to control yourself is important, only then can your soul become something important in the beyond." Klein took the advice from himself, and started wiggling his body. It was very far from a real dance, he did a twirl, except he tripped over his own foot. It turns out in this plane he has even less control on his body than normal.
"Hm... What if I play with my tail? Surly I can jab it like a spear alternating the stab through my legs." And so Klein began a very repetitive practice, thrusting his tail beside his legs, between them, and then opposite the starting position. Time after time he realized he was more sluggish then he realized, he kept thrusting at his 3 pillars. Even as a soul he feels muscle pain, but it is much much worse, for it was a pain on his soul, not his body.
The training persisted until Klein's tale was raw and his legs were raw. He figured that causing pain to his whole soul-body and then regenerating was the way of the soul. So he dropped down to do as many pushups as he could. His muscles here were weak, and there was much more resistance than he was used to. His soul could sweat, but each bead was painful like an acidic needle scraping the skin. He realized that his soul was full of impurity and that each bit of sweat cleared him of a few of the bad parts of his soul.
The time came where he finally collapsed, everything that he thought he could do with his body was finished, and collapsed into a deep sleep. In his sleep his soul unexpectedly still dreamt, strange he thought, especially strange or maybe not strange at all... because his dream was of him in the chaotic void as well. Without his input nothing happened, it was no movie this dream. Klein willed his dream body to wade through the chaotic void, and he found a collapsed soul of himself in the dream. "Is that me?" He spoke aloud, his main soul's ear twitched. His ear heard his DREAM SELF'S voice. "Oh shit, every time I collapse into a dream there is a new me... Oh my... am I just a dream? Have I always been just a dream." His dream self watched as the collapsed monkey wept tears in his sleep, all the emotions welled up in his dream state and his soul state. The confusion is his souls of soul drove him mad. It was a tortuous existence really. He woke up and saw his dream state staring at him, it didn't go away, and he doesn't control it anymore. It kept an independent thought process based on where his mind wandered off to before snapping awake. "You're me and I'm you and everyone is me but it's you and I can't..." The dream self had a breakdown in front of the main soul copy of Klein. Both were freaking out. 'What is happening, I can't, I can't... I JUST CAN'T!' Tears and tears keep running through the mind and over the face, an existential dread and pain caused nothing but destruction. If everyone here is none other than him then what is happening? What is love? What is life?
It all was just too much, so the monkey let out a... mighty? roar. "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" His blood boiled, do souls have blood some part of his soul of his soul wondered... 'god the iterative properties here are insane...' another part of his soul felt like thinking, realizing how absurd this whole thing was. Sounds of footsteps became louder and louder, "KLEIN GET THE FUCK UP AND STOP WHINING!"
"Wu.. wut? What? Who are... you are... you are me? You're my age but so strong... Wait, that one there is my age too but... WEAKER THAN ME? He... he is going to talk to the 6 year old one... oh my god... I'm not the youngest soul here... what is time? I what? Ah!"