To everyone who knows what it's like to have a monster inside, clawing at your very soul, keep moving. You can do anything for just one more minute.
Previously in Forgotten Essence:
Hey. It's Zella again. I don't know how fast you're able to find these sections of our story, so I thought I'd do a quick recap. If you just finished the first part, feel free to skip on down to the beginning. If you've had to wait, well, this is your chance to remember.
When we started out, I had a small tiff with Hedda, and she told her father. Her childish snitching landed me in a bit of trouble with Master Akai, my adoptive father. Apparently, he'd had enough because he assigned three Grims to keep me in check.
Of course, that didn't work at all. In fact, I think I converted them to my side because they began helping me in my quest to find out what happened to Earth. See, being locked in a metaphorical prison did not sit well with me, so I tried to go to Hakkon and work off some of the effects of the tabs I'd taken. In my anger, I made a mistake and landed on a planet I'd never seen before. Covered in souls and hollowed beings, it languished in its destruction. When I connected to one soul—a woman named Shay—I learned of its history and discovered our part in its end.
Soon, I had the Grouping helping me break into depositories and steal the information from ferrules. Along the way, both Trace and Kian became my lovers on a trial basis. They didn't seem to mind the temporary nature of our relationship. Axton did, however, and admitted that he had feelings. That was a non-starter for me, so I vowed to dissolve my trysts with his Grouping members.
All the while, we continued searching for the code to get back to Earth. We finally found it after we broke into the depository beneath the palace. Somehow, we got caught, and after a farce of a trial, we were stuck in the dungeons.
Oddly enough, it was Master Akai that helped us escape, along with Nassar and Corin. Then Con helped us get to Earth with his shitty, stolen portal. After disabling our passes, we traveled to Earth and snatched the first souls that we could connect with.
The Grouping and I split up at that point, choosing to spread the word as far as we could. And to keep the King from just locking us back up quickly. After a march and a riot, the King agreed to hear my case. He tried to throw us back into the very place we'd escaped from, but since we were now the heroes of the story, the crowd wouldn't hear of it. Instead, we got promoted and a single unit all to ourselves. I gave in to the pull that I felt towards Grouping Mannix, opting to try dating like many other Groupings choose. Oh, and enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that Earth would be taken care of soon.
That's pretty much the summary. Of course, things were more complicated than that, but hopefully, that's enough to bring back your memory of the first section. Now, I've translated some more, but this won't be the end of it. Translating things into a dead language is an arduous task, even with my recall from the souls I've now reaped from Earth. I don't even know if this will be read. Hopefully, someday, Earth will be able to replenish and thrive. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to talk one of my Angel associates into leaving their English language memories intact, so someone will know what this says. I suppose time will tell.
Now, just like last time, some of the words on my planet and others don't have a direct translation, so I've left those in their original or close to original forms. They'll be added into the glossary and placed at the end of this part of our story.
And, also like the first book, not everything within is nice and sweet. In fact, most of it isn't. I still thought about moving on from this life, and I still battled with my monster. Things were difficult, but I learned a lot, too. Well, you'll see.
Now, I'm off to translate this book into a few more languages. After all, those fucking Angels get all the praise. It's time for everyone to realize that without Reapers, they would end up just like Earth.