Pull Me Under

                                    

                                          
Another soundtrack suggestion for today's chapter:
Sleep Token, 'Atlantic'
Check it out if you are so inclined.
Quinn fought to break free of the hold that the ether had on him. After the blackness had come, his consciousness had awoken submerged in the depths of its oppressive darkness. It bore down on him from all sides and he felt like he was on the bed of a vast and powerful river; the weight of the water rushed by, the weight of the universe was so all-consuming that it was hard not to lose himself to it.
Even though he could feel himself screaming and snarling, there was no sound. He thrashed and kicked and writhed, trying to escape, trying to reach the opaque light that he could sense far above what he thought was the surface. He knew that if he gave in and stayed there that he would become a part of it forever and he sensed that was what the ether wanted more than anything else. It wanted to consume his soul and to assimilate him. He'd stayed away from it for too long so it clung to him, suffocating him, loathe to let him go again, loathe to set him free.
Anger burned in his heart, filling the empty chasm that had been left behind when the bond with Secondo had snapped. He used his rage to fuel his efforts, a skill that had served him well since Andras had honed it in him, and inch by inch he felt the ether start to give. Quinn was not ready to give up and become its slave just yet, he had a world to tear apart first.
He broke the surface, still struggling, still snarling, still fighting and he woke up in Hell.
Air grabbed him and pulled him tight. He was sobbing, there was so much pain here, so much anger, so much raw grief. Without even thinking twice about it Quinn threw up his walls to shield his quintessence self from it. He would barely have been able to function otherwise.
He managed to manoeuvre himself to his feet with Air clinging to him and within a couple of heartbeats he took in the scene around him. It was absolute chaos and if he hadn't separated himself from his quintessence there was no way he would be able to think straight amongst it.
They had been transported to one of the summoning rooms at the Council chambers in their home dimension. The horror unfolded bit by bit; it was not just his pack. Every ghoul who'd been bonded to an Emeritus was there and Quinn realised that the warnings he'd had over the last few weeks had been taunting him about this. This was it and the scale of it went way beyond anything he could have imagined.
Primo, Secondo and Terzo were all dead and their ghouls had been sent back home.
Quinn looked over the piles of ghouls who were just regaining consciousness and the situation was dawning on them. Most had probably been asleep when it happened. Earth and Omega were up on their feet already and Alpha was cursing.
Quinn noticed a head of pale hair on the ground underneath Veles and his heart sank. Zephyr. He extracted himself from Air and ran over, gently moving Veles who was just waking up and helping him into a sitting position.
"Zephyr?" he whispered as he crouched next to the still form, stroking dishevelled hair from his eyes. He was alive but he hadn't woken up yet. Quinn debated whether he should wake him or not but he decided that he would. "Zephyr?"
He shook Zephyr's thin shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief as the old ghoul opened his pale blue eyes and focused them on Quinn. He prepared himself for the moment of realisation and he sent quintessence to cushion the blow. The unanticipated trip here had taken a lot out of Zephyr and Quinn didn't want him to experience too much more damage.
"No..." Quinn closed his eyes, he didn't want to see Zephyr crumble when he realised that Primo was gone. "No!" 
And there it was, that moment of soul destroying agony that echoed throughout the stone room as one by one the ghouls all realised what had happened.