Life is certainly strange were, one moment someone can be flying high, soaring over everyone and the next, the sun melts their wings and they are sent plummeting back to earth. Yet, the same can happen in reverse where, one moment, life can be meaningless and the next, every wonderful thing that someone could have ever dreamed of, is theirs. Enki still feels as if he is trapped in some wonderful dream and at any moment he could awaken and lose all the happiness that he had found.

It is more out a force of habit that has Enki trekking back out to the bubbling pits where he had first been confined when he joined Insomnia and the smell hits him like a slap across the face. The once familiar scent now causes his eyes to water and it smells if someone had taken eggs, allowed them to rot in the sun and them shoved them all into this land. While one tar pit might not have been so bad, the sheer number of pools of the bubbling tar amplifies the smell until it is almost nauseating.

Coming to a stop near one of the smaller pools, Enki casts his blue gaze over the land as he remembers all the time he had spent here and watches the bubbles that slowly raise to the surface of the dark viscous liquid.


"Enki Klein"

code & art © skelle 2023

Hag was a largely unattended child, even before her family had disappeared into the night she'd never felt too tethered to home. So hardly a surprise she was even more prone to wandering now. Today she'd decided to follow a familiar scent. It belonged to someone in Insomnia, she knew that much but hadn't put much time or effort into matching individual scents. She knew Red's and that was about it! Hag blinked against the strong smell when she first arrived but didn't seem all that bothered somehow. Though she definitely didn't think it was a smell she was interested in recreating any time soon. The girl moved softly, quiet as she moved up next to the older man she vaguely remembered. She peered at the bubbling material. "What would happen if someone fell in?" No greeting, no introduction just dropping the first question that had entered her mind. Hag didn't even look up at the other wolf, her gaze focused on the thick... Stuff. "Speech"

Art by Talia!

The Tar Pits stir memories from painful times that came before and Enki is reminded of just how far he has actually come in life. One large pool, bubbles ominously in the center of the land while several smaller ones, made of that same natural asphalt, pockmark the open areas around it. There are some safe pathways across the pools made by rocks jut up through the black, vicious liquid to offer themselves paw holds for those bold enough to try crossing.

However, the more he scans, Enki realizes that some of those ‘safe rocks’ glisten in the wintery light and he knows that the bubbling liquid around the stones have popped and splashed across the porous surfaces, leaving them slippery. If a wolf were to try and traverse those specific areas, well, they would be lost to the perils of the pits, their bones just another set added to the unnumbered dead dating back to times long before this one. Eyes draw up to the jagged walls that cut this land off from the rest of the world acting as a natural deterrent to try and preserve the lives who those who might seek to try and conquer the pits.

Enki is lost in his own silent musing and so, misses the approach of the small pup until she speaks. Eyes widen as he jumps slightly up and to the side (luckily there are no pools directly beside them), hackles raising momentarily before falling back as he finds that the voice belongs to a wayward pup that stands beside him. Blinking, he realizes that she is part of Insomnia, from the family that had mostly gone missing and he frowns, realizing that she had wandered away from the pack’s lands to a potentially hazardous place on her own.

Her question lifts one brow as he blows out a breath and softly says, “You shouldn’t be out here alone. This place is extremely dangerous.” The question she poses has Enki’s blue eyes slowly moving out to watch the dark swirling pools not that far from them and he knows that this mysterious land is enticing to any who wish to know secrets. Watching the familiar pools that had been his home for some time, he says, “Well, believe it or not, those pools are filled with a dark, sticky liquid called asphalt. If an animal falls in, that liquid coats them and makes it so that they cannot get out. Basically, whoever falls in would die.”

Was this too morbid a subject for the girl? Enki isn’t entirely certain but he knows it is important for her to understand the dangers of these pools.


"Enki Klein"

code & art © skelle 2023