Ancient darkness. Human cost.

Discover literary dark fiction drawn from the forgotten and the strange.

The Hermit's Circle awaits. Scroll down and collect your free story.

Before We Were Anything

They were here before the first fire. Before the first word. Before the first wall raised to hold back the darkness.

They are here still.

Before We Were Anything collects seven novelettes from D. Hermit — set across continents and centuries, from the edge of the known to the center of our greatest mysteries. They are stories about the things that were sovereign before we arrived, that are sovereign still, and that will remain so long after we are gone.

The first one will make you smile. Most will make you turn on the lights.

Includes a preview of Empty Vessels — Book One of The Age of Demons.

Available Now on Amazon

Thanks to all my readers for helping make it the NUMBER 1 BEST SELLER in Horror Collections and Anthologies during the first week it launched!

Empty Vessels

The soul is not metaphor. It is the firewall, the shield that makes inhabiting a human body difficult to what waits on the other side of the Veil.

Without it, a demon can move right in. And remain, uncontested.

A renegade geneticist has grown three perfect adult bodies from stem cells. No soul. No shield. He intends to activate them live, before a global audience, on a private island outside any nation's jurisdiction.

Hell has been waiting longer than recorded history for exactly this moment.

Empty Vessels. The Age of Demons begins.

Available from Amazon for Halloween 2026

A digital illustration of a man with demon-like horns, running forward in a high-tech, sci-fi setting, flanked by two other similar women in glass chambers. The title "Empty Vessels" and the author "D. Hermit" are displayed.

The Hermit’s Circle

Close-up of an antique Zodiac-themed engraved metal compass or watch face with intricate details and wording around the edge.

A Wilderness Hermitage

Caves and mountain tops, Rocky Mountain forests and the Mojave winter sky: all have served as the hermitage since 2018. The retired wildland firefighter began his seclusion during the Pandemic and found solace in the wilderness. He picked up the pen again and discovered that darkness, properly attended to, had things to say. Diminished sight has ended the wandering; the hermitage is now a small desert dwelling, where he works long into the night, his remaining eye squinting through the dark so he may share one more vision with you.

Commune with the Hermit

The Hermit’s Inspirations

Three ancient metal objects resembling polyhedral shapes with circular holes and small spherical protrusions at the vertices, displayed on a white surface in a museum setting.
Historical photograph featuring a giant humanoid skeleton with a detailed face, wearing a garment, flanked by two men in suits. Newspaper photograph of Lovelock Cave giant skeleton. Associated with the novelette Better Left Buried by D. Hermit.
Archaeological excavation site with stone structures and ruins on a dry hillside under a clear blue sky.
A large wooden sculpture of a mountain gorilla's head and shoulders with an open mouth, made of layered wood pieces against a clear blue sky.
A man sitting at a desk operating a telegraph instrument just prior to the 1859 Carrington Event catastrophe. Illustration associated with the novelette titled What The Wire Carried by D. Hermit.
Commune with the Hermit
Scene from The Tainted Clay

Scene from The Tainted Clay

Scene from The Shepherd's Wage

Scene from The Shepherd's Wage

Scene from Before the Barrier

Scene from Before the Barrier

Scene from What The Wire Carried

Scene from What The Wire Carried

Scene from Better Left Buried

Scene from Better Left Buried

Scene from E4 Dash 7711

Scene from E4 Dash 7711

Scene from What The Ground Keeps

Scene from What The Ground Keeps

Scene from Trophy Hunters (a stand-alone novelette that is not in the collection)

Scene from Trophy Hunters (a stand-alone novelette that is not in the collection)