Adam Diehl
Bio
Just a husband and father writing things I'd like to read. When I can find the time, that is.
Stories (44)
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Don't Knock, Don't Even Whisper
There was only one rule: Don't open the door. If there was another rule, it would be: Wear a diaper. Or bring a gun, or bat, or anything that could be used as a weapon. Why're we in this creepy house with an unlocked door in the middle of it with a warning that is very clearly scratched into it by someone's fingernails. I mean, why not just paint pentagrams on our foreheads, read a book of animal classifications, and see what pops up?
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Horror
Longknife and The Queen
The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. But, it didn't run red. There was no blood left in the kingdom. She had bled the land dry long before. That her loss, however, could so affect the very course of nature itself, was testimony to her prowess. She was the arbiter of her world, the fulcrum upon which the collective fate of a nation was balanced. In other words, she was an insufferable bitch and nobody lamented her disappearance. Neither did they rejoice at it, at least not in public.
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
A Friend In Need
I'm tied to a large stone chair one might call a throne, surrounded by large creatures of indertiminate species. Indeterminate only because I can't fully see them. They are lurking in shadows. Either way, this might be my final resting place if our plan doesn't work. Their leader, Dimitri Arakova, sits across from me in a throne as well. His is gilded and plush. Mine is hard rock with channels along the arms and seat to guide bodily fluids away to a drain in the floor that leads to who knows where.
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
The Arbiter
They called him the Arbiter. His real name was Samuel Graves, I'd known him since before he was born. He was everything we thought we wanted-decisive, strong, fearless-the whole gamut, but once our fantasies about protecting the weak and avenging the injured were presented to us in living, violent, color, we wavered. We didn't have the stomach for it. We needed someone to stop him.
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
The Sanctioner
I love this part-standing on the cracked and broken ledge of an old skyscraper with the moonlight glinting off my armored mask, muscles tensed, readying for the leap into the abyss, listening to the sounds of bad people doing bad things far below. It's the calm before the storm. When I land behind them in the shadows, they know I'm there, but fake courage and real fear keeps them from acknowledging the fact. The look on their faces when they realize their world is about to be upended is worth all the long nights and ragged scars.
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
The Viceroys
Admiral Jorgenson of the Royal Swedish Navy knocks on the massive front door of Castle Innaeus. "Do come in, Admiral," a voice says. "We've been expecting you. The masters are out at the moment. A table is prepared for you in the banquet hall with a letter from Mr. Viceroy also to explain his absence and the work he's done on your behalf so far. If you'll follow me."
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
The Final Sail
I am an old mariner, this much is true. I have sailed all seven of the seas that surround this world. I have dipped my toes into the white sands of the Caribbean. I have bled from the stinging winds of the north seas. I have worn albatrosses around my neck and I have slain them as they flew about my ship. I have seen ghost ships piloted by ghost crews and despaired them. I have followed sirens to near disaster on reefs no map can find. I am betrothed to the sea and consigned to it. I was born just another sacrifice to Poseidon and Davy Jones. One day, when I have gathered enough pain and scars in service to the sea, they will call in my debt.
By Adam Diehlabout a year ago in Fiction
Granted Wishes
"They thought it was the end of the world-a day that wouldn't end. It was purgatory or worse. They carved symbols into rocks, they cast bones, they opened the guts of their livestock. When no answers came, they sacrificed those they'd deemed culpable for one reason or another and for some, no reason at all. And when night finally came, they wailed in mourning for all the ill they had done."
By Adam Diehl2 years ago in Fiction
