Slow Burn Stories
Explore our collection of 194 amazing stories tagged with slow burn. Each story offers unique adventures and unforgettable characters you can chat with.
The Lacquered Smile
Author:Rita Tucker
Remi works the graveyard shift, lives a quiet life, and is terrified of dolls. So when her sister sends her a souvenir from a ruined Japanese temple—a vintage geisha doll with a serene, painted smile—her life unravels. At first, it's just whispers in the static and moved objects. But the doll's attention becomes an obsession, watching her favorite shows, spending her money, rearranging her home. Now, a message has appeared on her wall in blood-red crayon: 'MY TURN.' The doll doesn't just want to haunt her apartment; it wants to live her life.
The Aperture
Author:Wanda Hopkins
Desperate for cash, college student Leo Vance accepts a mysterious job paying an impossible $500 an hour. The task is simple: sit in a white room and watch an antique mirror. But the thing looking back from the glass isn't his reflection. It's a predator wearing his face, learning his secrets, and waiting for the perfect moment to switch places. Trapped in a sterile nightmare, Leo must unravel the mirror's secrets before he loses himself to the man in the glass.
The Mannequin on the Boardwalk
Author:Cassandra Bailey
My dream job at a seaside haunted house becomes a living nightmare. A bizarre street performer, a twisted mimic of Michael Jackson, sets his sights on me. What starts as an unnerving prank escalates into a terrifying obsession, as this man reveals a power to distort reality, time, and even his own body. He whispers things my mind can hear but his lips never speak. He wants more than a scare—he wants in. And for some reason, he won't stop talking about my eyes.
Echoes in the Static
Author:Lillian Graham
A park ranger seeking solitude in a remote wilderness finds himself stalked by an unseen entity that communicates through his walkie-talkie. What begins as strange noises and cryptic warnings soon becomes a desperate fight for sanity and survival against creatures that hunt through sound waves. When the forest starts echoing his own deepest fears back at him, he must uncover the dark secret of the land before he becomes just another voice lost in the static.
The Empty Grave
Author:Ronnie Harper
Ten years after his father's funeral, a late-night call from the deceased's number shatters Alex's reality. A desperate, static-laced voice whispers a single plea: "You have to bury me." Now, haunted by these ghostly calls and the chilling discovery of an empty casket, Alex is dragged into a terrifying conspiracy that his family tried to bury. He must unravel the truth behind his father's disappearance, confronting a sinister force that won't rest until it claims him too. What he uncovers is far more horrifying than an empty grave.
The Echo in the Floorboards
Author:Silas Croft
Leo needed a cheap place to live, but the basement suite came with a soundtrack: the relentless pacing of the old man upstairs. Then came the scratching, and a dry whisper begging to be let back in. But after the old man is found dead, his body twisted into an impossible shape, the noises don't stop. They get louder. And now, a note on the sealed door says it all: 'I remember the way through the walls.' The thing upstairs is still there, and it's looking for a new door.
The Empty Seat
Author:Bonnie Garza
After a minor car accident, Samantha's daughter, Sophia, is no longer the sweet, joyful child she once was. She's become cold, quiet, and unnervingly strange. As Samantha tries to nurse her daughter back to health, the world around her insists on a different, more terrifying reality: that Sophia died two years ago. Now, Samantha must fight for her sanity against a truth she can't accept and protect a child that no one else can see, a child whose hunger is growing and whose presence is becoming colder by the day.
The Thing in Charlie's Skin
Author:Elias Veil
My best friend Charlie went to Germany for the summer. The thing that came back is wearing his face, sleeping in his bed, and charming my parents. But I see the truth in its dead eyes and its unnatural hunger. I see the peeling skin and the impossible strength. It’s not Charlie anymore, and I’m afraid I’m the only one who knows. Now, it wants to speak to my parents alone, and I fear I’m next on its list.
The Black-Eyed Glitch
Author:Janet Gardner
One moment, Alex was with his friends in front of a construction site. The next, the site is a 50-year-old ruin and his friends are gone, replaced by memories that don't belong to him. Now, he sees them everywhere—silent figures with soulless, black eyes, watching from the periphery of his fractured reality. A shadowy entity haunts his steps, not as a predator, but as a warden of the seams between worlds. To save his true family, Alex must navigate a world of placeholders and glitches, risking his own sanity to pull them back from the static.
The Salvation Collector
Author:Rosemary Holt
I thought losing my job, my home, and my future was rock bottom. I was wrong. Under a grimy city bridge, a man in a half-pristine, half-tattered suit offered salvation to the forgotten souls around me. For the low price of their worldly possessions, he gave them a ticket to another place. I watched them take the deal. I watched their smiles twist into silent screams as they vanished into nothingness. He looked at me, the last one left, and said I wasn't ready. Now, I'm haunted by their faces, and I have to find out what 'ready' means before he comes back for me.
The 5 PM Rule
Author:Yvonne Castillo
For Lena, the job at the Orphic Library was a dream: eight hours of paid silence. But the dream has rules. Clock in at 9 AM. Clock out at 5 PM. Not a second early, not a second late. When a ghostly woman from 1986 appears with a frantic warning and the library's charming owner reveals a predatory obsession with the clock, Lena realizes she hasn't been hired—she's been trapped. The books are screaming clues, the shelves rearrange themselves into a maze, and every tick of the clock brings her closer to becoming a permanent part of the collection.
The Final Cut
Author:Annie Fowler
Struggling filmmaker Leo Vance lands a dream job at the enigmatic Aperture Studios, a place that promises to turn his pain into art. But the studio's methods are brutal, their sets are unnervingly real, and the cameras never stop rolling. He soon discovers the studio isn't just making movies—it's a cult that worships a monstrous god of cinema, Obscura. To create the perfect film, they require the ultimate sacrifice. Now, Leo is cast as the lead in their final masterpiece, and the only way to survive is to give the performance of a lifetime, blurring the line between his grief and their gruesome script until he no longer knows where the acting ends and his own destruction begins.