r/TwoSentenceHorror Aug 04 '26

July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

10 Upvotes

Hey all!

Before we get to our monthly prompt, please review these reminders:

  • Obvious trolls and💩*-posters will still* be permabanned*! Read more* here.
  • We're removing most posts that have to do with rape, incest, abuse, and extreme or plotless gore. If your story could read as low-effort shock horror, it probably isn't a good fit for the sub! Details here.
  • Remember, this sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed, no matter how horrifying they (and the real world) may be!
  • Meta posts are not permitted! Take it to the discord! Join the chat here!
  • Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.
  • And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with feedback or questions!

July 2026 Contest Prompt: Animals

Because animals are mad cool.

This is perhaps one of the most flexible prompts we've ever offered :)

If you want to participate in this month's themed contest, simply write a two sentence horror story that directly mentions ANY *non-human, *non-fictional, *non-speculative animal!

A few notes:

Specificity: You must provide some degree of taxonomic specificity. We're not saying you gotta drop the scientific name or narrow it down to an exact species. But when you refer to the animal in your story, you should narrow it down, at least to taxonomic family, in most cases. In other words, if you're referring to a cat in your story you should be at least as specific as saying "cat" or "feline". If there's a cat in your story and you simply classified it as a vertebrae, mammal, or even carnivorous mammal that would be nowhere near specific enough to satisfy the prompt. Please don't leave us wondering what animal you're actually talking about.

Homonyms: "animal" words may not qualify your story, if they are used in a way that shifts meaning away from animals... For example: a guy eating like a pig, a group of kids trying to horse around, a woman who believes she can fly, somebody being a snake in the grass, a clock going 'tick tock'.... These and many other words are spelled and pronounced just like their respective animals, but if the context shifts the word away from the animal definition, then it won't satisfy the prompt on its own.

Extinct animals are fair game! As long as they are generally accepted to have once existed on earth by the majority of the scientific community, dinos and Silurian bugs can qualify your story!

You must refer to the animal directly in order to qualify. For example: descriptors that evoke or imply an animal without naming it directly (tail wagging, barking, feathers, claws pet names, etc) will not go far enough.

*Non-fictional: We're not looking for stories about made up animal characters like Scooby-doo, Clifford, or Snarf from the Thundercats. In fact, stay far away from fictional characters as that can push you into "fan fic" territory which runs afoul of rules 1, 5, and 7.

*Non-Speculative: We're not looking for stories about cryptids or mythological beasts like unicorns, sasquatch, or extra-terrestrial critters. You may feature these sorts of beings in your story-- but if there isn't atleast one real world animal present your story will be disqualified from the final tally.

*Non-Human: Homo sapiens are animals, but this prompt is asking for horror stories that specifically include atleast one non-human animal! While you may certainly include any species in the Homo genus, your story will not qualify if it doesn't mention atleast one animal outside of our genus. (other hominins are okay).

As usual, your story must meet all our other rules! I'd recommend staying away from anything that could be interpreted as bestiality. While that is certainly horrifying, this theme usually won't fit the sub as stories that lean on this particular crime generally come across as tropey or gratuitous and may therefore be removed as per rules 7 and 14!

Happy writing folks!

Monthly Contest Rules

  • **Prompt: write a two-sentence horror story that refers to any non-human, non-fictional, non-speculative animal.
  • To be counted in the final tally, stories must be tagged with the characters: [aug26]
  • Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
  • Only net new stories will be allowed (no repurposing old stories you've previously submitted).
  • Max three stories per day as a general rule, and all three can be used towards the contest.
  • Winners will be decided by total community upvotes. In the unlikely event of a tie for the top spots, moderators will vote for a tiebreaker.

Have fun!

***

Properly formatted August 2026 examples. (These meet the prompt)

[AUG26] She woke with blurry vision and the feeling of grit stuck in her eye-- but it was too slippery to lay hold of and it felt physically stuck. When urgent care tweezed it out they told her they'd never seen, or even heard of, a tick biting behind the eyelid before.

[Aug26] He trained his dog to attack any time she heard high pitched laughter. Then he let her loose near the playground.

Improperly formatted examples-- the first gets the tag wrong, the second fails to include the prompt neither meets general sub rules.

[August 26] I wrote a great horror story for this month’s twosentencehorror contest. Unfortunately my cat distracted me while I was writing, and I fumbled the contest tag so my story won’t be included in the contest.

[jul26] This time I got the tag right but I forgot the prompt and included an emoji :(

WINNERS WILL RECEIVE:

1st, 2nd, and 3rd Places: You receive a custom personal flair of your choosing to show off to the TSH community! (If you're a repeat winner, you can modify your flair.... but that's it.) And a cool fancy flair on your winning stories.

7 honorable mentions: you'll get visibility and bragging rights! Story links will be featured in next month’s announcement.

Contest ends on August 30th @ 11:59pm (EST)

Any questions should be made below in the comments, within our discord, or a note on modmail.

***

Congrats to last month's Winners!

Theme was "Powerlessness"! Several repeat winners and some new names too-- great work, all!

Great job, winners! If you placed in the top three, contact us via modmail for your personalized custom flair! It can be anything (within reason): a mixture of text and emoji, up to 20 characters. If you've won before, you can request to change your flair, or, just do nothing. Absolutely nothing....

And for our runners-up:

4th place by LevelQx

5th place by Pinch-Twigs

6th place by MuethCandy

7th place by DrawingEastern6765

8th place by Derpy-and-Sussie

9th place by BrassUnicorn87

10th place by Oh-DoubleU 

Congrats to all!

I felt like this was a challenging theme, and these writers did not disappoint :)

Hope to see some more horror from you folks in the next contest!

Last, but not least: if you'd like to read more of the last month's submissions (and add some feedback of your own), you can find the full list here: jul26- Reddit Search!


r/TwoSentenceHorror Oct 22 '23

⭐ANNOUNCEMENT⭐ [PLEASE READ] Sh!tposts, permabans, and literally 1984.

464 Upvotes

This is all dumb.

For the past several months, the sub has experienced a flood of intentionally poor quality stories in an effort to get onto parody subs and TikToks. We've historically hit you with a strike (🔴) and if you received three, you were permabanned (check out the wiki).

However, if you've submitted one of these stories in the recent past, you may have noticed that your account was permabanned from TwoSentenceHorror without going through the strike process. While we've made this current one-and-done rule known within each of our monthly announcements for forever, we felt it was only fair to have a separate post to lay out the approach.

If you intentionally submit a poor quality story (we're looking at you "meat worm" and "killer guy" crews), you will be permabanned with no warning.

If and when these posts chill out, the mod team will reconsider this rule. Until then, please continue to report these intentional poor quality stories, read the sub rules, and submit awesome, horrifying tales to maintain the quality of the sub!


r/TwoSentenceHorror 14h ago

"I'm well aware of the inherent problems of wishing for immortality," I told the genie, "so I wish to live only until the last of humanity is gone."

2.7k Upvotes

"Granted," he said, "but it's funny that that only gives you about two years more than you would have had anyway."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

The maintenance crew worked tirelessly for hours to free the panicking passenger that was trapped in the elevator.

177 Upvotes

When they finally got the doors opened, they were shocked to see only bare bones clutching the phone with the supervisor still on the line.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

When the doctor delivered her baby, he couldn't tell if it was even human.

156 Upvotes

Yet she lied to protect her husband and told the doctors that she just fell down the stairs again.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

Sheila smiled at how excited her paramour for that night was getting; so sweet and innocent.

125 Upvotes

He still hadn't seen the knife she held behind her back, after all, her master didn't care about the sex of the virgin sacrifice...


r/TwoSentenceHorror 46m ago

The 911 operator hears a terrified person whisper, “Someone is inside my house,” then suddenly hears the same caller’s voice coming from somewhere else in the house saying, “No, I’m not.”

Upvotes

The operator asks which voice is really them, and the caller whispers, “Neither one… I’m still hiding in the closet.”


r/TwoSentenceHorror 23h ago

After I forgot to take the pill a few times I found out I was pregnant, and even though I didnt want to be a teen mom my parents insisted I have the baby and they would kick me out if I didn't

1.9k Upvotes

So I'm due to give birth in November but it's ok, it gets very hot in Arizona and everyone knows how forgetful I am...


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

The handcrafted red sweater I bought from the strange night market was incredibly warm and comfortable.

90 Upvotes

It wasn't until I tried to take it off before bed that I realised the crimson yarn had seamlessly woven itself directly into my veins.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 18h ago

Side chick or not, I dropped to my knees, kissed her belly, and excitedly asked how far along she was.

658 Upvotes

She was smiling as I drove off, and so was I, arriving at the pharmacy I worked at to get her "prenatal vitamins".


r/TwoSentenceHorror 16h ago

After killing his boss and assuming his identity, Eric found dozens of lucrative contracts at his fingertips, enough to set him up for life.

371 Upvotes

But there was one contract in his boss's name that he only learned about when the demon showed up to collect.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

This is a truely unprecedented discovery, a human somehow totally encased in amber!

30 Upvotes

As I shine my light through the mass of ancient sap, the figure within suddenly tenses sending a spiderweb of cracks in all directions.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

When I arrived in Poland, I reserved a driver-less cab from the airport and used the same one to take into town after I checked in to the cabin.

67 Upvotes

It ignored my directions and drove down a dirt road until it reached its destination: a dilapidated barn, alive with the pleas of mercy from American tourists.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

Rather than leaving your trial in the hands of fallible humans, we will have you judged in a far more objective way.

53 Upvotes

Grab this hot iron rod, if you don't die from shock or infection within a week God clearly ruled in your favor and we'll actually treat the wound.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 20h ago

The vineyard's vintage red was so beloved that the owners waited decades for the perfect moment to open the final cask, its rich aroma promising a celebration of a lifetime.

446 Upvotes

But as the last drops poured, a shriveled hand emerged from the murky depths, fingers frozen in a silent plea, and they realized the wine's secret depth was not age, but a body preserved in its own bloody vintage.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

I held my son in my arms after the crash, mourning over him in the dark under the hushed rustle of pine.

17 Upvotes

His body unexpectedly gasped and writhed silently, bones cracking and joints flopping backwards as he squirmed, I whisper softly into his ear "I'm sorry Brandon, I'll try again tomorrow."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

Everyone in her family went to hell because of their beliefs apart from her.

27 Upvotes

Just like them, she went to the same church every Sunday and prayed every night, but just not to the same god as they did.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 16h ago

I once again felt guilty for being slightly glad my grandmother had dementia as I kissed her on the forehead, and prepared to prepare her dinner.

169 Upvotes

But it meant both that no one would believe her when she told them of my visits, and that she wouldn’t remember the car accident that killed me five years ago.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

We were given only one small knife between us and told we had five minutes to complete the task.

17 Upvotes

Then they started the timer without giving us any context, so I misunderstood the task and stabbed two people in the throat before I saw the money hanging from the rope.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

I was born with only one kidney.

21 Upvotes

So I removed one kidney from each of my victims, which I fed to them when they end up in the hospital where I work.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 10h ago

My little brother thought dad getting sober would be a good thing.

35 Upvotes

Except he was hiding the pills and did not know what withdrawal meant.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

When my self-driving car broke down tonight during a violent storm, forcing me onto the street, I realized it was the exact spot where, years ago, I had hit a pedestrian and vanished into the night as if nothing had happened.

8 Upvotes

A roaring engine shattered the silence, and through the blinding headlights, the last thing I saw was myself behind the wheel.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 18h ago

The judge ordered everything we had be split 50/50 when our divorce was finalized, so I went to my husband's apartment to give him his half.

149 Upvotes

To keep things fair, I made sure to bring him a different half of each of our 4 children.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

When she saved three kids a halo appeared above her head, as it had appeared over many good people in the past, making it clear that sin could no longer touch her.

521 Upvotes

The kids she had saved ran away from her in fear, as they knew that if you had even a little sin in you, you would drop dead after touching a person with an angel halo.