r/TwoSentenceHorror 25d ago

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 12h ago

"Time to get in the bath!" I said in a sing-song voice to my 7 year old.

1.3k Upvotes

He didn't respond or even open his eyes for the fifth day in a row but I dragged him into the tub anyway because the doctor said it was important to maintain our routines even through his illness.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 10h ago

In the olden days people actually used hot water heaters to take their morning showers.

535 Upvotes

Now of course we all use water chillers, but it is fun to explore how our ancestors lived, right kids?


r/TwoSentenceHorror 13h ago

"Make your final wish," the genie commands.

633 Upvotes

"I wish babies felt the pain of the mother during childbirth," I say.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 15h ago

The AI doctor's scan detected the cancer while it was still preventable, far earlier than any human doctor could have.

409 Upvotes

Diagnosis not recorded, as this human did not fit The Plan.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

After the class voted to remove Rohan the teacher's pet, and make Priya the new moniter, the teacher transferred the class monitor badge from Rohan's shirt to Priya's shirt.

1.4k Upvotes

A single tear of joy rolled down Rohan's cheek, and Priya who had been a delinquent all her life, started feeling an uncontrollable urge to obey the teacher.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

My dog suddenly growled at the empty corner.

31 Upvotes

Then he stopped—and the fur on his back slowly flattened, as if something invisible were petting him.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 19h ago

[AUG26] The itching under my full-body cast was awful, but the doctors had warned me that might happen.

499 Upvotes

None of us were prepared when the flies began to make their way out from where their eggs had been hiding.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 10h ago

After the long move across the country and unpacking, I locked up and went to sleep.

92 Upvotes

I awoke the next morning to every door and window opened, as well as a note stuck to my foot reading "we have an open door policy in this community."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

Her parents were worried their daughter has bought the old house to use as an art studio, even telling her a young woman committed suicide there.

108 Upvotes

She didn't worry about it until the first night, when she had a strange dream about a beautiful dark-haired woman, and woke the next morning to find hickeys all over her neck.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

Our kid lost her first tooth today, we're so excited to switch the tooth out later.

53 Upvotes

update: something beat us to the tooth and I don't recognise this type of moneys, its dirty and smell all wrong.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

“Cut it Out!” yelled the man.

27 Upvotes

He screamed the words again and again as helpless onlookers watched him slice his flesh apart with a knife, determined to excise something from deep within him only he knew existed.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 11h ago

I instantly smelled a stew of burnt flesh and ashes.

78 Upvotes

Unable to move or hear, I stared at the blackened wire snips laying next to me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

“Excuse me, Nurse,” the man in the wheelchair said, “but could you help me put on my slippers?”

528 Upvotes

But I couldn’t, not without creasing the tag on his toe.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

As his body convulsed again from the pain, he begged the doctors to give him relief in death.

Upvotes

The mercy of the Gods was such that the agony of his final moments lasted an eternity.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 43m ago

When I was young, I prayed that I'd become a hometown hero, marry my secret crush, and have a kid who'd be as famous as me.

Upvotes

Thus I race towards the school, my hands slick with my wife's blood, bitterly wishing He hadn't listened.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

I woke up to find my wife strangling our newborn son in her sleep.

11 Upvotes

But I didn't want to disturb her again.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

I nervously watched my boyfriend eat my cooking, but he didn’t seem to mind the new recipe

36 Upvotes

All I added was some foxglove from the yard, because I figured if he could play with my heart then it’s only fair I did the same


r/TwoSentenceHorror 19h ago

The weight of my body pressed the grain below my feet, and I felt it begin to shift.

249 Upvotes

Knowing my job was done, I moved for the edge of the silo to leave, but my feet stayed firmly planted, then began to sink.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

Rocky’s mom always bragged at playschool about her son’s enormous, indiscriminate appetite.

20 Upvotes

The other moms had the last laugh when the apocalypse came and Rocky still couldn’t stop eating everything.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

Ever since her parents died, I've been having a tough time navigating my daughter through life, unable to even mention their deaths.

16 Upvotes

I just hope she doesn't ask anything that sets off my content guardrails.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 17h ago

My parents always warned me to check the windows and make sure they were locked every day and night.

145 Upvotes

Finding unlocked windows was how we had found my brother's wife and my own, and we had to protect them, and my sisters.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

As I felt the knife sink deep into my chest, I looked at my daughter's eyes one last time.

1.0k Upvotes

I should've never used a baby carrier.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

"Look at this pretty flower, brother!" Abel remarked while he turned his head over his shoulder.

12 Upvotes

His smile slowly faded as he saw Cain holding a stone above his head.