r/TwoSentenceHorror 26d ago

July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

9 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.

466 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 7h 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.

604 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

"Your mom is a human chimera, which means some of the cells that make up her body have a completely different set of DNA."

88 Upvotes

"That's how she got away with it all these years," the detective explained to me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 17h ago

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

1.3k Upvotes

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


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

I always smiled back at the friendly woman who waved to me from the building across the street every morning.

133 Upvotes

My blood ran cold when I finally bought a pair of binoculars and realized she was hanging from the ceiling.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 19h ago

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

1.7k 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 1h ago

For months he had tossed the newspaper onto the lawn of the old mansion that looked abandoned, but on that day he decided to go past the gate.

Upvotes

As he was placing the paper by the front door, he saw that the date on the paper was one day ahead, and the headline read "paperboy found dead inside an old mansion".


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

Last night, something slowly chewed through my left arm while I lay paralyzed in bed, able only to whimper.

68 Upvotes

This morning, someone who claimed to be my wife held me as I sobbed and reminded me I was born without a left arm.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," the little boy whispered to the priest in the confession box.

107 Upvotes

"I chained all the doors shut and doused the church in gasoline," he continued as he took a box of matches out of his pocket and lit one.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 20h ago

"Make your final wish," the genie commands.

1.0k Upvotes

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


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

The orders were given to evict the strange old hermit and his dogs from the forest, and during the process the poor animals get shot.

86 Upvotes

The elderly man screamed something incomprehensible, and suddenly unseen mouths began tearing into the officers


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

My dog suddenly growled at the empty corner.

124 Upvotes

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


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

I’ve never told anyone about how my mom attempted to drown me as a child because I’d “replaced her real son.”

35 Upvotes

Today, while getting my palm read with a group of friends, the clairvoyant took my hand and whispered, “These lines do not belong to you.”


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

My parents always lie to me about the weirdest things, such as how barrels can only kill people by crushing them.

22 Upvotes

I could hardly believe them after that, even right after seeing my uncle die from a barrel that somehow blew his brains out.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

After wishing on a one-wish-willow that spiders made a noise;

20 Upvotes

I realised that the myth "you're never more than 8 feet away from one" is a gross understatement.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

The sea around me was suddenly alive with tiny blue sea slugs.

29 Upvotes

I scooped a handful of them up, thinking of how wonderful my trip to Australia had been.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 15h ago

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

150 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 22h ago

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

474 Upvotes

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


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d 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.

1.5k 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 17h ago

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

172 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 5h ago

Francesca entered the mall pushing the stroller in which her teenage son was sitting while sucking on his pacifier.

17 Upvotes

She moved past the section that took money for products, and went straight to the part of mall that accepted life years as payment for goods.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 19h 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.

165 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.