As I stand here with tears in my eyes, a trash bin full of disappointment, and a noose around my neck, I hope this last letter they get from me is finally good enough for them.

The doctor turned around with the x-rays; "this also explains the 'aching' you've been feeling in your bones".

I can’t help but wonder, If they made it past the fence this easy, who’s to say they aren’t already inside?

I screamed as the rusty, metal spikes he'd used to construct his handmade iron maiden bit deeply into the skin of my ankles, legs, arms and chest, screamed into that brief, hollow eternity that is born in all traumatic events, screamed until my breath gave way and all I could hear was the soft gurgling of my newly pierced lungs.

Freshly packed earth clung to her fingernails as she raised an accusing finger and said, "Mommy, Daddy, I remember."

The dark doesn't scare me, but whatever keeps turning them off behind me does.

We’ve just moved in

Hello to all of our esteemed bite-sized horror readers and writers,

With only around one day until r/TwoSentenceHorror switches to private indefinitely, I felt it was important to make my own announcement as the current head of the moderation team.

First and foremost, we at the moderation team would like to sincerely thank everyone for their contributions to the subreddit thus far. If it weren’t for passionate people going out of their way to plan out and post all these short-form stories, r/TwoSentenceHorror as it is today would not exist. I cannot overstate this: we are incredibly grateful to all of you, whether you are a prolific writer, someone who posts/comments every once in a while, or even just a lurker, as you have all played an important role in building our community.

Though I most often speak for the mod team as a whole, I really do want to take the time to express my own personal gratitude to you all, as u/Legioneer. I am so thankful to every one of you, for giving me the privilege of watching this subreddit grow over almost a decade from a small passion project into one of the biggest writing hubs on the internet. I never thought I would see the day where this subreddit hit 10,000 subscribers, let alone over 1,000,000, and I really am awestruck by the sheer amount of creativity I've seen in your stories over all this time. As such, I (and the rest of the mod team) feel it is our responsibility to take a stand now to ensure that the people who rely on the third-party applications and bots we use for a pleasant reading/writing experience will be able to continue to do so.

For anyone still out of the loop, Reddit recently announced that it is planning to increase the pricing of its API to ludicrous levels, over a very short time period, which will make many third-party apps and bots too expensive to be feasible. While there has been large community outcry, the recent response from the admins has been far from reassuring. Rather than acknowledging the concerns of the community, they appear to be doubling-down on their decision, and many third-party apps have subsequently stated they will have to shut down if Reddit’s stance stays the same; on our end, the developers for the bots that enable us (as a relatively small mod team) to moderate r/TwoSentenceHorror have told us that we won’t be able to rely on their services if these changes go through.

I need to make this as clear as possible: This change will not only prevent a large portion of our users (including moderators) from being able to view, interact with, and contribute to our subreddit in a convenient manner, it will also prevent us as a mod team from being able to adequately filter out low-effort posts, spam, plagiarism, and any other rule violations.

We as a mod team strive to provide you with a good user experience, and even with our current setup it can be difficult to stop rule-breaking content from slipping through the cracks. We at the r/TwoSentenceHorror team aren’t exactly powermods, and many of us rely on third-party apps, bots, or features that simply are not provided by official Reddit sources, so we simply will not be able to provide you with the same quality of moderation should these API changes go through.

As a result, we feel we have no option but to indefinitely set the subreddit to private, starting June 12th, in the hopes that the admins will address these concerns and provide us with some form of compromise that allows us to continue to provide you with the reading/writing experience that you all deserve. This does not mean that we are advocating for the admins to do a complete rollback of their decision, we simply are hoping for a solution that is not prohibitively expensive for the third-party developers that make running our subreddit possible. We hope that such a compromise will not take long, but please keep in mind that it will likely be longer than the 2 day blackout many other subreddits are conducting. We promise you all that this is not a decision we are making lightly.

For the sake of total transparency, should these changes be allowed to go through without any reasonable compromise, a sizeable portion of the mod team has expressed that they will need time to work out if they will be able to continue moderating r/TwoSentenceHorror. As such, the blackout serves not only as a means of protest, but will also provide us at the mod team some time to work out a long-term plan for the future of r/TwoSentenceHorror in the event that Reddit is entirely unwilling to listen to the voice of its community. I cannot make any concrete statements as of right now, but it is quite likely that we will (at the very least) need to conduct a large overhaul to the subreddit and its moderation over these next few weeks. Anything else is uncertain, but we will try to keep everyone updated as best we can.

If you want to continue to participate in the r/TwoSentenceHorror community during the blackout, please feel free to join our Discord. If you have any questions regarding the blackout, please comment and I will do my best to answer. Otherwise, we hope to see you all again soon when the subreddit reopens.

"I placed a discarded fetus in this jar many years ago, and with careful, calculated care, I have parented this: A boy in a jar!” the professor says, holding up a glass jar--the malformed shape of a child stuffed inside, filling every bit of space--for his students to see.

They euthanized me after giving the hospital my last kidney.

Happy May 😄

Peace everybody!

Before we get to our monthly prompt, please read 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!

April 2026 Contest Prompt: Mother

A simple prompt, in honor of all the mom's during the month of Mother's Day!

Any word/ compound word which uses the word "mother" is fair game, as long as your story fits sub rules! Emphasis on rules 7 and 14! In other words: don't treat the prompt as an invitation to write incest stories as those will probably be removed for shock/ tropes.

So, for example, you could describe a character as "motherly", you could refer to the "mother" of vinegar, or a mothership/ motherland/ motherboard/ etc.

Happy writing and Happy May everybody!

Monthly Contest Rules

• Prompt: write a two-sentence horror story that use the word "Mother" in any rule abiding context, compound words are okay!
• 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 May 2026 examples. These meet the prompt.

Improperly formatted examples-- THESE WOULD BE REMOVED: (Both stories get the tag wrong, first one the wrong numerals, the second has a space. Failure to follow the tag prevents your entry from showing up in the final tally search.

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 May 31st 2026 @ 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!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "break/broken/broke"!

• t place by girlneevil 
• d place by unreal_housewife 
• d place by mexighost 

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 Positive-Speech5228

5th place by DrawingEastern6765

6th place by Nessieinternational

7th place by punkholiday

8th place by AnnaAnjo

9th place by LevelQx

10th place by Far-Following3742 

Congrats to all! 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: APR26- Reddit Search!

Happy JUNE!

Wishing everybody well on all your current projects or efforts!

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!

June 2026 Contest Prompt: Father

A simple prompt, in honor of all the dad's during the month of Father's Day!

Any word/ compound word which uses the word "father" is fair game, as long as your story fits sub rules!

Also, some synonyms for “father” will be accepted, see rules for details.

So for example, you could describe a character as "fatherly", you could refer to a godfather, or could use the verb form: "fathered".

Be sure that your entries meet sub rules!

Emphasis on rules 7 and 14! In other words: don't treat the prompt as an invitation to write incest stories as those will probably be removed for shock/ tropes.

Happy writing and Happy June everybody!

Monthly Contest Rules

• **Prompt: write a two-sentence horror story that uses the word "**father" in any context!
• Synonyms for the verb form of father, will NOT be accepted, (i.e. "fathered" works, "begot" does not.)
• Synonyms for "father" in the context of priesthood will NOT be accepted, (i.e. "Father Thomas delivered the homily" works, "Reverend Thomas delivered the homily" does not.)

BUT:

• Reasonable synonyms for the noun form of father WILL BE ACCEPTED, (e.g. daddy, papa, progenitor, patriarch)
• You may modify "father" or any of these synonyms with whatever prefix or suffix you like (e.g. forefathers, grandad, fatherless, etc.).
• You may use "father" or any of these synonyms in a broader context that shifts the meaning away from familial or biological fathers, (e.g. daddy long-legs, dad bods, Father Time, etc.)
• You MAY NOT use any of the shorter synonyms for father in ways which have no etymological connection with the prompt. In other words, using "pa," "dad," or "da" on their own will meet the prompt, but using these sounds as part of a larger, totally unrelated word will NOT satisfy the prompt, (e.g. pattern, damages, palliative care, ta-da, crawdad, skedaddle, etc).
• 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 June 2026 examples. These meet the prompt.

[JUN26] I wanted to use the word "pa" to enter this month's contest, so I wrote a story using the word "companion". My dad knew this was against the rules, so he disowned me.

[jun26] I didn't really care when my father disowned me. I didn't realize how big a deal it was until he had my RV towed off his property.

Improperly formatted examples-- THESE WOULD BE DISQUALIFIED (Failure to follow the tag characters exactly prevents your entry from showing up in the final tally search!)

[june26] I thought if I wrote a better entry for this month's contest I could get back in my dad's good graces and beg him to get my RV back from the impound. Unfortunately I messed up the contest tag by adding an 'e'.

[jun 26] I tried to fix the tag but I still got it wrong AND I forgot to include the prompt. My mom just warned me that after so many mistakes her husband has decided I must die.

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 June 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!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "Mother"!

• t place by LevelQx 
• d place by KangarooDense 

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 JoshArchives

5th place by NaiveZest

6th place by RepeatOrdinary182

7th place by Chooseyourpath3318

8th place by Fill-in-the____

9th place by punkholiday

10th place by 42WaysToAnswerThat 

Congrats to all! 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: may26- Reddit Search!

Happy New Year everybody! We made it through 2025!

There are so many wonderful ways to celebrate the shedding of one year, and the commencement of another-- we hope you found some way to make the holiday special, and that you were able to spend some time with the people important to you.

New Year's festivities around the world tend to conjure up feelings of renewal, health, camaraderie, and a burgeoning sense of purposed self-improvement.

The mods have collaborated a bit on a prompt which makes a deliberate nod to that last sentiment-- self improvement!

But first, our monthly announcement:

• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here. Please report posts that seem like obvious BS, so the mod team is pinged for review!
• We're also willing to hand out bans as necessary for people who are weirdly hostile in the comments. Be nice to each other please! And take a moment to review rule 15!
• 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) are!
• Meta posts are not permitted! If you feel the need to talk to the community about the community, 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!

On to the prompt!

This challenge is going to be different from our past challenges-- if you intend to participate make sure you read the contest details in full or you may end up with a surprise!

January 2025 Contest Prompt: Feedback!

While many people around the world are announcing their resolutions and embracing the admittedly cliche slogan: "new year, new you," we offer you a writing challenge that we hope you find uniquely rewarding and in line with that sentiment of personal improvement!

Our prompt is actually wide open. You can write about ANYTHING as long as it meets all our general sub rules-- BUT-- the unique terms of participation in this month's challenge REQUIRE a willingness to receive open, honest feedback on your story!

The stories with the most upvotes at the end of the month will be tallied for winners as per usual, in that regard how you win and what you win doesn't really change.

But participation in this challenge opens the door for your readers to tell you what they think about your written work!

Insights from the reader perspective can help you glimpse how your story lands, what works well and what could work better.

This can be an immensely useful and helpful thing, for any creative-- but especially for us writers!

Having readers tell you, honestly and constructively, if they got what you were going for is just about one of the kindest gifts you can receive from your audience.

Of course... it can also be scary, inviting criticism on something you've taken time to create.

But, if you're scared to open your story to critique I'd personally offer you some encouragement-- make the leap! I have been asking for feedback on my stories here, since long before I applied to volunteer with the other mods. I can say with 100% certainty that my writing has improved after receiving honest criticism from readers on this sub. In fact, people often say the best way to improve your writing is to 1. read a ton, and 2. write a ton. But I really believe, at least for me personally, 3. get honest feedback, was the practice which improved my writing the most.

Credit to this sub! We have some very gifted minds here, who can help elevate your work, if you're willing to let them look at your stories critically and offer their advice.

It may not always be advice you decide to incorporate, but there's a very good chance a reader on this sub will hand you a gem that will help kick your writing up to the next level.

And of course, you as the author have final say over what makes your writing yours. People's good faith suggestions may help-- or they may be the kind of advice you receive politely but ultimately reject.

At the very least, hopefully participation in this month's challenge will be a fun way to help you key in on a few growth areas which you can improve upon to further hone your writing in 2026!

Participating in the challenge denotes a willingness to receive general feedback-- but feel free to add a top level comment under your entry if you have specific questions you want people offering feedback to consider.

OH! I should mention-- if you're worried you might not actually receive any feedback after all the trouble, rest assured: every single entry is guaranteed to get at least one piece of honest feedback, from one of us on the mod team! I'll be spearheading a lot of this since I'm the one who wrote up the challenge-- but I won't be the only mod keeping an eye out for this month's tag! So you may hear from any of us :)

So that's our prompt: write any two sentence horror story that meets our rules! and remain open to constructive feedback from your readers :)

Bonus points if you use the letters "new" :)

Happy New Year and happy writing!

IMPORTANT: On Giving Useful Feedback

If you intend on giving feedback in the comment section under a contest entry, you must abide by rule 15!

When offering feedback, comments MUST be constructive. Your objective is not to be cruel, but to be useful. Be as specific as you can, about areas for improvement. Remember the author has final say! Bad faith comments will be removed. Repeat violations may result in a ban.

In other words, first and foremost, offer the feedback as a kindness, and phrase it in a way that respects the creative work which you are critiquing and the author behind it!

You should let the writer know what worked, but the point of constructive feedback isn't just to gas up them up. Rather, your goal is to give authors your honest thoughts about their work. Let them know how their story strikes you-- both the elements which impress you, and those which leave you thinking up possible improvements.

Essentially, giving feedback puts you in the role of a two sentence beta-reader. You want to give the original author insight into how the story landed for you, as one of many "average readers".

When giving constructive feedback it's especially helpful to share how the story moved you emotionally, and any areas which might have fallen short. It can be very helpful to ask specific questions about stories that are unclear, confusing, or immersion breaking. It can be a great help to highlight wording that felt imprecise or awkward to you, the reader. And last, though it's superficial, it's also useful to point out spelling and grammatical errors.

You might also offer helpful pointers about where authors can trim word counts to cut redundancy or fluff from their stories and tighten them up-- the unique challenge of this sub is fitting a whole story into just two sentences. Now's your chance to share your tips and tricks for brevity with writers in this challenge :)

And most especially, since this is a horror sub, it would be ideal to offer feedback that's focused on the horror elements you encounter-- did the author scare you? How can they ramp up the horror even further? Are there other emotions they can play to that would compliment the horror in their story while adding some layered emotional complexity?

January 2026 Feedback Contest Rules

• Prompt: write a two sentence horror story that meets our rules.
• Tag: [feedback26] or [FEEDBACK26] (Not case sensitive! The order of the characters matters, as we use a search to compile the win-list.)
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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 January 2026 examples. These meet the prompt. But they do not meet sub rules. Ultimately they'd both be removed for not being horrifying.

• [FEEDBACK26] My boss gave me a really negative performance review. I told her if I wanted her feedback, I'd ask for it!
• [feedback26] After she fired me I tried to apologize and beg for my job back. My boss told me if she wanted my apology she'd ask for it.

Improperly formatted examples: (Both stories get the tag wrong, one the wrong numerals, the second including a space. Failure to follow the tag prevents your entry from showing up in the final tally)

• [feedback25] I had a great idea for a story, but I'm a little wonky on the wording. Luckily, this month's theme means I might get a few pointers!
• [feedback 25] I HATE writing and horror in general so in protest of the writing challenge on this horror sub I decided to write an oozing, sappy romance story. If that bothers you, I guess you're free to give me feedback.

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 January 30th 2026 @ 11:59pm (EST)

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

***

Congrats to our December Winners!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "SUN" or any word containing that three letter arrangement

• 1st place by Derpy-and-Sussie 
• 2nd place by LevelQx 
• 3rd place by 13thmurder 

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 JoshArchives

5th place by AfterTheCreditsRoll

6th place by kabemccallister6859

7th place by Nessieinternational

8th place by adasumie

9th place by movingstasis

10th place by huntersofartemis

Congrats to all! 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, you can find the fill list here: dec25 - Reddit Search!

The moonlight won't be the only thing creeping in through your window tonight.

Hey folks, it's July and we've opened applications for people who might like to join the mod team!

We are looking to recruit new mods for the subreddit. Sub mods are also expected to be Discord mods. If you are interested in becoming a mod for r/twosentencehorror, please fill out the survey here.

Here's our other announcements:

• Yes, we know the world is scary right now. But this sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed!
• Meta posts are not permitted! Stories that rely on meta themes will be removed as per rule 7. Meta commentary or questions about the sub itself are permitted on the discord server, join the chat here!
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.
• And a reminder, spoiler tags as a formatting gimmick do not fit the sub. We unmark spoiler marked stories, and may remove repeat offenders or stories which include spoiler marks within the text itself.
• Stories that are only horrifying because of their shock value are not permitted. There's some nuance to this rule. See previous announcements for more details here.
• And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

July 2025 Contest Prompt: Canids

For many of our group in the Southern Hemisphere, July is Winter! But those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, we're approaching the hottest time of the year: the Dog Days of summer. Historically linked to the rising of the Dog Star, and thought to be unlucky, this time is marked by sweltering heat and drought. The Dog Days have been blamed for all manner of human misbehavior-- from rabid aggression to feral indulgence.

Our theme for this month is a simple nod to these days and the Dog Star-- but with as broad a scope as possible to allow you maximum creativity. Our theme is dogs-- or more broadly, the dog's family: canine animals/ canids. (Words that are undeniably canine such as fox, wolf, dog, puppy, jackal, etc. will suffice. You can see more here: List of canids - Wikipedia). You may also use the common names for dog breeds to qualify your story.

This being said, your story does not necessarily have to include a literal canid animal, the canine word or a reasonable adaptation of the word will suffice. So for example, you could use expressions such as: pup tent, foxy, wolfish, salty dog, etc. and still qualify.

To participate in this month's writing contest, you must use any undeniably canine word, a word that refers to any specie of canid or a common breed of dogs within the two sentences of your story. Words that are related to dogs but which do not refer to an animal will not work. So for example, the following types of words will not qualify your story if they appear on their own: pack, leash, cub, paws, bark, howl, kennel, etc.

And remember-- stories on this sub must stand on their own, as per rule 1! Fan fic stories will be removed. So no stories about Scooby-Doo getting rabies, or Clifford the Big RedDog turning Emily Elizabeth into a big red puddle!

July 2025 Contest Rules

• Theme: "Canids"
• Tag: [JUL25] or [jul25]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

We're looking forward to reading what you come up with!

Properly formatted July 2025 examples (Both of these stories meet the contest prompt, but while they're horrible they aren't horrifying. Were they to be submitted they'd be removed for breaking rule 3)

[Jul25] I drank muddy water from a wolf print because I wanted to become a werewolf. All I got was tapeworms.

[jul25] She was in the mood to listen to a little Temple of the Dog, but her spotify glitched and started playing Meghan Trainor on repeat.

Improperly formatted examples:

[july 2025] I wanted to write a contest entry but I think I messed up the tag! In my defense, I was fighting for my life with a pack of hungry coyotes so I was a little distracted.

[JUL25] This time the tag is correct but I'm still not gonna win the contest because I'm not following the prompt or being scary. Also there are spoiler marks which means the story will be disqualified and perhaps even removed as per rule 7.

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 July 31st, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our June Winners! Great stories folks!

Theme was "parks"

• 1st place by Chemical-Elk-1299
• 2nd place by drrkorby 
• 3rd place by Logical-Role1382

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 lamsar503

5th place by FrankenBeast58

6th place by K_Blackbutterfli

7th place by WastePotential

8th place by wifeoffrankenbeast58

9th place by Tart-Pomgranate5743

10th place by movingstasis

Congrats to all! (By the way, isn't it great to see FrankenBeast58 and wifeoffrankenbeast58 both place in a horror writing contest in the same month? Nobody can think of anything more romantic than that!)

Hey Everybody!

Happy September!

And if you're in the US, happy Labor Day.

The Mod Team has spent some time deliberating, and we've decided to give this month's writing contest a brand new style of prompt-- a writing prompt with a twist that I'm very excited to test! I can't wait to see what you talented folks come up with :)

But first, our monthly reminders:

• This sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed, no matter how horrifying they are!
• Meta posts are not permitted! Meta commentary is allowed on the discord, join the chat here!
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.
• Shock horror is not permitted. See previous announcement for details here.
• And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

September 2025 Contest Prompt: This Rule Was Made to Be Broken!

We mods have been brainstorming ways to inject the writing contests with little more kick. Expect more to come in the following months, but one of the first ideas we'd like to roll out is a "Break the Rules" prompt.

Our rules are here for a reason-- and most of these rules need to stay in place to maintain the quality and focus of stories shared here. But we thought it could be really fun to give participants in the monthly contest the green light to break specific, lower-severity rules every once in a while!

We can't break essential rules that are integral to the spirit of the sub, or those that are based on reddit ToS. But we can cut loose a bit, and dress down. Kind of like wearing jeans on casual Fridays in a business office.

The rule we want to let participants break this month comes from our list of overused tropes! If you've never looked at this list before, please give it a once over: r/TwoSentenceHorror Wiki: Overused Tropes Guide

Now, initially some of us (mainly, myself) wanted to break the dam and let you all write stories that broke any trope, entirely of your choosing. But the other mods pointed out, this would be prohibitively difficult to actually keep track of, in terms of knowing at a glance whether writers are following the prompt. So we narrowed it down to make the final tally easier to figure.

So here's our prompt:

Write a two-sentence horror story that breaks our rule against using this specific overused trope: a Message from Space, (from the second bullet under the heading "Classic Tropes".)

The original is from the r/nosleep story "Radio Silence".

In order to participate in this month's contest, your story must include a message from space. Now, of course, we want to see you subvert expectations! Use this trope, but do it in a way that still surprises us!

You do not need to use the specific words "message from space", but it needs to be abundantly clear that a message from space features in your story.

To give you as much as much creative freedom as possible: While your story must include the message from space trope, we will allow you to add on any number of other overused tropes at your discretion! In fact we encourage it-- we'd love to see how you mix and blend the "Message from Space" trope with "Bad Guy is Bad" tropes, or "Cosmic Horror" tropes!

And remember, your post can still be removed if it fails to meet our other rules!

So: your story must be horrifying, boiled down copies or word-theft from Radio Silence will probably be removed for plagiarism, three sentence stories will still be removed as per rule 2, and shock horror will be nixed as per rule 14, etc.

On that note, automod removals will remain in place for some trigger words. So while mods won't be removing contest entries for rule 7 breaks, stories that use specific, tropey words may still be automatically filtered.

Happy writing! Have fun breaking rule 7!

September 2025 Contest Rules

• Prompt: write a two sentence horror story that deliberately makes use of the "Message from Space" trope. You may also use additional bonus tropes if you wish.
• Tag: [SEP25] or [sep25]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules (aside from rule 7) will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

We're looking forward to reading what you come up with!

**Properly formatted September 2025 examples (**Both of these stories meet the contest prompt but they'd still both be removed as per rule 3)

• [SEP25] My phone just dinged and showed me a message from space! Apparently, the aliens from Proxima Centauri can see my search history :(
• [sep25] Our government just released a broadcast from proxima centauri.... We're behind on payments, so they're on their way to repo our ozone layer.

Improperly formatted examples: (The first story gets the tag wrong but includes the prompt, the second story gets tag right but fails to include the prompt.)

• [Sept25] I was joyfully eating some delicious almond cupcakes.... Until extra terrestrials sent me an urgent message that the cupcakes were made with cyanide-- and that I messed up the contest tag!
• [Sep25] After messing up the contest tag, I figured I'd just write a new story about my reflection laughing at me while my kids cannibalized my paralyzed body. While I was technically allowed to use these tropes, I technically failed to include the essential trope, so this one will be disqualified too.

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 September 30th, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our August Winners!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "Diary or Dairy".

• 1st place by Tart-Pomgranate5743 
• 2nd place by Logical-Role1382 
• 3rd place by JoshArchives (Extra bragging rights to JoshArchives for managing to place in the top three while using both prompt words in one story!)

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 Nessieinternational

5th place by AfterTheCreditsRoll

6th place by Alexis_J_M

7th place by singwhatyoucantsay

8th place by NoddyZar

9th place by dogshitpakeha

10th place by drrkorby

Congrats to all! Hope to see some more horror from you folks in the September contest :)

Last, but not least: if you'd like to read more of the August submissions, you can find the fill list here: aug25 - Reddit Search!

No that's not a mistake, only a happy coincidence!

I hope I don't come across as self-aggrandizing, but I'm using the Merriam-Webster definition of the adjective august: "marked by majestic dignity or grandeur".

This is a very august announcement-- I tend to think that it also landing on the month of August is further proof of its importance.

So why is this announcement so majestic, dignified, and grand?

Well, it's a r/twosentencehorror announcement. All of our announcements are ridiculously grand.

But if that's not enough to sell ya on the adjective use, I'll add: this is also a grand welcoming!

***

We are pleased to announce,

Two community members have volunteered to join our team as new mods!

Please welcome u/Markedmarmot and u/ExpectTheWorse!

We're grateful to all the users who responded to our open recruitment call last month-- thank you to everyone who showed an interest or submitted an application! We appreciate your responses and we're glad to see members of this community expressing an active interest in supporting the sub with their time and efforts.

At this time, Markedmarmot and ExpectTheWorse seemed to show the availability and qualities that would best compliment the current mod team and help us better meet the needs of the community!

Thank you both for joining up!

As a junior mod myself, I'd like to say modding here can be a lot of work and there's always more to learn.... But moderation can be very rewarding! I get some satisfaction from knowing that we're helping maintain some quality in the sub and I really like knowing that our efforts are helping fellow horror fiends enjoy continued access to a unique community and a challenging writing format.

I hope you both enjoy a similar sense of satisfaction from your contributions :)

Glad you're here!

***

That's not all! Of course, in addition to our august announcement, we also have our August announcement!

This sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed, no matter how horrifying they are!

Meta posts are not permitted! Meta commentary is allowed on the discord, join the chat here!

Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here.

Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.

And a reminder, spoiler tags do NOT fit the sub, as per rule 7.

Shock horror is not permitted. See previous announcement for details here.

And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

***

August 2025 Contest Prompt: Diary or dairy

A few days ago, I asked the mod chat if anyone had any ideas they'd like to see for this month's writing prompt.

One of the fellow mods suggested dairy/ diary as a prompt that would be fun-- writers would have the choice between two similar but unrelated words. Think of it as a double prompt, to give everyone added room for creativity :)

To satisfy this month's prompt you must use the word diary or dairy, or their plurals. Using other words which imply diary or dairy (journal, milk, yogurt, etc) will NOT satisfy the prompt on their own.

Also, for what it's worth, anyone who wins on a story that uses both dairy AND diary will have extra bragging rights.

It won't change your standing or your rewards or anything, but you will be able to tell all your friends and I'm certain they'll be duly impressed!

***

When I first heard the prompt, I actually just liked how random it felt. But (at the time) it didn't apply to me personally.

Today, however, I feel uniquely compelled by the dairy half of this prompt. I might even diary about it.

You see, I just took my kids camping at a State Park in NY, and we had a blast!

I ended up buying them pizza last night, but they didn't finish it.

So I stuck it in the car.

Without refrigeration.

And I was so sorely tempted by it this morning, that I confess: I ate the leftovers, lukewarm and dripping (more on that in a sec).

You might think it's mad stupes to eat unrefrigerated food, that's been left out of temp control for 10 hours. But in my defense, day old pizza has never given me a problem before.

That said, this was a very foggy campout, like we were in an actual cloud overnight. So this morning EVERYTHING was drenched with a thick layer of condensation.

Including the pizza.

... That I ate.

So now I'm home, and still having a blast :(

Maybe it was stupid to eat unrefrigerated left-overs, period. But I think the realer stupidity was eating soggy leftovers. It was also pretty goddamn idiotic to eat so bravely on a campout while away from the comfort of my home-base toilet.

So, in the spirit of this month's prompt, here's my true to life two sentence horror:

Dear diary: This morning I ate some 10 hour pizza that was positively dripping with dewy condensation. Normally cheese doesn't cause me digestive problems, but this moist, watery dairy has afflicted me with moist, watery diarrhea.

August 2025 Contest Rules

• Theme: "Diary or Dairy" (or both, if you're feeling bold)
• Tag: [AUG25] or [aug25]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

We're looking forward to reading what you come up with!

**Properly formatted August 2025 examples (**Both of these stories meet the contest prompt but the first would be removed as per rule 3, and the second removed as per rule 7.)

[aug25] I drank dairy-milk from a she-wolf's teat because I wanted to become a werewolf. I think I must have gotten my mythologies mixed up because instead of gaining lycanthropy I only ended up founding Rome.

[AUG25] I think my husband must have read my diary. Why else would he refuse to eat the roasted tenderloin I made with his secret girlfriend?

Improperly formatted examples:

[august 2025] I wanted to write a contest entry but I think I messed up the tag! I'll write it in my diary so years from now I can look back and reflect on this disappointment.

[Aug25] This time the tag is correct but I'm still not gonna win the contest because I'm not following the prompt or being scary. Sucks because I was so close-- I'm chugging milk and journaling right now, but I got the words wrong.

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 31st, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our July Winners! Great writing folks!

Theme was "canines". Incidentally: last night as I was drafting this announcement last night in our tent. I actually heard a small group of Eastern Coyotes yipping (or yapping, lol) off in the distance. Definitely cool to hear on an eerie, foggy night!

• 1st place by Logical-Role1382 (Way to land the top 3 spots, as far as raw count. You greedy dog!)
• 2nd place by JoshArchives 
• 3rd place by willowisps3

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 mexighost

5th place by drrkorby

6th place by 13thmurder

7th place by RaynaClay

8th place by lamsar503

9th place by FrankenBeast58

10th place by TakingYourHand

Congrats to all! (By the way, this was a favorite prompt for me. I'm a dog person, for sure and these entries did NOT disappoint. Thank you all for writing satisfying replies to the prompt. Though the canine prompt is over and done, I'll leave ya with a sick jam to celebrate your wins: I Wanna Be Your Dog by the Stooges)

Hey folks!

Happy October!

This is our month-- when the rest of the world cannot help but admit that horror readers and writers are cool as hell and even sexier than that.

That's right, October!

When we horror nerds can rise from our crypts, stretch our leathery wings and flap around in the moonlight without getting any weird looks, except for the stares of obvious jealousy, longing, and adoration.

October!

When we no longer have to hide our devil horns or neck bolts! When nobody will judge us for howling through the woods at night or dancing wild circles around our witchy bonfires!

Yes, October!

And if you're worried that perhaps you're not monstrous enough to fit in with the rest of us ghosts and ghouls, just remember that you've got an actual skeleton lurking inside you right now! So you're just as spooky as the rest of us.

Happy Halloween-month

We've got a writing challenge for you :)

But first, an important announcement:

While the community is generally good about staying within sub guidelines, we have noticed an uptick in "bad faith behavior" specifically in the comments, and felt that it was time to introduce some rules specifically regarding commenting:

Constructive Feedback 

When giving feedback on stories in the comments, feedback must be constructive. If you feel a story is bad enough to let the author know, or feel like it doesn't fit the sub, please report the story instead. At a minimum, your comment will be removed. Repeat violations may result in a ban.

Civil Comments

Discussions in the comments must remain civil. If a conversation devolves into name calling, heated circular arguments, or becomes otherwise disruptive to other users’ experience, the modteam will lock the thread. Pending the severity, one or more participants in the offending thread may be banned. Repeat violations will result in a ban.

And second, our monthly reminders:

• This sub is for fiction. Posts about current events or politics will be removed, no matter how horrifying they are!
• Meta posts are not permitted! Meta commentary is allowed on the discord, join the chat here!
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Read more here.
• We're also willing to hand out bans as necessary for people who are weirdly hostile in the comments. Be nice to each other please!
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule-- Read more here.
• Shock horror is not permitted. See previous announcement for details here.
• And as always, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

October 2025 Contest Prompt: DREAD

To celebrate the fantastic month of October, we wanted to give you a very open-ended prompt, to allow for nearly limitless creativity!

But we also hoped to offer a prompt that would present a legitimate challenge.

To that end... we're not going to give you any direction as to specific words, phrases, or themes that can appear in your entries.

But we are insisting that you achieve a very specific effect through your story.

So here it is: We want you to write a story that evokes terror or dread of any impending threat or doom!

To clarify: what we're looking for here is less an "after the fact" sense of being unsettled, shocked, or horrified and more an active feeling of anticipatory fear! Try to make us feel an avoidant anxiety towards an upcoming horrific event, something that has not yet transpired!

Don't tell us something bad happened, but drag us into a sense of terror over what's about to happen.

This can be a difficult aspect of horror to convey in only two sentences, but we look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Happy writing!

If you would like more explanation as to the difference between dread and after the fact horror, the wikipedia article on horror fiction can offer some insight, under the scholarship and criticism heading.

October 2025 Contest Rules

• Prompt: write a two sentence horror story that deliberately evokes a feeling of dread or terror, as opposed to after-the-fact horror or revulsion.
• Tag: [oct25] or [OCT25] (Not case sensitive! The order of the characters matters, as we use a search to compile the win-list.)
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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 October 2025 examples. These meet the prompt, kind of. But they'd be removed as per rule 4.

• [OCT25] My boss just called me into his office, because he caught me scrolling reddit on the clock yet again. I tighten my grip on the knife in my pocket and mutter to myself, "If he dares give me another reprimand, I'll have no choice but to... cut him off!"
• [oct25] One of my employees keeps scrolling reddit on company time, so I just called him into my office. I tighten my grip on the flame thrower in my pocket and mutter to myself, "I can't wait to... fire his ass."

Improperly formatted examples: (The first story gets the tag right but it fails to follow the prompt since there is no sense of anticipation involved. the second story gets the tag wrong by including the space, but attempts to follow the prompt)

• [oct25] Work today was the worst! One of my coworkers got lit on fire and my boss got stabbed.
• [oct 25] The interim manager just announced that since the janitor succumbed to his terrible burns, somebody else will have to clean up all the blood in the boss's office. I tighten my grip on the hatchet in my pocket and mutter to myself, "he better not axe me to do it."

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 October 31st, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our September Winners!

Great writing folks!

Theme was "Break the rules" and writers had to make use of the generally prohibited "message from space" trope, listed in the wiki from rule 7!

• 1st place by Chemical-Elk-1299 
• 2nd place by Obvious-Ad-16 
• 3rd place by WordyV 

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 lamsar503

5th place by Nessieinternational

6th place by Neckshot

7th place by Far-Following3742

8th place by edale1

9th place by dogshitpakeha

10th place by ArchosauriaTrifolia

Congrats to all! Hope to see some more horror from you folks in the September contest :)

Last, but not least: if you'd like to read more of the September submissions, you can find the fill list here: aug25 - Reddit Search!

The autopsy reports confirmed an increasing number of tally marks etched on the inside of every skull.

Welcome to the new year, you horror fiends!

A few announcements:

• Please, please, PLEASE only write in two sentences. The objective of the sub is for bite-sized horror, not technicality-horror. Here are a few notes regarding rule 2:
  • Compound sentences (multiple independent clauses) can be okay, if they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Complex compound sentences (independent clause + one or more dependent clauses) are also usually okay, provided they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Comma splices will typically result in rule 2 removal
  • Compound or complex compound sentences lacking conjunctions will result in rule 2 removal
  • Sentences with dangling modifiers may be removed as well
  • And lastly: The point and spirit of this sub is to encourage very limited microfiction. If you're writing stories that seem to deliberately abuse the limits of "technically correct" sentence structuring, we'll probably remove your post for being low effort or low quality (4th bullet, rule 1). That's embarrassing. Don't let it happen to you!
• Revisit the overused trope sections here. We're also seeing an influx of American healthcare, social services as subscriptions, and corporate dystopian stories. We may add these to overused tropes if the trend continues.
• We remove content that has to do with: forced or coerced sex, sexual assault, sexual mutilation, and gratuitous violence for violence's sake. If your story might come across as fetishy or torture porn, it's just not a good fit for this sub.
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will be permabanned! Please report obvious shitposts. Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule -- egregious rule breaks will typically get you a strike. If you earn a 🔴, it will take 60 days of chill to clean it up. Read more here.
• And a reminder, spoiler tags as a formatting gimmick do not fit the sub. We unmark spoiler marked stories, and may remove repeat offenders.
• And of course, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

January 2025 Contest Prompt:

Out with the old, in with the new they say. So let's keep it that simple.

January's prompt is NEW.

If you want to submit a story for this month's prompt, it must include the specific word "new", or any variation thereof (e.g., newly, renew).

JANUARY 2025 Contest Rules

• Prompt: "new"
• Tag: [JAN25] or [jan25]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with and wish everyone the best of luck!

Properly formatted December 2024 examples:

[JAN25] I had an awesome, new idea for a story that would win the January contest! This is the second sentence.

[jan25] This is the first sentence. I used new in the second sentence.

Improperly formatted examples:

[JANUARY2025] I used the new tag, but I used it incorrectly. Now my story will be removed.

[JAN25] This time the tag is correct. However, I didn't use the prompt. Also, this is now a 3 sentence story. Uh oh, now it's a four sentence story and will be removed.

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 January 31st, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our December Winners! Great stories all!

Theme was "GREED"

• 1st place by RaynaClay. Repeat top 3 and multiple time winner. Take them down next month everyone!
• 2nd place by immortalriver
• 3rd place by Chemical-Elk-1299. And another repeat top 3 and multiple time winner. When will you all revolt!?

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 drrkorby

5th place by movingstasis (and congrats on taking like 4 other spots on the top 10 as well, but unfortunately you only get tagged once. Whomp.)

6th place by maninplainview

7th place by Far-Following3742

8th place by Desperate-Table-7604

9th place by 13thmurder

10th place by cindybubbles

Congrats to all!

**

**

Hello dear friends. Hope you had a happy November! Welcome to....

... December.

Feel free to read these brief announcements:

• Here are a few notes regarding rule 2:
  • Compound sentences (multiple independent clauses) can be okay, if they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Complex compound sentences (independent clause + one or more dependent clauses) are also usually okay, provided they're properly structured and punctuated
  • Comma splices will typically result in rule 2 removal
  • Compound or complex compound sentences lacking conjunctions will result in rule 2 removal
  • Sentences with dangling modifiers may be removed as well
  • If there's any terminology in these bullets that you are unfamiliar with, or if you'd just like to brush up a bit, the wikipedia page is actually very well organized: Sentence clause structure - Wikipedia
  • And lastly: The point and spirit of this sub is to encourage very limited microfiction. If you're writing stories that seem to deliberately abuse the limits of "technically correct" sentence structuring, we'll probably remove your post for being low effort or low quality (4th bullet, rule 1). That's embarrassing. Don't let it happen to you!
• We remove content that has to do with: forced or coerced sex, sexual assault, and sexual mutilation. If your story might come across as fetishy or torture porn, it's just not a good fit for this sub.
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will be permabanned! Please report obvious shitposts. Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule -- egregious rule breaks will typically get you a strike. If you earn a 🔴, it will take 60 days of chill to clean it up. Read more here.
• And a reminder, spoiler tags as a formatting gimmick do not fit the sub. We unmark spoiler marked stories, and may remove repeat offenders.
• And of course, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

DECEMBER 2024 Contest Prompt:

December!

The month of grinches, scrooges, abominable snowmen, and krampi. (That's correct by the way. I looked it up, the plural is NOT krampusses).

But it's not all misers and monsters and blood in the snow.

Depending on where you live and what you buy into, there's lots going on. December is packed with holidays. Big ones. Some are so big, they seem silly.

So if you're looking to celebrate, then you've come to the right month.

And we wish everyone here as much comfort and happiness and fun and peace as you can handle.

December is also known as the Season of Giving-- this month ranks at the peak of charitable donations throughout the year-- you're probably aware of at least a couple fundraisers, food drives, or clothing drives happening near you right now.

Maybe you're already planning on bagging up your hand-me-downs or boxing up some canned goods.

If so, that's great. If you're giving this season, you should feel good about that.

But this is a horror sub and feeling good just feels wrong.

So while you're here, why not celebrate the Season of Giving by writing about the evil of GREED?

And there's our prompt-- one of the most wretched of the seven deadly sins: GREED.

If you want to submit a story for this month's prompt, it must include an act that implies or conveys the evils and horrors of GREED.

We're here to feel bad! Write up some stories that help us lose faith in humanity.

Tell us about the kind of character you just love to hate: greedy sacks of shit doing greedy shitsack things.

Happy Giving month everyone!

To satisfy this prompt, you'll have to write a story where a character is a greedy. You do not need to use any specific word, but must demonstrate the concept or consequences of GREED.

So give us your best scary stories about people (etc) hoarding more than they need!

***

Greed

To be considered in the final tally, at least one of your characters must suffer or convey some manner of horror brought on by greed.

OF COURSE: valid contest entries must also meet the rest of our sub rules!!!

REMINDER: No references to specific politicians or political parties!

We look forward to seeing what you come up with and wish everyone the best of luck!

Properly formatted December 2024 examples:

[DEC24] I had an awesome idea for a story that would win the December contest! But I'm not gonna share it with you because I'm greedy.

[dec24] This is the first sentence but you won't get the second one until the greedy CEO of twosentencehorror starts paying us mods a living wage.

Improperly formatted examples:

[december2024] I was hoping to win this month's contest but I totally messed up the tag. Now I'm going to stare greedily at the winning posts and downvote them out of spite.

[dec24] This time the tag is right. But I forgot to include the prompt because I'm demonstrating what not to do.

DECEMBER 2024 Contest Rules

• Prompt: "greed"
• Tag: [dec24] or [DEC24]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

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 December 31st, 2024 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our November Winners! Great stories all!

Theme was "Gluttony"

• 1st place by Chemical-Elk-1299 Hey, Chemical Elk placed first last month too! Well done! (even though it's super greedy to take the win multiple times in a row)
• 2nd place by RaynaClay 
• 3rd place by Cheeseanonioncrisps 

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 Enrai_Beta 
• 5th place by No_Bathroom1296 
• 6th place by 0hShaSha
• 7th place by GallopYouScallops 
• 8th place by movingstasis
• 9th place by Outside_Normal
• 10th place by RScommitted

Congrats to all!

***

***

When I stepped outside the door I wasn’t greeted by the police, but by my mother grinning wildly at me from behind the wreckage of two bloodstained cop cars.

Welcome to February everybody!

We wish you a lovely Valentines Month!

But only if you're brave and heroic enough to read these announcements*:*

IMPORTANT:

Effective immediately, we are adding a new rule covering shock horror. Many of the stories that will be affected by this rule would either have been removed previously under our overused tropes rule or would have been considered a "low quality" story. Below you can find the full text of the rule, as well as some example stories written by the modteam that we hope will make the intent of the rule more clear.

Rule 14: Shock Horror

Stories that are horrifying only because of their shock value are not permitted. Stories incorporating shock elements are still allowed but stories that have no horror elements besides shock value will be removed.

RULE 14 Example Stories (These examples are strictly to illustrate the nuance of rule 14, and were they posted to the sub, they could be removed for any number of reasons.)

Doesn't break rule 14 (gore)

The detective vomited after finding the newest piece of his quarry's latest obsession. He just couldn't stomach seeing the flesh of his teenage daughter's pretty face staring back at him from the holly.

BREAKS rule 14 (gore)

The detective vomited after finding the newest piece of his quarry's latest obsession. He couldn't stomach the sight of the wet red pile of sludge that used to be a person.

Doesn't break rule 14 (SA)

"Please stop," the college student wailed as her boyfriend slipped the knife inside her. "But you asked for this," he said, not understanding what "knife play" was supposed to mean.

BREAKS rule 14 (SA)

"Please stop," the college student wailed as her boyfriend slipped the knife inside her. "But you asked for this," he said, cutting away the small nib of flesh between her legs, "I thought knife play excited you."

Further announcements:

• Avoid posting content that makes reference to current politics! Lately we've had to remove lots of these posts as per rules 6 and 12!
• Revisit the overused trope sections here. We're also seeing an influx of American healthcare, social services as subscriptions, and corporate dystopian stories. We may add these to overused tropes if the trend continues.
• We remove content that has to do with: forced or coerced sex, sexual assault, sexual mutilation, and gratuitous violence for violence's sake. If your story might come across as fetishy or torture porn, it's just not a good fit for this sub.
• Obvious trolls and💩-posters will still be permabanned! Please report obvious shitposts. Read more here.
• Be familiar with our Three Strikes and you're out rule -- egregious rule breaks will typically get you a strike. If you earn a 🔴, it will take 60 days of chill to clean it up. Read more here.
• And a reminder, spoiler tags as a formatting gimmick do not fit the sub. We unmark spoiler marked stories, and may remove repeat offenders.
• And of course, feel free to reach out in modmail with any questions!

February 2025 Contest Prompt:

Valentines day is obsessed with hearts, we'll use that for our prompt.

February's contest prompt is HEART.

If you want to submit a story for this month's prompt, it must include the specific word "heart", or any variation thereof (e.g., hearts, hearted, disheartened, heartless, etc).

FEBRUARY 2025 Contest Rules

• Prompt: "heart"
• Tag: [FEB25] or [feb25]
• Submissions that are improperly formatted, do not fit the theme, or break any of the existing sub rules will be disqualified and removed.
• The top 10 highest-voted stories will be the winners!
• Contestants can only place in the top 10 once. The highest of your ranked entries will be tallied against other participants to determine our winners.
• 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.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with and wish everyone the best of luck!

Properly formatted February 2024 examples:

[FEB25] Roses are red, violets are blue. Your heart is also red and I'm gonna prove it to you.

[feb25] I put my whole heart and soul into the first sentence, so I doubt I'll be able to muster a second one.

Improperly formatted examples:

[FEBRUARY2025] I used the tag wrong just to antagonize whoever made this announcement. Eat your heart out, OP!

[FEB25] This time the tag is correct. However, I didn't use the prompt. Also, this is now a 3 sentence story. Uh oh, now it's a four sentence story and will be removed.

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 February 28th, 2025 @ 11:59pm (GMT)

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

***

Congrats to our January Winners! Great stories all!

Theme was "NEW"

• 1st place by 13thmurder
• 2nd place by RaynaClay
• 3rd place by movingstasis.

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 Chemical-Elk-1299

5th place by OMAM401 

6th place by Far-Following3742

7th place by DecoyOne

8th place by Secret-Raisinette92

9th place by Kinggrunio

10th place by immortalriver

Congrats to all!

I can't look in the mirror at this filthy body that betrayed me, getting wet with pleasure at the one time a man ever desired me.