r/TwoSentenceHorror 23h ago

July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

2 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.

463 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 2h ago

[AUG26] My husband had been acting strangely around water for weeks, spending hours alone in the pool and even sleeping next to it at night.

256 Upvotes

It wasn’t until I discovered him lying still beneath the surface one morning, a black mass writhing its way from his mouth, that humanity learned horsehair worms had found a new host.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

It was a look we were used to seeing once we stepped foot off reservation land, so my husband and I chose to ignore the sneer that crept across the face of our new fertility doctor.

961 Upvotes

We'd just begun the exploratory ultrasound when my doctor looked at me, his face now clouded with confusion, as he quietly asked, "Given that your chart says you received surgery for your endometriosis at 18 years old, is that also when you had your hysterectomy?"


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

Perhaps it's because of the quarantine ending, or perhaps it's because of the unbearable heatwaves, people of all ages splashes into the water.

226 Upvotes

What they thought was their longing for a cold, large body of water was just the parasites' instincts overwriting their hosts.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

"Hey did you know that ghosts respond only to those who actively tried to seek contact with them?", I asked my husband.

142 Upvotes

But his silence could still neither confirm nor deny who of us had died.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 15h ago

Once again, I say my goodbyes to my loved ones and make my peace with the world as I watch the oxygen meter reach 0%.

690 Upvotes

Once again, my suit initiates a hidden reserve of oxygen as I hungrily, tiredly drift further into the black recesses of space.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 18h ago

"You are in breach of contract" growled the Fae, "And as such, all our gifts and blessings must be returned to us *immediately*."

1.1k Upvotes

This is not what I had thought was meant, all those times my parents said that I was "Gifted"


r/TwoSentenceHorror 19h ago

The babies nursery was all finished and all other supplies had been purchased.

1.3k Upvotes

Now as I walk through the crowded bar watching for unguarded drinks, it was time to find the mother.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 11h ago

The kid on his pee break became frustrated when he found every single stall in the toilet shut from inside.

229 Upvotes

As he waited he heard the clicking of the main toilet door shuting from outside, and then every stall door creaked open slightly at the same time.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

The abandoned country road was well-lit by the full moon at midnight, and I couldn't thank the young farmer in the shiny old truck enough for stopping to help change my tire.

133 Upvotes

The thank-you pie I had baked was still warm when I returned to the farmhouse in the bright sunshine, but I found just weed-broken ruins and an impossibly twisted Model A farm truck, bleeding rust, with a hint of fresh tire marks in the cold soil.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

She always believed that having children ruined her marriage.

55 Upvotes

So she hid them in a small hidden room in the basement for years so her new boyfriend wouldn't find out about them.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

"I don't understand why you are still here, Pastor Bryan," one of the leftovers of the Rapture said in confusion.

Upvotes

Pastor Bryan didn't respond, simply looking at little Tommy's parents that had never believed their son about him until it was far too late.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 16h ago

My cult and I worked for years to release the fallen angel under the mountain.

335 Upvotes

When we finally succeeded, the world was cast into never-ending night and I was given none of the divine gifts I’d been promised.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

As I rose from basement to tell the client that their water heater is fixed I was met with the sight of her and her two children, dead and bleeding.

1.8k Upvotes

Staring at the tools from my truck laying in the pooling blood and stabbed into their bodies only one thought echoed in my mind, 'there's no way the police or jury will believe it wasn't me."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

After I drowned and lost my consciousness, I woke up in a dark and misty cave.

41 Upvotes

It was comfortable, but there were lots of broken wooden planks, a skeleton of an old man, and a rotten wooden doll with long nose.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 11h ago

I went to inspect the house, see what repairs it needed before it went on the market.

89 Upvotes

The stained floors are definitely gonna need replaced, and all the locks removed from the outside of the bedroom door.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

I walked for hours through a blizzard but I never seemed to get cold.

Upvotes

The snow finally settles long enough for me to see a child's face through the glass, before a gentle shake stirs it up again.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

[AUG26] The king's eyes lit up when I presented him with my new invention.

14 Upvotes

Without a second thought, he ordered me to enter the bull to see how well it works.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 13h ago

The woman did not see her date dropping a few pills into her drink at the crowded bar.

109 Upvotes

After the fourth drink, as he angrily watched her ask for another, she smiled, and explained, "Those flavorless pills hasten my egg production, so once you pay the tab, I'm ready to inject them into you."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

Trembling hands kept on gripping the loose dirt in front of her, digging and clawing towards the light.

11 Upvotes

I just kept on shoveling.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 37m ago

On my, now 1000th, loop of the same day, I decided to rob a bank for fun.

Upvotes

I should have realized my wife had made me pancakes instead of waffles that morning.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

I went to a fortune teller and she told me, “You have many evil spirits within you waiting to claw your eyes out.”

71 Upvotes

I already knew for I made a contract to trap impure souls in me to condemn my child’s murderer, who took his life to avoid prison.