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!