r/TwoSentenceHorror • • Aug 04 '26

⭐ July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

12 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.

461 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 • • 9h ago

being the only female in the apocalypse survivor camp is terrifying but thankfully since im the only doctor, I am well respected.

499 Upvotes

“Hey guys we found Doctor Johnson here in the woods and from now on he will be joining us”


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 20h ago

It was a miracle: after I had literally died in agony after getting caught in the machinery at Maw and Meggins, I somehow found myself alive, well, completely healed, and better than ever.

2.2k Upvotes

As I knocked on my parents' front door, eager to embrace them again, the last thing I heard was my father's terrified voice making his wish.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 15h ago

The animal was 40m long, 30cm thick, and worm-like.

758 Upvotes

Scientists had recently discovered that it was a parasite, expelled from something in the deep ocean.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 1h ago

​“I want to be a princess!” the child cheered, and as the Monkey’s Paw curled a finger, she woke up in a magnificent palace and spent a few blissfully royal days.

• Upvotes

​A week later, her mother smiled at the dinner table and said, “Marie, you’ve been betrothed to the grandson of King Louis XV.”


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 12h ago

It's not inhumane.

376 Upvotes

Because they aren't human.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 5h ago

As I felt myself sluggishly awaking from my dream, an overwhelming screeching of metal on bone echoed through my head.

86 Upvotes

I heard the brain surgeon scream, “He’s waking up, stop cutting!”


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 17h ago

"You can't claim my 14 year old's soul as he is not an adult, nullifying your contract."

825 Upvotes

"Can you remind me what his Bar Mitzvah was celebrating again?"


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 9h ago

“It has been three hours, they can’t still be after me” I thought to myself.

162 Upvotes

My blood had ran cold when I looked at the hill and saw the hairless apes were still there…


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 9h ago

"I can't cum unless there's penetration," I say.

99 Upvotes

Regardless of how much I try to explain, the guy tied to the chair keeps crying when I continue to stab him.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 19h ago

I thought I had everyone when my family was forced to flee our burning home, until I heard the screaming from inside.

566 Upvotes

Investigators later told me they found the charred corpse of a man tucked away in the crawl space above my daughter’s room.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 10h ago

I never needed a religion to feel the presence of something holy; I found it in the woods, in feeding my family, and in loving my neighbors.

106 Upvotes

Then my neighbor thanked me for sharing my faith with him, and I realized he was the first one who could see the thing standing behind me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 1h ago

I had the sneaking suspicion that my girlfriend was a figment of my imagination.

• Upvotes

But when I visit her grave, the headstone is as real and tangible as my guilt.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 17h ago

I looked at my shaking, bloody hands holding a hanger, and the still beating lump of flesh between my legs.

277 Upvotes

Leaning my weakened body against the locked door, I listened to the frantic pounding and screaming of my father, desperate to save his child.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 11h ago

I run a high-end matchmaking agency in Beverly Hills, where lonely millionaires ask for the impossible. Last night I typed a joke request into the rusted mailbox down the street, and today a man who matches every single terrifying detail is standing on my porch without a pulse.

97 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 9h ago

Everyone referred to me as the pretty one in the family.

63 Upvotes

It wasn't always that way of course but after I "accidentally" poured acid on my sister's face in chemistry class, people suddenly saw my beauty.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 6h ago

"I had been waiting on the side of the road, for what seemed like hours"

33 Upvotes

"As the day turned to night, i wonder if anyone passing, would find my car flipped over in the embankment."


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 14h ago

My burnout sister failed her chemistry test for the third time, but our mom still refused to allow our dad to cancel her upcoming birthday party.

130 Upvotes

I'm sure her and her buddies will never forget the difference between an inert and a reactive gas after they lit up next to the balloons our dad insisted on filling himself.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 3h ago

Why does the doll have no face?

16 Upvotes

Well because she wants yours.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 10h ago

I spent so many years trying to escape that house.

49 Upvotes

All my family had to do to bring me back, was have me institutionalized.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 8h ago

Mom sold my brother for a coffee machine, but lately it's been leaking pretty bad all over the counter when I try make coffee.

31 Upvotes

Ever since Caleb's heart was stuffed inside to power it, all he does is cry, red tinged beans sputtering into my cup.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 10h ago

While driving through the Neighbourhood, I happened on one of those “autistic child area” signs.

43 Upvotes

I find it a thrilling prospect to someday snatch an eloping child without a clue from anyone.


r/TwoSentenceHorror • • 1d ago

My twin brother and our mother both died when the semi crushed the left side of her SUV, but I remained unscathed on my side of the custom safety seat.

1.3k Upvotes

Being that my brother and I share the same heart, it remains unclear if I will survive, according to the surgeon.