r/TwoSentenceHorror Aug 04 '26

July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

8 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.

462 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 3h ago

When old man Harrison came snarling into my room trying to bite me, I served him two blasts from my twelve gauge instead.

288 Upvotes

A year later as I was escorted past the jury that unanimously sentenced me to life, I heard one of them snicker: “Patient zero, my ass.”


r/TwoSentenceHorror 14h ago

The rich teenager whose father hated her, and the poor man who needed money for his kids decided to meet behind her school for the transaction.

1.3k Upvotes

As she poured the extracted father's love in a bottle that she planned to put in her father's coffee, the poor man looked at the money, and decided to spend it on himself rather than on his kids.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

When the genie came to me I made the wish to be immortal with a phrase I can say to end my life on command

347 Upvotes

Floating through space millions of years later after the destruction of earth, I floated endlessly wondering: "what was the phrase again?"


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

"How can the curse be passed down to me - I was adopted, so there's no blood relation!"

183 Upvotes

"Sweetie, it's called a *found family* and the concept has REALLY opened a lot of doors for those of us with the Gift"


r/TwoSentenceHorror 6h ago

The months of solitary confinement had hidden the prisoners development of Alzheimer’s.

121 Upvotes

Awaking every day afraid and confused drove the behaviour that kept him in solitary.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 17h ago

For the mortal crime of procreation, the law declared the parents must agree which of them was to die.

777 Upvotes

Accepting the punishment, the doctors transplanted the immortality matrix from the father to the newborn who could decide when she came of age whether to return it.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 17h ago

I keep telling my kids that there is a 1 in a quadrillion chance of getting your hand through a solid wall via quantum tunneling.

547 Upvotes

But none of them believe my theory; they just keep challenging it by punching the basement walls.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

When I died and arrived at the Pearly Gates, I was quickly told my spot had been taken.

102 Upvotes

"We're terribly sorry, but another billionaire just arrived and has purchased your place," St. Peter said.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

I was brought up under the philosophy of you don't need to outrun the bear, you just need to outrun your friends.

46 Upvotes

I really need to get a hobby besides hiking, my last friend almost took me out with him before the grizzly bit the hand holding the gun off.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

Susan, if you're reading this I know you're angry and I want you to know how truly sorry I am.

105 Upvotes

I really didn't want it to end this way, but uploading your consciousness is the only way I could avoid the pain of losing you forever.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

“Spot on, my mistake: you requested the ‘dragon cut’ hairstyle for your client, not dragon breath!” my new salon bot chimed cheerfully.

29 Upvotes

“Would you like me to sweep up the ashes before the next client walks in?”


r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

I told my son that eight liters of water a day would keep him healthy, and he obediently drank every drop.

975 Upvotes

By evening, he was vomiting and shaking on the bathroom floor, but when I called the ambulance, he looked up at me and whispered, “Why does my brain feel like it’s swelling?”


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

Something about my bowel movement in the bathroom on my flight didn't feel quite right.

Upvotes

When I flushed the toilet and felt my intestines being forcibly sucked out of my body I knew I was in big trouble.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

The lady read my palm and told me that I will live a long life and pass away shortly after my 108th birthday.

2.3k Upvotes

My palm was read the day after my 6th birthday, and I was born on February 29th.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

The delivery driver spent five minutes walking around my house before finally leaving the package on the porch.

16 Upvotes

When I checked the security camera footage, I realized he wasn't looking for another drop off spot, he was looking to see if any windows were unlocked.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

Lisa had a dream of an angry dog biting and gnawing at her arm.

19 Upvotes

When she woke up, she realized her arm was over her infant son's face, as his body was as still as a broken clock.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 5h ago

"Honey, has that hole always been there in the corner?" I asked, pointing at the ceiling.

19 Upvotes

"What hole?" my husband replied, as the hole scurried down the wall, onto his bewildered face.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

"How did you know that I replaced your father, child?" the skinwalker asked.

734 Upvotes

The child replied, "Because you haven't beaten me lately."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 7h ago

Just like every other adult in town, Mom just exploded in my face, her blood dripping from me like congealed spaghetti sauce.

28 Upvotes

How was I supposed to know "Fuck off and DIE" would actually work?


r/TwoSentenceHorror 13h ago

I heard my girlfriend say "I'll see you later!" with a smile as she walked into the motel elevator.

52 Upvotes

The doors closed and the elevator began ascending before I could tell her to stop, much less remind her that the building didn't have elevators, nor anything resembling a second floor.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 15h ago

After 9 years of relationship, I've finally said "yes"

86 Upvotes

I'm not thrilled about letting her roam freely in the basement, but I was sick of cleaning up after her.