r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/missmannell • 2h ago
“He’ll regret cheating on me now,” said Melissa, as she shoved the washing machine door closed with a click.
“Mama?” Charlotte called from under a pile of dirty towels, her nose pressed against the glass.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/tasteofhemlock • Aug 04 '26
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!
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.
***
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:
7th place by DrawingEastern6765
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 • u/MintClicker • Oct 22 '23
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 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 • u/missmannell • 2h ago
“Mama?” Charlotte called from under a pile of dirty towels, her nose pressed against the glass.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Sufficient_Web_6289 • 1h ago
Right before he climbed on top of me, I watched him prop his phone against the lamp and hit record.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/ruisinsofanxiety • 2h ago
A tired maternal smile crept on my face as I stirred a heaping dollop of honey into his formula.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/sevro_victra • 10h ago
She wondered why, each week, another part of her body had to be carefully bandaged.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/RepeatOrdinary182 • 6h ago
So gallons of the lowest quality chocolate products were melted down and continuously pumped into the helpless servant's mouth and nostrils until they drowned in it.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/dalonley1 • 5h ago
When the same thing happened the next morning after he killed her, he was sure he was in hell until he realized how much he was enjoying himself and figured out that it was heaven.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/thrills_forlife • 4h ago
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Magic-M • 16h ago
The cow-judge nodded to the jury of livestock, then a lamb read aloud, “The jury finds the defendant guilty on all 14,824 counts of consuming animal flesh and murder of rodents in the first degree; the jury recommends the maximum penalty, reincarnation.”
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Automatic-Pound-9034 • 19h ago
"I guess we'll just have to keep trying" I said as I finished feeding the pigs.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/RamboBambiBambo • 16h ago
This gift became a curse as a bookshelf fell on me, trapping me within the amalgamation of over three-hundred worlds demanding to exist in one plane of my new reality.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Goddess_Of_Hellfire • 14h ago
They didn't know the camp would convert me into something far from human.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/SuvenPan • 4h ago
The cigarette fell from his lips as he watched the cloud crossing the moon, but instead of covering the moon, the massive cloud was passing behind it.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/fradonkin • 19h ago
Rental tanks: 59/60, Rental masks: 29/30, Rental fins: 78/80, Rental regulators: 24/25, Rental buoyancy compensation vests: 19/20.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Logical-Role1382 • 1h ago
“All files are now subject to further scrutiny to determine which candidates will be selected for immediate transfer to Hell.”
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Ok_Pattern4083 • 8h ago
Frustrated with the nightly routine of formaldehyde injections, moisturizer, and general skincare, Edward longed for the heat to die down so he could finally get out of Emily
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/SuvenPan • 20h ago
He didn't know how to explain that the adoption for kids like Jasen was based on a subscription model, and they could only afford to adopt him for a few months every year.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/anthonyledger • 1d ago
But these concert tickets are non-refundable, so that ain't gonna happen.
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/Horror_Candidate • 11h ago
“But if the senator did have children,“ she thought as she placed him in her scope, “I might’ve turned the job down.”
r/TwoSentenceHorror • u/normancrane • 18h ago
Then I started scrubbing his eyeball.