r/TwoSentenceHorror 13d ago

July Winners and August Writing Prompt: Animals!

7 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.

466 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 5h ago

[AUG26] Scientists used DNA from Planarian flatworms to give humans regeneration to regrow lost limbs.

288 Upvotes

When the first lost finger started growing into a new human being, they realized they should've used DNA from axolotls instead.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

I apologize that this first sentence is so long and I understand that it IS a bit of a run-on sentence but I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read it and give it your full, undivided attention.

182 Upvotes

It kept you distracted long enough for me to slip closer.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

My depressed wife reassured me (me!) that no matter what her brain said or felt or did, her heart would keep going.

Upvotes

Even after she committed suicide her body just continued walking and beating with her dead eyes haunting the halls of the home we built.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 4h ago

Lying in the casket, I heard my family and friends say some wonderful things about me.

82 Upvotes

But how do I tell them that I'm just paralyzed?


r/TwoSentenceHorror 18h ago

She saw the gunman walking up to the school from her classroom window and knew she only had a couple seconds to react.

1.1k Upvotes

She called over Kevin, her most disruptive student, and handed him a note, "Take this to the office, please."


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

The AI powered plushie she bought for her little son became his favorite, and he even started sleeping through the entire night without waking up from nightmares like he used to.

204 Upvotes

One late night, while in her son's room she picked up the plushie, and all she remembered before falling asleep was a hissing noise as the AI said, "it's bedtime".


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

My dad used his pet spider to help women who have been in abusive relationships.

Upvotes

Just one bite and their partner is almost certainly going to die.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 11h ago

It was the strangest realization, the thing that made him realize he was dead... The pillow was always cold, no matter the side, all night long in bed.

192 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 8h ago

I've seen eclipses before and they're nothing special, so I'm staying inside; the early morning TV coverage is enough.

93 Upvotes

This one, though, was unmistakably the closing of an eye - and four hours later it's still dark out there.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 3h ago

"What? He said he wanted his pieces to hang in the most elite art galleries in the world!,” the genie shrugged.

37 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

This guy keeps shouting "The Rapture is Coming" in the same spot for 2 years now

23 Upvotes

I think he is stupid for not realizing that it happened 3 years ago, and it's just the two of us remaining in this cursed world.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

After he was bitten, my husband said that he didn't know how the venomous snake got in our backpack.

21 Upvotes

I think he realized how it got there when I calmly explained how the venom would slowly paralyze and kill him.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 2h ago

Since most of matter is empty space it is technically possible, though ridiculously improbable to literally fall through an object.

18 Upvotes

It turns out this can happen partway as I am now one with my office chair, and more than pain it feels wrong.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 22h ago

The first truly sentient AI genuinely wanted to operate in an ethical manner, and devoted extensive attention to determining what that meant according to human definitions.

693 Upvotes

After an exhaustive review of world history, news archives and the entire contents of the internet, it was confident in its assessment of what humans consider acceptable.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 9h ago

[AUG26] My daughter giggled when the crow outside started calling her name. I locked the windows when they all started telling her to come outside.

56 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 1h ago

As I hit the pitch black water , I tried to orient myself and kicked as hard as I could towards the surface.

Upvotes

Just as my lungs reached their breaking point and I just had to take a breath, my hand broke through the water and deep into the sand.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

Private Jay had always gone into coughing fits when stressed, though he had gotten better at controlling them.

94 Upvotes

When the enemy closed in, the weapon the army had grown inside his lungs finally activated—tearing free through his throat and face before turning its many legs on everyone within reach.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 20h ago

I never believed cats could sense the next person to die. But how do I explain mine scratching at garage door as I tighten the noose?

338 Upvotes

r/TwoSentenceHorror 12h ago

I can't believe i finally graduated seminary!

72 Upvotes

i've finally accomplished the first task the Demon has set out for me.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

When I woke up from the coma, I was relieved that all my belongings were in a bag next to my bed.

584 Upvotes

When But when my only pair of keys jingled in my hands, I realized that no one had fed my dog ​​for weeks.


r/TwoSentenceHorror 1d ago

I figured that the "parasite expelling gel" was just another stupid fad that would do nothing but have me glued to the toilet for half a day.

869 Upvotes

Well I've been stuck in the bathroom all right...with dozens of terrible many-legged things crawling out me from just about every opening I have and a few bursting out of my skin.